Week 3 Theme: scene-setting and dialogue

Theme for week three: setting scenes; doing dialogue


On your own blog, take the theme material and write a piece using it, a piece with scenes and plenty of dialogue.

Sometimes--in fact, lots of times--writing comes alive when people are trotted out to speak and act. You as a creative nonfiction writer need to be able to set the scene, bring out some warm bodies, make them open their mouths and talkWhen this works, you'll feel like your material is writing itself. When it doesn't work, you'll feel like you're giving the material CPR, but there's no heartbeat, no breath, and why oh why won't they let you stop?
If I knew the secret of how to get the first consistently, I wouldn't tell you! I'd quit teaching, bottle it, and make a million selling it to struggling writers. But, alas, there is no secret.Or rather there are bits and pieces of secrets.
Don't pick a topic you're too emotional about--that hurts the writing.

Don't pick a topic that blahs you out--that hurts the writing.

When setting a scene, don't go crazy with adjectives. "The busy, sprawling mall with its happy crowds of overdressed shoppers and screaming bratty kids was the place where the worst moment of my young life occurred due to the disgraceful behavior of the handsome man who had been my crazy heart's only focus for seven exhilarating years."That's not good writing! It's heading off in a thousand directions.

This is more effective: "I watched as long as I could, but finally Joe's back disappeared into the crowds of Christmas shoppers. Busy shoppers, every one too busy to notice me, sobbing on the bench where my life had just ended."A lot is left unsaid, a lot is left up to the reader to fill in. We've all been at busy malls before Christmas: we can handle it.

Doing dialogue is a real art. You might have the touch, might not. It's not simply a question of making people sound like the really sound in real life because in many cases that would be, "So, ferchrissake, who gives a, I mean who who hoo hoo hooooooo like care... cares, oh shit I'm sorry I don't know why I'm.... Arright I'm okay really but like what fucking difference does it care I mean make anyway, uh really, he doesn't know and uh really care either so what am I supposed to do when he comes crawling back like if he did I'd give a shit anyway, the big--ah, what's the use you don't want to hear this but he is, he is a just a big go ahead say it he's an asshole he's always been an asshole, even if I do love him. I'm so stupid."
I confess that, having written this, I kind of like it, even though it was supposed to be an example of bad dialogue (monologue, actually!)Let's clean the tape up a little. Journalists do this all the time without being accused of being novelists! Notice that what I'm aiming for is the tone, the essence, the truth but not the whole and exact truth that a tape recorder would catch: "It doesn't make a fucking bit of difference whether he knows or cares how I feel. All I know is that I won't give a shit-- I won't care, I swear it, I won't, I won't--not if he came crawling back on his hands and knees. He's an asshole, that's all he is, it's all he's ever been. I fell in love with an asshole, okay?--so what does that make me?"

I think the second version is tighter, tells the reader more, but it's more speechy, which isn't what you necessarily want. But I'm not revising today. I'd call that a teensy slip off the tightrope. Yes--you're walking a tightrope, creating a scene and some dialogue.

So, you know to avoid too many adjectives. What about action verbs and adverbs?

The student snarled nastily, "This course sucks."

I retorted hotly, "Nunh-unh!"


The student glared angrily at me and tittered mockingly, "It does too and so do you!"


I stared back coldly and snapped briskly, "You're out of here, pal."

Ain't that awful? (Hint: your answer begins with a 'y.') That's bad writing. It's often attractive to people who aren't sure they have really done what they want to do, and it's something to school yourself away from.

The dialogue should read:
The student said, "This course sucks."

"Nunh-unh."

"It does too and so do you."

I said, "You're out of here, pal."

If that sounds too plain, well, too bad--all that other stuff, those action verbs and adverbs, make the writing look like a military humvee painted pink and decked out with flowers. Just silly.

Hey, class, let's take a lecture break!I wrote the above material this past summer. Now (6/26/05) supper is over, the missus and I toasted our just-sold car we called 'Whitey'--we bought him new in '92) in cheap champagne. You want scenes & dialogue? How about silly champagne toasts?

We're sitting on the porch in near darkness, killing a bottle, surrounded by dogs who wonder if they are ever going to get a post-supper walk.

