Read Fiction Writer's Workshop for Free Online Page B

murmurs.
    I stop and think about this. "Well, I'm not what you bargained for, either, so we're even."
    "No," he says faintly, "you are. You're what I bargained for."
    But then he has fallen over the cliff of sleep and is snoring, his adenoids a kind of engine in his face, a motorized unit, a security system like a white flag going up.
    The movement here works in waves. The tension between the two characters is high. Just when one character is being direct, the other evades and dances away. The lack of direct response is a sign of intimacy, ironically. There is a code to their language which makes the exchange, with its blend of quiet revelation and gentle chiding, something recognizable and at the same time foreign. Such is the case with misdirected dialogue.
    Misdirected dialogue is the type of dialogue that most naturally takes advantage of the rhythms and cadences of language I have been encouraging you to look for. It relies on the fact that life does not always shape itself to the needs of plot, and it turns the mirror on the clamor of voices that surround us, on the natural tendency to leave tensions hanging, rather than march toward resolution. This sort of dialogue sounds more natural and allows tension to build more slowly than in dialogue that's shaped with a heavy sense of direction. It's more surprising, more challenging, and sounds more like the sort of stuff we hear in the world around us. Misdirection is a tool for surprise to be sure, but it brings complexity and ambiguity to our conception of the world within our fiction. Listen for it in the world around you. Use it in the fiction you craft. Its elements include:
    • changing the subject
    • directing the dialogue "offstage"
    • answering questions with answers that aren't quite answers but
    sound like them
    • allowing characters to speak to themselves, for themselves
    • carrying on more than one conversation at the same time
    Crafting Misdirection
    Start with three people in a restaurant. Rather than starting with a tension, begin by hearing them speak. You've had lots of practice with this by now. Push them to reveal their tensions. This is the key to creating misdirected dialogue. Allow them to speak in random order, but do not force it.
    1: I need a beer. Could I have a beer?
    2: I saw Mamie today.
    1: Beer, please.
    3: Where did you see her?
    1: You know. By the fire station.
    3: No kidding.
    1: Her hair has grown.
    3: I would imagine. How do you know?
    1: I'm not blind.
    2: Arc you eating?
    3: Did you see her too?
    1: You see her everywhere. She's like That Girl! Those hats!
    2: I'm eating. I'm starving.
    3: I'm just asking.
    1: I saw her last week. As a matter of fact I remarked on her hair.
    2: The TV show?
    3: You talked to her?
    2: Who?
    1: Marnie.
    3: Marnie.
    2: You're kidding. I just saw her today myself.
    Not brilliant. But it does follow the rules I suggested. What occurs is that the dialogue moves in different directions as each character starts to respond to the others. Notice the techniques: changing the subject (when speaker 1 brings up the hair); part of it is directing the dialogue "offstage" (when speaker 1 calls for beer); part of it is answering questions with answers that aren't quite answers but sound like them ("How do you know?" followed by "I'm not blind."); another part is allowing characters to speak to themselves, for themselves ("I'm eating. I'm starving."); part of it involves carrying on more than one conversation at the same time.
    If you found the conversation difficult to follow, that probably had much to do with the fact that I gave the characters no names, that I attached scenic details and I paced the exchanges to be quick and somewhat sharp. There is, however, a literal direction to this, one that can be better imagined by rewriting the dialogue in columns.
    Draw arrows from one line to the line that evoked that response and you'll start to see how the patterning works here. Still, it's no parlor