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Proposal: A Week of Dialog
By Corvus | July 18, 2008
I need some practice writing dialog and I thought it would be fun to open a writing exercise up and share it with you, my readership/co-bloggers/friends. What I’m asking you to do in the comments of this post is to suggest a character–either a person or place–along with a single notable attribute about their personality. My challenge will be to pair your ideas up and explore their relationship(s) entirely through dialog. I won’t provide any exposition, blocking (i.e. description of movement), or descriptions of their emotions and facial expressions. All I’ll do is write the words they speak out-loud to each other in script format. I’ll post my results here and if you all suggest enough characters, I’ll do one dialog per day next week.
It’d be best if you keep your suggestions simple, such as:
- Blind woman with a hatred of flowers.
- Angry mechanic with dreams of becoming a world famous chef.
- Dingy bar with only opera on the jukebox
Feel free to suggest outrageous combinations, but keep in mind I reserve the right to mix and match your suggestions with other commenters’ suggestions. If you’re of a mind to take this challenge yourself, feel free to post your own scripts and let us know how to find ‘em!
Tagged:dialog, writing challenge. |
July 18th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
- Lonely waiter who has an undiscovered tap dancing talent
- Paranoid bridesmaid who sings like an angel
- Mad scientist with a deadly allergy to cantaloupes
- Top of an apartment building on the foggiest day of the year
July 18th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
How about…
A pessimistic psychiastrist who is obsessed with reality shows
or
A hot dog stand with a portal to another world
or
A used car salesman on the verge of a mental breakdown
hmm maybe i should stop now…. Hope it helped
July 18th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
A 50 year old business man coming to terms for having no lasting legacy for his life.
A young musician who wishes she was born three decades earlier.
A college student whose one sexual encounter has left him with HIV.
Gosh, those are a tad grim aren’t they? For good measure:
An eccentric grandmother who has just discovered that her adopted daughter is having another baby.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Well, have fun with
- A classically-trained French chef who lost his left hand to a microwave oven.
- An abattoir with an enormous chocolate stain on the floor.
- A zookeeper who has recently acquired a taste for bush meat.
Perhaps I will make other suggestions when I am not hungry.
July 18th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
A library with a grass floor.
A target pistol-shooting champion coming to terms with her husband’s homosexuality.
A space freighter engineer who realizes he can’t remember the last time he told his daughter he loves her.
Call-center worker who has slowly covered her cubicle in stickynotes displaying fanciful sketches of everyone she successfully sells to.
July 18th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
- A ruthless pirate who is obsessed with poetry.
- A paranoid android (mmmhhh sounds familiar)
- A queen who was previously a crazy hobo and continues to act like one from time to time.
- A sophisticated talking cat with a taste for human flesh.
- A creepy maid that follows all of her master’s orders.
My brain functions in mysterious ways =)
July 18th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Oh, and for places:
- An elevator awkwardly small.
- A pink secret room behind the bookcase.
- An oasis of dry land inside a swamp.
- A bus station on a rainy day.
- A malfunctioning holodeck.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
These are excellent. Keep it up folks!
July 18th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
- A religious fundamentalist discovering his love of Haiku.
- A traffic cop who secretly is an anarchic revolutionary.
July 19th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
- Claustrophobe on a visit to Tokyo
- Three Mile Island 5 minutes before the “accident”
July 19th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
- A game developer coming to terms with his/her transsexuality.
(No, that’s not autobiographical for me. :P)
- An intellectual that just escaped persecution under a brutal, repressive dictatorship.
- In the computer room where an automated system (A.I.?) just caused the loss of millions of human lives.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I’ve selected my characters and locations, so I’m going to shut down comments on this post now!