Lecture 8: Integrating Dialogue into a Narrative
completely unrelated, and the sound of their voices serves to evoke the
speaker and the milieu.Dialogue to Tell the Story
z George V. Higgins’s 7KH)ULHQGVRI(GGLH&R\OH tells the story of an
armed robbery and its aftermath mainly through a series of monologues
and conversations, some of which read almost like a play by Samuel
Beckett. Many crime narratives or detective stories are told almost
entirely through dialogue; the modern master of this was Elmore
Leonard, the author of *HW6KRUW\ and many other books.z Mystery narratives often consist of two stories told in tandem, namely,
the story of the investigation, which is usually chronological, and the
story of the events leading up to the crime, which the reader usually gets
in bits and pieces from dialogue as the detective listens to statements
from witnesses or suspects. Many, if not most, of the Sherlock Holmes
stories are structured this way, as is 7KH0DOWHVH)DOFRQ, which consists
almost entirely of scenes in which characters argue, plead, and negotiate
with each other.z +RZHYHU LW LVQ¶W MXVW FULPH ¿FWLRQ WKDW XVHV GLDORJXH WR PRYHWKH
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3UHMXGLFH, in which many of the most important encounters and
incidents take place in conversation. In one scene at a ball, the novel’s
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Mr. Darcy, the novel’s haughty leading man, and the two verbally spar
with each other for three pages.z ,W¶V LPSRUWDQW WR QRWH WKDW QRW HYHU\ FRQYHUVDWLRQ LQ ¿FWLRQ LV D
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just as capable of misdirection, confusion, and reticence as real people
are. Some of the greatest scenes in literature feature characters who
are not actually talking about what’s at stake in the scene but about
something else entirely. Dialogue can hide a character’s intent as well as
show it, and often, the meaning of a dialogue is more present in what the
characters don’t say rather than in what they do.