Writing Excuses 5.17: Dialog Exercises
Writing Excuses
Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 28 December 2010
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The rules were simple: Write a scene featuring nothing but dialog between two characters. The characters should have distinct voices, and the scene should communicate both setting and conflict. A great example of this is "They're Made Out of Meat," by Terry Bisson, which was a Nebula award nominee in 1992 (not a Hugo winner, though Brandon thought it was.) If you haven't read it before, it's a right treat and you should click on the story title and go read it right now.
Well... in 20 minutes or so (we ran long.) Listen to the podcast first, and pay attention as Brandon, Dan, and Howard gently dissect and critique the submissions of tagless, unnarrated dialog.
Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: Dune, by Frank Herbert, narrated by Scott Brick , Orlagh Cassidy , Euan Morton , and Simon Vance
Writing Prompt: You are walking down a back alley, and you meet Jason from DragonMount. He's getting all uppity about how good his submission was. What do you do to him?
Word That In This Context Is A Euphemism For "Howard Got Sick": Eggnogging: [egg-nah-ging]
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This year my family will be having our 67th annual Christmas Eve dinner. |
| 0:04.8 | It's a menu passed down from my grandmother through my mom to me. |
| 0:08.8 | The entire family shows up. |
| 0:11.8 | I'm talking fourth cousins once removed and this is not an |
| 0:15.1 | exaggeration which means that during the lead up I don't have time to menu plan or |
| 0:20.0 | cook anything else. That's when I turn to prepared meals like Factor, America's |
| 0:26.0 | number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service. Factor can help you eat well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef-prepared, dietition approved, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. |
| 0:37.0 | It allows me to save time and not eat garbage while tackling all my holiday to-do's. |
| 0:42.0 | So if you want to cross meal prepping... while tackling all my holiday to-do's. |
| 0:42.6 | So if you want to cross meal prepping off your list |
| 0:45.8 | this holiday season, consider factor. |
| 0:48.4 | You can skip the meal planning, grocery shopping, |
| 0:50.9 | shopping, shopping, prepping, and cleaning up, and get factors fresh never frozen meals delivered |
| 0:55.8 | to your door. |
| 0:56.8 | They're ready in just two minutes, which my dad says is the appropriate amount of time to cook |
| 1:01.4 | a meal. |
| 1:02.4 | He has no idea. The point is, all you have to do is heat and enjoy. |
| 1:07.0 | And if you're trying to squeeze writing into the holiday press, it might be useful to know that Factor isn't just for dinner. |
| 1:15.1 | Count on extra convenience any time of the day with an assortment of 55-plus add-ons to suit various |
| 1:20.8 | preferences and tastes. |
| 1:22.8 | So you can carve out some writing time in the morning by choosing quick breakfast items, |
| 1:27.2 | lunch to go, grab and go snacks, or ready to eat cold-pressed juices, shakes, and smoothies. |
... |
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