Lessons
Class Introduction: What Happens When We Keep Secrets?
07:04 2Name Your Obsessions
06:57 3Stick to Your Story
10:36 4Identify Your Journey
01:31 5What's the Worst That Can Happen?
06:23 6Descriptive Versus Interpretive Language
10:43 7Diagramming the Sentence
09:16 8Dialogue and Rhythm
08:59Lesson Info
Dialogue and Rhythm
This is an interesting one. I'm a huge believer in dialogue. Its's one of your tools in telling a story, not to paraphrase what somebody said, but to actually let us hear their voice to that. In effect, we get to be you and hear them saying the thing. And of course, when you write dialogue, it should sound like really life. But better you take out all the So how's it going? Did you How was your trip over here? Did you sleep well? Come on in. Have a seat. All the stuff we really say in life, we do not need to say in our writing. We know what happens. It goes without saying Here's a passage from a student writing. When I got home from work that day, Patti was sitting on the couch with an angry expression on her face. E feel. I need to point out some of these things. I'd like to have a pointer, Really? But I'll do without, um okay, um, sitting. Do we need to know where she's sitting? She's just sitting, um, angry expression. Does anybody have an angry expression on their arm or their leg?
I don't think so. you need to be that tough on yourself, every single word. Do you really need it? It looked like she was very upset about something, but I had no idea what the problem Waas. Maybe if we just, um, here, what happens next? We're going to know that she's upset. Let's see. I went to get my tip money from the jar in the kitchen where I left it yesterday, but it's not there or in the drawer or anyplace. It's gone, she said in an accusing voice. If somebody says they're tip, money is gone and they're saying this to their roommate, Do we need to know that their voice is not going to be very friendly? Probably not. Do we need to know where the tip money was? Carrot was being hidden or when it was brought there? Probably not. There was tip money. It's gone. That's the important thing. I just looked at her dumbfounded. Um, let's see about this dumbfounded what That accomplishes. And if we need it, I was starting to realize that she thought I'd taken her money. Is there anybody who doesn't get this at this point? You understand? You know, one of the great gifts for me off publishing my work for a long as I have and hearing back from readers, some of you online and some of you here perhaps, is huge respect for the intelligence of the reader. Readers get it, they figure out. I think probably by the time I'm 90. If I'm still publishing my work, I'll help. Only have five words in my essays because I know you're gonna understand everything. Um, don't pretend to me, Jane Patty went on, narrowing her eyes and staring back at me coldly. Lots of description of what Patty looks like. Let's think about movies and how there are never any adjectives or adverbs. It's all in the dialogue, and we know exactly what kind of people are. Characters are in the movies. I can't imagine anyone else, but you would have known about my tip money or where I put it. I know you're always worried. Now she's speculating on motive. I know you're always worried about how you're going to come up with your half of the rent money. You took my $100 didn't you? 156 words. Here we go. When I got home from work that day, Patti was on the couch. My tip money is gone, she said. Over $100. I just looked at her. Patty stared back at me. You took my $100 didn't you? Now it's a movie. Did anybody miss anything that used to be there? Oh, this is another favorite. I love all of these things, actually. So really, if I'd had my choice off what I would be good at in this life other than figure skating, um, I'd be a musician. I would be a I won't be too greedy. Backup singer in a Bruce Springsteen band. Uh, harmony singer, perhaps within a country band. Um, jazz musician uh, the closest that I come to feeling like musical performance is in the sound of my writing. And I read, I sit alone. There's lots of strange things that I do when I'm writing, I'm alone in a room and I'm reading I'm sometimes pacing around as I do it. Sometimes I act out a scene, I take all the parts and I kind of see like where I'm I'm blocking it all out. Um, very often I read my work out loud and I strongly recommend that you do that and you hear the sound of your voice. One thing that will happen is you'll you'll hear repetitions of words. Um, you'll hear things that sounds that just don't go together very well. But you'll also hear rhythm the closest that I come probably to making music. Although I do sort of pretend that my typing is keyboard, Um, is like hip hop artist I am. I want you to feel that kind of beat. So I'm going to begin with a piece of writing, not mine. Sadly, um, that is one of my all time favorites, and the rhythm of this is so powerful that generations off babies who don't even speak the English language or any other language have been calmed by the sound of thes words. And I don't actually need to read them off the screen because I know them so well because I would be sometimes driving along some road in New Hampshire, and one of my Children might be crying and I would just recite in the great Green Room. There was a telephone and a red balloon and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon. And there were three little pairs sitting on chairs and two little kittens and a pair of mittens and a little toy house and a young mouse and a comb and a brush and a bold full of mush And a quiet old lady who was whispering Hush goodnight room, Goodnight moon. Goodnight, cow jumping over the moon. Goodnight light and the red balloon. And you know, the baby who didn't even speak English would stop crying. It was my devastatingly powerful performance, of course, but really, it was Margaret Wise Brown. It was the rhythm of those words, and I don't pretend to have ever written anything that accomplished that. But I'm gonna read Ah, little paragraph from an essay of mine from years ago. This essay had to do with, um, a time. It was fairly few years into my divorce from my first husband, the father of my Children, and I had There was a I'm time in my week that was always the hardest, which was Sunday night, driving back to the old house, the farmhouse where we used to live together and where our Children had been born and picking them up from their weekend with their father. And on this one particular occasion, and I wasn't allowed into the house, it had been my house, but I wasn't allowed in. And this one particular Sunday night, my Children's father wasn't there and I got to come into the house for the first time in many years, and my son will. He was very, very exciting. He's running all around gathering up all this stuff, and I'm standing there alone in this kitchen where I've probably made Ah 1000 meals. I could look into the bedroom where the Children were actually born and houses filled with memories everywhere. And I'm on their sort of all coming up within me and and and I'm evoking those and essay. And suddenly I see a two point. My Children's father was a, uh, sheet rocker. He used a screw gun metaphoric tool, and his screw gun was sitting on the counter on the kitchen counter. Lay my ex husband screw gun. I picked it up and palmed it as if it were a 45. I put it actually, today I wouldn't even say as if it were a 45. I'd know what that you'd understand that Palmed referred to a gun. I picked it up and palmed it. I put it down again, picked it up and tucked it under my jacket. I wanted you to feel that hesitation. Not just I picked it up and hesitated, but I want to you to see it back and forth, picked it up and tucked it under my jacket and walked out the door. Then, like a person in a dream, I saw myself raising my hand the way my two sons have taught me. I wanted to suddenly evoke an image of sweetness and goodness in the middle of my very violent act that I'm about to commit the way my two sons have taught me when we're playing catch and I let that screw gun fly. I didn't consciously say Onley one syllable words, but really I wanted it almost like a machine gun. I watched it land in a clump of snow covered bushes. I walked back into the house and called to my son. Time to go home. Long sentence. Short sentence rhythm
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Ratings and Reviews
Robert Ellis
A wonderful introduction to writing memoir. Practical, moving, and wise. Joyce is an inspiration. I will definitely take the full course. Highly recommend.