Me: Go with God, Whitey! (sip)

Missus: I'll drink to that (sip sip). Happy trails! (clink)


Dogs (in unison): Sober up, you guys--for the luvva pete, when do we head out?


That was just an intermission--now back to your regularly scheduled lecture: This course is about using the tools of fiction in writing non-fiction. You don't know as writers which of your tools are sharpest until you try using them, and once you find what you're sharpest doing, there still are no guarantees. On any given day, your muse may be out visiting buds and not be there to inspire you.Me, I am pretty good with dialogue, pretty poor with description--know thyself!

Most popular fiction is written like a movie treatment: quick scene setting , lots of dialogue, lots of visuals, and finding what you can do to transfer some of this to your nonfiction is what's up this week. PS: You'll notice I'm using the word 'dialogue' when actually I have only a single voice, a monologue! My bad! You can have more than one speaker!

Week 3 Prompts: scene-setting and dialogue

Prompts 9-12, Week 3. Don't forget scene in your rush to do dialogue--and don't forget new paragraph for each new speaker.... Post three on your blog.


9. Writers have to listen to themselves; writers ought to always be talking to themselves. Try a conversation between you and yourself. Sometimes arguments are fun.

10. Go to a crowded public place (not one of your classrooms, though) and be a fly on the wall. Just listen. Can you pick out conversations? Write down a little of what you hear, maybe as dialog (he said--, she said--)
11. Try an I-said, he/she said conversation. Set the scene somehow.

12. Go to a crowded public place (not one of your classrooms, though) and be a fly on the wall. Just watch. What's going on? Set that scene.

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Week 2 Theme: Perspective--you don't need a lot of miles on your odometer to do week 2!

A lot of you aren't done your journals (and a few haven't even started!) That's okay: keep the journal for the next few days while you also get to work on week 2. The journal is NOT a semester project; it's a warm-up exercise. When it's done, put it out of your mind.... Here's the week 2 lecturette:

You've kept a journal for a few days, a lot of stuff shooting off this way and that, depending on the kind of days you were having and what you decided you wanted to pluck from the whirling stream and put down on paper. Now, you're going to continue the focus of the first week on yourself. (Why yourself? Because you're the world's greatest expert on only one thing: what you've seen, done, experienced, felt, heard, tried, grasped, and touched. This course aims to link you to your sources of strength.)

This week you will write about yourself in history, about you passing through the larger world, on you embedded in bigger things. Post it on your blog as Theme Week Two.

Here's a sample I wrote which follows me through one decade of my life. I offer some of the big names and events and my connection (or not) to them, and then, not exactly sure why, I focus on my history and evolution in the sixties as told through my shoes. But that's just my weirdness. You don't have to write about your shoes!!!

Here it is:

I crash on the couch and catch the History Channel with a remote in one hand and a bottle of Ballantine Ale in the other. On the screen is JFK: “Ask not what your country can do for you--,” he says in that Boston accent like no other Boston accent I ever heard growing up in Boston. His hair blows in the January wind and the voiceover says a new youth and vigor had come to Washington.

Then it’s Castro and the missile crisis and, whoops, we nearly blew up the world! But it didn’t quite happen so on we go to…

Martin Luther King, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, dreaming his dream, his voice still lifting the hairs on the back of my neck. A little balance needed so we’re given Malcolm X. on some street corner ranting about the white devils which segues into…

The motorcade in Dallas. The horse with the backward boots and no rider. The country in mourning, but not for long because here come the four lads from Liverpool in skinny pants and jackets with no lapels and those sappy harmonies.

Ringo’s drumming turns into distant explosions, machine gun fire and dim figures in the jungle. We get a little ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ for background music, just in case we don’t get the point.

Suddenly, some turkey with a beard to his ankles, tie-dyed tee, and granny glasses is flashing a peace sign. His old lady with indescribably filthy bare feet and center-parted hair says, “If the people would only come together.”

Watts burns, more distant explosions in the jungle, mud at Woodstock and more hippies standing around VW buses talking about peace, justice, and dope. And that’s pretty much the end. See ya, sixties, and hello disco, long gas lines, and Jimmy Carter.

I finish my beer, flick the remote, and lie there in silence, annoyed. That may be tv’s sixties.

It’s certainly the same film footage I saw on tv in the sixties. But it wasn’t the sixties for me. I wasn’t in any of that footage. I didn’t live in those sixties, in some history channel footage with musical backgrounds. My sixties are mine and private and don’t belong to just anyone with a remote.

My sixties begin with white ankle socks and a pair of Weejun penny loafers. They’re just called penny loafers, of course—only a jerk would actually stick pennies in there! My mother fought against buying me those loafers all through the late fifties—did I realize they wouldn’t support my ankles? They’d give me flat feet? That gravel would get in them? That the stitching would tear and the backs would run over. Lace shoes were what I wanted. No, I did not, ma, and finally I got my way.

Of course, it was the early sixties and that meant your parents were generally right, and indeed, my ankles hurt, my stitching tore, and my backs ran over. But I ran with the crowd finally and nothing was cooler or more casual than sitting in school, arching one’s foot and letting the heel of the loafer dangle in the breeze.

However, by the time in the sixties I was ready for college, penny loafers no longer did it. Downstairs in Levine’s Store for Men and Boys on Main Street in Waterville were Maine-made, hand-stitched Bass moccasins—kind of a deconstructed loafer with a rawhide lace running through grommets. All the drawbacks of a loafer and even less distance between me and the road. My mother moaned when she saw them, gave me up as a lost soul. I wore those puppies into the ground, resoling them, restitching them, and when they’d finally head in, heading myself down to Levine’s with my $7.95 for a new pair.

I never gave up on mocs, but the sixties hit me pretty good in 1964 and I got a yen for the pointy toed, elastic sided, stack heeled black boots the Beatles wore. Winkle-pickers, they were called, or Mersey boots. They squeezed a man’s toes like high heels squeeze a woman’s. My mother took one look and sat me down for a serious talk about orthopedics, spinal alignment etc etc etc. Sorry, ma., I said. They’re cool, they’re me, and that’s that.

Except a funny thing happened by 1969. Others might have been running around barefoot or in sandals, but I started working outdoors jobs and when I wasn’t at work I got interested in hiking and being in the woods and swamps around Old Town, and the mocs and winkle-pickers really didn’t fit the bill any more. I found myself in orange-colored Georgia Giant waffle-stompers at work and play. They were comfy, practical, and if they weren’t cool…well, who needed cool? When my ma saw them she cocked her head as if to say, ‘I wish he was in something a little more stylish, but at least these will give him that vital ankle support he hasn’t had since 1959.’

Yes, the sixties began with an impractical 15 year old, trying to look cool and knowing everything and ended with a married man of 25, trying to be practical and wondering what would come next. Man and boy, heel and toe, I walked every step of my way from Dec 31, 1959 to Dec 31 1969.


And here's a corker, same idea, from ace student marciamellow:

Wow..the state basketball tournament is such a high for this little corner of the county, it almost makes us forget about the nightly news… for just a minute. I take the letter off the sweater, and fold up my cheering uniform for the last time while listening to Walter Cronkite tell us about the latest battle in Khe Sanh. The politics aren’t real to my 17 yr old brain, but the pictures of flag draped coffins will never leave my head. I regularly write to friends in the Army and Navy, and pray nightly that they don’t have to go to Nam. I love the biting humor of the Smother’s Brothers, and the silliness of Laugh In. My white sneakers with nylons are absolutely The thing to wear to school…no pants allowed, and skirts must fit the “kneel on the floor” rule..so of course I wait until I get out of sight, and roll the waistband so my knees will show….Cher, the original, is our hero..our fashion maven..I try every cure I read about for my cursed curly hair…Ironing it, using soda cans for rollers, taping it down while it drys…nothing works. At this time in my history, I’ve never heard of Farrah Fawcett, and have no idea that in 10 years, my hair could be the envy of those around me….alas…I won’t be a teenager then, so what does it matter?

