Section 1
B. Unnecessary Dialogue
Sometimes some dialogue is just not needed! The use of unnecessary dialogue within your work – and by unnecessary, I mean it doesn’t contribute to your plot, or characters or basically your story in any way – can bore your reader, and that is not good!
Let’s take an example. Let’s say the plot of your story is about two people falling in love, and one day the guy rings the girl after having seen her five minutes ago to ask her what the weather is like, and that’s it. He just wants to know what the weather is like and then says goodbye. No flirting goes on and no conversation about when they will next see each other, so that piece of dialogue equals unnecessary – or redundant – dialogue. That’s a silly example as I’m sure none of you would ever do that, but can you now see the point I’m making? The speech didn’t develop the story or the characters in any way, and just writing it would’ve wasted the writer’s time, so don’t do it! Before you write something in (no matter how small or big it is) or even when proofreading your work, make sure that the dialogue will contribute to the story and characters in some way, otherwise it is redundant and needs to be removed immediately!
Discussion 2: How important do you think dialogue is in terms of contribution to the plot and characters? How can dialogue change a novel? What can it show about your characters and how can it help your plot to develop?
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