Every time I sit down to write something, within half an hour, my respect for my idols shoot up like a hot air balloon on rocket fuel.
It only takes my writing a few lines to realize how difficult it is to write dialogue. No, scratch that. How difficult it is to write REALISTIC sounding dialogues that makes sense. Dialogue that pushes the story forward, instead of making it sound like some teen angst drama.
Terry Pratchett’s books rely heavily on dialogue, and if not that, then internal monologues, which are JUST as hard to do.
When is the right time to use dialogue, when is the right time for soliloquies, when is the right time for someone to act surprised and go mute?
A group of robbers are out hunting their mark. They find him, they corner him. They banter for a short moment. One of the robbers fall dead as their mark proves to be deadlier than they anticipated. What do the other robbers think and feel right then? Do they stand still in shock? Do they go crazy and blindly rush at their mark? What drives a man towards his action? And how do we realize those drives and depict them in the accordingly appropriate manner?
