"Never Be Alone" part one

x

Hello! I think the format you've got is correct for an all dialogue piece.

As I was saying.. oh, whatever, you made me forget.

Should be, "As I was saying... Oh, whatever, you made me forget."

The next line, "Glasses clinked," is the one line in the entire story that isn't strictly character dialogue. See if you can find a way to communicate the action without it.

“Me.” 
“Me.” 
“Me.” 
“Me.”

Instead of something repetitive like this, see if you can add character development by having each of the people in the room say "Me" in a distinct way. For example, one could say "Definitely!" and the other could say, "Well, I guess..." and that would tell us about their personalities.

“Yeah, it'll be a lot nicer.. Ow, you're not supposed to hit your boyfriend.” 

This is cool! I really like how you make it very clear what happened without changing out of dialogue.

“Yeah, we don't even have, like, fake IDs.”

It should say ID's. When you use an acronym, you put in an apostrophe when it's plural, like CD's and DVD's.

The ending seemed to be missing something. To bring the story back full circle and complete it, you could have one of the characters say something on the lines of, "Oh well, forget him. Congratulations again on finishing high school!" (Only it's your story and characters so I know you'll think of something better than that. )

Have you ever considered writing plays? They're mostly dialogue, and if that's your favorite you might enjoy it. Thanks for posting your story, I really enjoyed reading it. If you have any questions about what I wrote in your review, be sure to ask. I'll check back.

--Jenna

x

Hey, MR. You've formatted this correctly for an all dialogue piece, as far as I know. Unless you wanted to put it into scripts, which is a different forum altogether.

Anyway, I really like this story. I'm a big fan of dialogue, and a lot of the stuff I do is exclusively dialogue, so a story like this appeals to me straight away. I'll give you a few nit picks, though, so this review isn't entirely useless.

“Stop ruining my toast, Robert. As I was saying.. oh, whatever, you made me forget. Anyways, to us. We made it.”

Instead of using the "..", you could think about using a dash. They indicate pauses as well. It's just something that always seems more professional in a book, and I see it more often than just plain ellipsis.

“And we never have to see him again, either. Stupid idiot wasn't accepted into any college.”

“You don't have to see him again, Sarah. You're going out of the country. You and Rob. We, on the other hand, still might have the bad luck to run into him on the streets.”

“Oh my God, Sarah, I still can't believe you're going all the way to Paris! It's not going to be the same without you.”

These lines of dialogue, I'm not sure I like. They come across as blatant exposition. Is there anyone to change around the order of the conversation, even just a little, so it doesn't all hit at once? Otherwise, the story begins to drag a bit. With just a little tweaking, they'll seem more natural, I think. I appreciate the difficulty, though. It's difficult to reveal things in dialogue between characters who already know things the reader doesn't, because it can make the purpose of your dialogue seem extremely transparent.

I have no nit picks that specific for the rest of it, but I'd say just watch out for Angelo. His character seems so much more larger than life than the others that he's in danger of engulfing them completely. It's all right when they're alone, but when Angelo enters, the other characters don't seem to be characters anymore.

If you ever do want get into writing scripts, there are a lot of sites out there dedicated to helping people understand the formatting, conventions, etc. Also, there are a number of different programmes which help you format scripts. The one I've been using is Celtx, and I find it really easy to handle. So, the internet's perfect if you ever want to get into scriptwriting. It is an interesting thing to experiment with.

Well, this was an interesting story. I think you pulled off the dialogue-only element quite well, even if Angelo does overshadow them towards the end. And to be honest, he seems like the sort of person who would do the same in reality, so whatever you decide to do should work out fine.

If there's anything you want to ask or need help with, just PM me. I'd really like to read the next part of this, too. This site could do with a lot more dialogue writers.

-Mat