Ep119: The Seven Components of Dialogue, with Dialogue Doctor Jeff Elkins

Writer Craft Podcast

Announcements:

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Patron announcement:

UPDATE:

• Valerie: Patreon, podcast, emails, weekly planning
• Erick: website re-launched erickmertzwriting.com

Jeff Elkins' new book launches July 1st: The Dialogue Doctor Will See You Now

Jeff's latest read:

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Just finished:

I'M READING: Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships With Dogs by Suzanne Clothier;

Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life by Beth Kempton.

Up Next: Instant Karma by Marissa Meyer

• Erick's Reading:

Rick Rubin The Creative Act: A Way of Being

The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy

Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

Cascade by Craig Davidson (stories)

Show Notes:

Jeff Elkins is a writer, podcaster, theologian, and writing coach. He’s the author of eleven novels including Inside Outside and the Adventures of Watkins and Howe Detective Series. He helps writers engage with readers by teaching them to write better dialogue as the Dialogue Doctor podcast. He talks about life after the evangelical church on the We Just Came for the Tacos Podcast. He has a BA in Religion from Baylor University and an MDiv from Truett Seminary. He lives with his wife and five kids north of Baltimore, Maryland.

7 components: exchanges, segments, scenes, utterances, vocalizations, body language, dialogue tags

Scenes (emotional movement); Segments (portions of the conversation within the scene); Exchanges (char participate in the conversation--character voice); Utterances (char's participation)

Touch on the reaction of char, even if not verbal, or they get lost in the fog and the reader forgets the char is there (pulls them out of the book). Don't skip a char for more than two segments.

How do I use this in memoir?

(Resource: Michael Lewis (nf writer))

Get someone's vocalization in the segments. (Inner dialogue counts) exchanges create energy in the text. Rapid back and forth.

Powerful narrative voice tells story in a reflective (authentic and vulnerable) way, but use scenes whenever possible.

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. Voice example.

Handmaid's Tale (fictional memoir) doesn't feel dialog-lite.

Vocalizations (what comes out of their mouth)(absence of vocalizations count too)

Body language shapes the vocalizations.

Dialogue tags: they are for I.D.; what they do/embellish; shape the vocalization (put said at end, readers ignore; at beginning, it slows them down; in middle of sentence, creates pauses for the reader to imagine the scene.)

Char Voice: words, topics, body lang, construction of utterances (punctuation, length, how often participate in conversation)

Plotters: think about personality of char, how do you want the reader to describe character? Plan out main character's voice before you start writing. What kind of body language will they have? What does this personality sound like?

Jeff Elkins: dialoguedoctor.com; courses and community

Ep#53: Dialogue Doctor Jeff Elkins Interview from 2/1/2022.

Next Episode: Different Types of Editing and Budget Alternatives

Resources:

Thinking in Pictures by John Sayles