Last week we posted a handout for a dialogue workshop Julie did with me at the RWA conference in Atlanta. This week, we’re posting the writing exercise that goes with that workshop.
As you know, writing dialogue means a lot more than laying down words that your characters speak to one another. You also have to layer in all the elements of your story. A good exercise to practice this is to take a script with dialogue only, then rewrite the scene incorporating everything else you’d have to do in a novel.
I took this scene from the TV show Gilmore Girls. I have the episode on tape and found the corresponding script online. Using what I knew about the show and what I saw in the episode, I rewrote the scene as if it were in a book. All the things the actor could convey…or that could be shown on a TV set (like the setting, the description of the furniture, the character development) had to come through the narrative and internal monologue that I layered between the dialogue. If you ever watched Gilmore Girls, you should note that I made every effort to remain true to Loralei’s character even in her own thoughts.
Please note: This is JUST a writing exercise. I am NOT advocating taking scripts from TV shows, rewriting them and trying to sell them!!! But if you really want to try your hand at putting together all the elements of a good dialogue scene, watch an episode of your favorite show, look for the script (many of them are online) and give it a whirl!
PS: If you’re interested, this episode is from season 6, I think it’s called “The Prodigal Daughter Returns.” BTW–if you’ve never watched Gilmore Girls, definitely check it out on DVD or on reruns. It had amazing dialogue and terrific characters. Just skip the last 2 seasons.
SOOKIE: Okay. The boys are busy, the chicken’s in the oven. Show me the bedroom set.
LORELAI: Sookie.
SOOKIE: I want to see the creepy granny bed.
LORELAI: I’m trying to rise above it.
SOOKIE: Rise above it later. Let’s go.
[They sneak upstairs. Sookie bursts through the bedroom doors.]
LORELAI: Here it is.
SOOKIE: Huh.
LORELAI: Terrible, right?
SOOKIE: Well, it’s –
LORELAI: Terrible.
SOOKIE: Really terrible.
LORELAI: I told you.
SOOKIE [sits on the bed]: Ow. Oh, my God. [She lays back and rolls around.] You can’t sleep in this.
LORELAI: Don’t worry. I won’t. I’m convinced it’s haunted and one night Luke will come back from the bathroom and find nothing but a bloody hook hanging from the cherubs.
SOOKIE: Oh, my God, I just saw the cherubs! [She gasps.] Okay, let’s think. Maybe if you stripped the wood?
LORELAI: And lit a match?
SOOKIE: Throw on a little gasoline.
LORELAI: I can’t tell him I hate it.
SOOKIE: Yeah, you have to. It’s horrible.
LORELAI: Yes, but Luke loves this furniture.
SOOKIE: Right. Luke loves this furniture. Luke loves this furniture! Luke loves this furniture?
LORELAI: Yes.
SOOKIE: Has he seen it? Has he seen this? [She gestures at the mirror.] And that! [She points at the carving framing the mirror.] Has he seen that? [She giggles. The phone rings.] LORELAI: Come on.
SOOKIE [points at the lamp on the way out]: Oh, now I know he hasn’t seen that.
[They walk down the stairs]
Now…the way it might appear in a book:
Once they were alone in the kitchen, Sookie’s expression turned downright mischievous. “Okay. The boys are busy, the chicken’s in the oven. Show me the bedroom set.”
The bedroom set. Ick. Lorelai had almost managed to forget about it…at least for the past ten minutes or so. “Sookie…”
“I want to see the creepy granny bed.”
Creepy. Oh, Sookie had no idea how creepy. After the nightmares she’d had last night, Lorelai hadn’t even been able to work up the nerve to lift the covers just in case the creepy dead granny was still safely tucked in for nighty-night. Not that she’d ever admit such a thing…especially not to Luke. After all, his was the creepy dead granny in question. “I’m trying to rise above it.”
“Rise above it later,” Sookie insisted, practically grabbing her by the arm to drag her out of the kitchen.
This was a bad idea. Luke and Jackson were right out back arguing over whether or not charcoal grills were manly and they could come in at any time.
But she did need a second opinion.
Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. Maybe she’d just imagined it was the most hideous, awful bedroom set ever constructed in the history of mankind.
