Did I Say That Out Loud?
Dialogue Revision
Dialogue
may do more heavy lifting these days than at any other time in
the history of the English-language novel. Readers stand
in bookstores fanning pages and assessing a potential purchase
based on the distribution of white space in your story. Big
blocks of type without indentation suggest heavy, dense prose,
while interesting choppy patterns of black and white promise
a fast-paced, hip, page-turner. In Last Call,
Tim Powers splits his text by starting new chapters, with both
numbers and titles, mid-page. Annie Proulx puts diagrams
of knots in her Shipping News scene breaks, increasing
white space and interest. I Don't Know How She Does
It by Alison Pearson uses emails and lists to prevent monotonous
rows of type. However, nothing breaks up a page as reliably
as snappy dialogue.
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THREE
VALUABLE LESSONS LEARNED AS AN MFA STUDENT
by Helen
Sears
Working toward
an MFA in writing is akin to watching your own appendectomy. It’s
agonizing, physically and emotionally excruciating, but fascinating
beyond any previous dream.
In the intense
two year process, a dozen toolboxes of writing techniques are
acquired; but more than that, a student learns lessons he or she
might have gone a lifetime without discovering. Among them are:
