Quote:
Originally Posted by MrKyle
Hey, I'm writing my first Novel. On the 2nd draft of a 80k+ book. But I realized today that the book is 99 percent driven by the character's dialog and body expressions as described by the narration. I really just want the characters to tell the story and not so much a disembodied voice. But it's starting to look more like a Script than a Book.
Any thoughts on the matter?
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If that's your natural approach DO NOT change it because you believe you're not supposed to do it that way. If it is the most natural way to you, then it is your style. Gregory McDonald (Fletch) used dialogue almost entirely in his wonderful books. This is fiction, there are no set rules and those who try to sell you their 'expertise' about these aspects of craft are either intractable old farts, or working from experiences that cannot be applied to the unknown and burgeoning digital markets. The golden rule applies: if it's golden to you, then it might be golden to someone else.
Here's the opening from Fletch (the rest of the chapters are also 99% dialogue)
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“What’s your name?”
“Fletch.”
“What’s your full name?”
“Fletcher.”
“What’s your first name?”
“Irwin.”
“What?”
“Irwin. Irwin Fletcher. People call me Fletch.”
“Irwin Fletcher, I have a proposition to make to you. I will give you a thousand dollars for just listening to it. If you decide to reject the proposition, you take the thousand dollars, go away, and never tell anyone we talked. Fair enough?”
“Is it criminal? I mean, what you want me to do?”
“Of course.”
“Fair enough. For a thousand bucks I can listen. What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to murder me.”
The black shoes tainted with sand came across the oriental rug. The man took an envelope from an inside pocket of his suit jacket and dropped it into Fletch’s lap. Inside were ten one-hundred-dollar bills.
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*On a side note, I'd actually encourage dialogue heavy and lower word counts if trying to attract a younger audience. The kind of audience you'd want to grow with you will be an audience steeped in the grammar of cinema and a culture of dialogue and imagery (the baby boomers are a market that will die off in short shrift, although they are the predominant market at the moment.)