Writing Prompt 70: Scene
This morning, as I drove between stores getting the weekly grocery shop, film director Denis Villeneuve was on the radio talking about his career with Tom Power.
I haven't seen either Dune 1 or 2 so I have nothing to say about them. But now I'm curious having listened to Villeneuve and his constant drive to improve his filmmaking with every project he's involved with. Interestingly (I mean, I thought it was interesting) he discussed how he would love to make a film with little to no dialogue.
I know. Seems strange. He talks this through. his argument is that cinema is primarily a visual medium. The silent movies of the early cinematic era had no recorded sound, no dialogue just the use of inter-title cards to explain some important plot twist or other dramatic moment. But, of course, there was sound, live sound in the form of an organist playing along to the film or sometimes a full orchestra to provide the emotional push and pull of the story.
His thoughts reminded me of how many articles I've come across recently advising fiction writers to beware of writing too much dialogue. I am guilty as charged. I am told, in all these articles, this is indicative of beginner writing. Yikes. I don't know about you but if I want to get better at this thing called writing I'll need to do some serious editing.
So now what? How can we write with less dialogue? If I've written an entire chapter of mostly dialogue how can I fix this? How can you fix this?
Luckily, some experts have left their wise advice in helpful articles all over the internet and, incredibly, in books. Here's a blog post detailing the right road to recovery: Don't Overdo Dialogue in Fiction by the wonderful Anne R Allen. She gives us, in several points, some wise advice: A Novel is Not a Screenplay (point taken), Clarity is Kindness (I see, I see) and Use Dialogue as a Condiment (too much will clog up your novel).
For our purposes, at this moment, I say let's begin by looking at a scene, preferably one with people in it. Now. Write but don't let them speak. To help you out, look at the two women in the picture above sitting together in this pretty, pastoral scene. There they sit, side by side, a bridge nearby and two birds above them flying in opposite directions. My first thought is they must be having a conversation, and that they know each other. But maybe they don't. Perhaps, they were friends but now they loathe each other. How can you write this without using dialogue?
Is there a way to use the scene around them to express their relationship? There's calm water under the bridge but a rougher sea beyond that a small sailboat is trying to navigate. And what about that ruined castle up there on a hill behind them?
There's a story here for sure. I wonder if you can find it. And remember - not too much dialogue :)
Originally published at https://tanyajclarke.substack.com on June 3, 2024