The summer brings more California sounds. We all want to be part of the surfer crowd... quite a feat for kids in central Maine, but out comes the “Summer Blonde” for our hair, and huarache sandals too. (they were, after all, in the song) The summer spent at the camp on the lake, drive in movies, roller skating, and dances. Listening to Janis Joplin, and the Mamas and the Papas at the submarine races. Summer ends too soon. My boyfriend leaves for basic training. Two months later, a quick trip to North Carolina for a wedding..not your Bride Magazine , maids in frilly dresses wedding, but one in the judges chambers..the groom’s best friend, also in uniform, standing beside him. The brides older sister, with her. Niece and nephew in the back of the room being fed crackers lest they disrupt the ceremony. Months later, we are so thankful that hubby is sent to Korea, instead of Viet Nam…but he lands there the day the Pueblo is seized by the North Koreans. My closet is showing more flowers, more flowing fabrics. Caught between the idealistic, ‘flower-child-wannabe’, and the wife of an MP. A cap and gown is traded for smocks and a diaper bag. My hospital stay coincides with the funeral of Bobby Kennedy. Later that summer, we watch the news again to learn of King’s death. We move to Maryland during their hottest summer in 50 years. Short shorts and flip flops..Who can believe men are walking on the moon? Going back to Maine, getting caught in a traffic jam on the N.Y. Throughway…what’s with all these hippies in long dresses and dirty hair? The only “Woodstock” I know is in Canada..How confusing!

New closet…new clothes… a fringed vest and hip hugger pants…Kent State on the news …A divided country…I go to work in a shoe factory for the longest 9 months of my life. My clothes always look dirty with shoe cement…always smelling like leather.. For years after, the smell of leather jackets in a store, will turn my stomach. When the July vacation bonus comes, I walk out. Call this my notice. I won’t be back after vacation. I spend the week working on a roadside cleanup of cans and bottles..hot into the environmental movement..

New suit, job interview, no time for vacation..I’m a bank teller. Shorter skirts and higher stacked heels. I can’t imagine now how it must have looked, leaning over the counter of the drive up window. The little old ladies must have clucked their tongues and shook their heads. Saturday nights spent listening to Waylon and Willie..dances at the Red Barn. The end of the 70s brought me the same fashion as the end of the 60s. I had survived a decade of polyester, and was once again pushing a stroller, and watching Sesame Street..Slightly older, wiser and far more settled. Definitely better.

Then there's this from Marlon. Despite being poetry, which is utterly and totally forbidden in 162-land, it is a corker too:


The memory of my history is all about my culture. I miss it the most while I am up here in Maine. Donald Byrd, Ronnie Laws, Confunction, Parliment..........anyways

I'm Black Like:

Playing dominoes and a game of spades
it's night time and I still wear shades
Eatin' watermelon with a fork and some salt
drag my feet every where that I walk

Cook my bacon and I save the grease
even my baggy jeans gotta have a crease
Lettin' the phone ring when somebody's calling
sleepin in and never seeing the morning

Wearing slippers and I bent the heal
seasoning salt, paprika, and a box of cornmeal
Pancakes with a side of scrapple
fried bologna, fried bananas, and fried apples

Ashey skin and my lips get all chapped
my uncle's outta jail, next week he's going back
You think I'm good at every sport
you think that all I smoke is weed or Newports

I'm Black Like:

Saturdays and the Kung Fu flicks
grandad using scissors to get the toe nails clipped
Do rags, hair grease, and straightening combs
pigs feet, cornbread, black eyed peas and neckbones

My Kool-Aide is always to sweet
always wearing socks and never showing my feet
Whiskey and honey makes everything feel better
my corns are singing and I can smell the weather

Never knowing how to end a song
being in church on Sunday and staying too long
Baked macaroni and eatin' a sammich
saying I'm getting money because my hands itch

At the movies always running my mouth
all my cousins live somewhere down south
I'm black like...You can't say that word but I still can
I'm black like..."Who dis?" and saying words like
Daaayyyeeeem!!!!

Week 2 Prompts

Choose a prompt. Use it as a springboard for a free-standing piece of writing of your own (this isn't a test and you're not answering some question). Post that writing on your blog.


Do that with three of these four prompts.


Week Two Prompts:

5. Those who forget history are forced to relive it, first as tragedy, then as farce.

6. The stuff I've collected over the years in my little box/bureau drawer/keepsake chest marks every step of my way.

7. Looking in that photo album, I see--

8. It was the first, but not the best--or was it?

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