Lecture 8: Integrating Dialogue into a Narrative
o Munro’s narrator never directly says, “This woman was an old
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Munro allows us to experience the situation as the narrator did,
picking up the cues from what she hears and observes: the way
Nora begs Ben to dance with her and the way he refuses, the
way Nora’s arms hang “loose and hopeful” and her face shines
with delight.o Unlike the more direct and instrumental dialogue in 7KH
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speak directly to the matter at hand, and unlike the scene in
$QQD.DUHQLQD, where Tolstoy makes the subtext explicit by
telling us what the characters are thinking, Munro’s dialogue
is oblique, carrying a great deal of emotion but stopping just
short of addressing its root cause.Dialogue to Provide Exposition
z The most mechanical use to which dialogue can be put is to provide
exposition, that is, to have one character explain the backstory or impart
some necessary information, ostensibly to another character but, in
reality, to the reader. When it’s done stylishly and evokes character at
the same time, this technique can be quite entertaining.z One expert practitioner of expository dialogue is the novelist Elmore
Leonard. His novel &XED/LEUH is about an American who gets caught up
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two of the major characters, a couple of cowboys who are planning
to ship some horses to Cuba, talk about the deal. In the course of the
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history of the war in Cuba.z Leonard’s approach in the scene is relatively painless, but it’s not as
seamless or engrossing as the rest of the book. In fact, we’ve all read
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appears to explain the backstory, then disappears, never to be heard