balding angrily

Here are a few axioms I use to successfully craft a proper blog dialogue. Accept this advice free-of-charge.

1. Two people = two agendas
I think a dialogue is rarely interesting if set up like a tennis game where reasoned response follows reasoned response. Not every question has to be answered because sometimes the question is the statement.

Example 1:

Joesph: Wow, Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, you sure are Technicolor-y!

Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: Thanks, Joseph! You’re not so bad yourself.

Joseph: How did you become so beautiful?

ATD: I’m not sure because my knowledge of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is sketchy.

Joseph: Okay.

ATD: Great!

Example 2:

Joseph: Wow, Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, you sure are pretty!

Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat: Stop looking at me, freak.

Joseph: How did you become so pretty?

ATD: Seriously, dude. Go over there.

Joseph: Such an amazing, wondrous palette!

ATD: Next to the cows. Like now.

Nothing happens in either example, but the second one at least sets up conflict because the two people are coming to the dialogue with two different agendas. Mannered exchange is rarely engaging unless you’re E.M. Forster.

2. Silence is a wonderful thing.

If you can’t think of how one character would react to the statement of another, let the silence be.

Example 3:

Simon: My hands are bananas.

Schuster: No they’re not.

Simon: Your hands are bananas.

Schuster: Wrong again.

Simon: You smell like an unventilated room after lots of sex.

Schuster: But I haven’t had sex in a year, so your nose must not be working.

Example 4:

Simon: My hands are bananas.

Schuster: Mm-hm.

Simon: Your hands are bananas.

Schuster: (inches away)

Simon: You smell like an unventilated room after lots of sex.

Shuster: (checks watch, looks for oncoming bus to throw self under)

Simon: Would you like to touch my banana hands in an unventilated room?

Schuster: Police!

The first example is dead, where the second example is alive. That may have to do with the exclamation point. I’m not sure.

3. Freakishness not required

It is possible to craft a dialogue that doesn’t include one of the people being a freak.

Example 5:

Soledad O’Brien: We’re here with Keifer Sutherland who just wrapped the last season of 24 on location in Italy. Keiffer, how was Italy?

Kiefer Sutherland: Old men play Baci a lot. And when they’re not, they tell me they’re gonna pinch girls.

Soledad: I’m sorry?

Kiefer: I was walking around my hotel…production was off for the day…a girl ran by me and she was wearing…you know, like, regular running gear. Here you wouldn’t give her a second look. But this old man coming toward me said, with this kind of evil grin, “I’d like to peench her on the behind.” And he held up his hands and showed me…like two mini-lobster claws.

Soledad: What’d you do?

Kiefer: What can you do? You walk on and put it in your memory bank for the right occasion.

Soledad: Like a television interview?

Kiefer: Soledad, I love you.

Soledad: I know you shouldn’t always respond directly to a question with a reasoned answer, but that was kind of out-of-the-blue.

Kiefer: With every ounce of my being.

Soledad: …

Kiefer: Wanting…needing…

Soledad: For you…

Both: To justify my love…

Soledad: Let’s make the beast with two backs.

Keiffer: My hands are bananas.

Dammit. And I was so close. So, one of the two people in a dialogue doesn’t have to be a freak, but it helps. That’s the new rule. This dialogue also brings up another all-important axiom.

4. Quote Madonna
A well-placed Madonna quote always livens up a dialogue. It’s a “trick of the trade” or “crutch,” if you will.

Example 6:

Dachshund: Whereas three multiplied by three equals six, so does it follow that six divided by three equals three.

Pepper Spray: And furthermore, six was afraid of seven because seven ate the still-beating heart of nine, sucking on each bloody finger as if seven were in a KFC commercial.

Dachshund: And truly Milord Philmore was the pioneer of mathologocial mirth.

Pepper Spray: You know, you know, you got to make him express how he feels.

Dachshund: Verily.

See? Isn’t it wonderful how a simple Madonna quote can enliven an otherwise dull dialogue?

I hope you find these tips helpful as you endeavor to fictionalize your own real-life experiences in blog form. In a future post I will try to address dialogues with three or more people. Until then, don’t hold your breath.