Maybe…maybe she should just get used to sleeping with images of dead grannies in her bed. It wouldn’t be too bad, right? She’d dealt with visions in her head, right? As a little girl she’d eventually been able to fall asleep without fearing a sugarplum shaped like the Sta Puft Marshmallow Man was going to smother her.
Feeling much like a kid sneaking a peek in her parents underwear drawer, she quickly followed Sookie up the stairs, constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure the guys hadn’t come back in from outside. Two minutes. She’d give Sookie two minutes to confirm Lorelai’s worst fears, then they were going back to the kitchen. For a drink. A big one.
Once upstairs, Sookie marched right to Lorelai’s bedroom doors and burst through them.
“Here it is,” Lorelai said, almost trudging as she followed her friend in.
Sookie stared. “Huh.”
“Terrible, right?”
“Well, it’s—“
“Terrible.”
No longer even trying to pretend, Sookie sighed. “Really terrible.
Damn. She’d figured that. “I told you.”
Not satisfied with just looking at the monstrosity, Sookie actually sat down on the bed, something Lorelai had not had the courage to do. Not with those creepy cherubs flying about and that scary one-eyed monster mirror watching from across the room.
Rolling back and forth across the lumpy mattress, Sookie groaned. “Oh, my God. You can’t sleep in this.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Lorelai said, knowing she sounded fatalistic. “I’m convinced it’s haunted and one night Luke will come back from the bathroom and find nothing but a bloody hook hanging from the cherubs.
Sookie gasped, her jaw falling open in dismay. “Oh, my God, I just saw the cherubs!”
They stared for a minute, then her friend, ever the planner, frowned in determination. “Okay, let’s think. Maybe if you stripped the wood?”
“And lit a match?”
Grinning, Sookie added, “Throw on a little gasoline…”
God, wouldn’t she love to. But she couldn’t.The man she was about to marry had been saving this bedroom set for years, and he’d somehow gotten the idea that Lorelai loved it, too. “I can’t tell him I hate it.”
Sookie was no help. “Yeah, you have to. It’s horrible.
“Yes, but Luke loves this furniture.”
“Right, Luke loves this furniture.” As if she’d suddenly realized what she’d just said, Sookie’s jaw dropped. “Luke loves this furniture! Luke loves this furniture?”
She understood the shock. It boggled the mind. Truly. “Yes.”
“Has he seen it?” Stepping over to the dresser, above which perched an enormous cyclops eye of a mirror, Sookie added, “Has he seen this?” Close enough to fully appreciate the writhing snakes carved into the mahogany mirror frame, she gasped. “And that! Has he seen that?”
Knowing her fiance had good eyesight, Lorelai had to assume he’d indeed seen it. And that she was stuck. She’d be spending her honeymoon in the dead granny bed.
But before she could burst into tears or reach for the matches, she heard the ring of the telephone. Not wanting Luke to come inside and investigate why no one was answering, she grabbed Sookie’s arm and started to drag her out. “Come on.”
Sookie followed along, but like a gawker who couldn’t stop staring at an accident scene or a circus sideshow, kept looking around the room as they exited. Cringing as she spied the nightstand, she muttered, “Oh, now I know he hasn’t seen that.”
And the two of them went downstairs.
Leslie Kelly used to say she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up, but then she discovered Nancy Drew books. Being a flashlight-under-the-covers-nose-in-book reader throughout her childhood, she couldn’t think of anything else she’d rather do as an adult than continue to lose herself in fictional stories. Her real life marriage of 20 years to the man of her dreams is a constant reinforcement that happily-ever-afters really can happen…and that they’re worth writing about. Living in Maryland, Leslie spends her non-writing time laughing a lot with the above-mentioned romance hero and their three daughters. Though an author of more than thirty sexy, contemporary comedies, she has recently branched out to write dark romantic suspense under the pseudonym Leslie Parrish.
Destiny
Dirty Little Secrets
Once Upon A Valentine
Through The Night
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When my son was in highschool – and whipped by the girlfriend from hell, he watched Gilmore Girls all the time with her. I’ve only seen it a few times but I always thought it was cute so I’ll go find the DVD.
You did an amazing job with converting the dialogue to book form. I’m just not sure I’ll ever be able to do that. I’m feeling very, very, very discouraged this morning so maybe I’ll try this exercise in a few days and see how I feel then.
Thanks for the taking the time to do this. You guys are so busy with your own writing and I know lots of us truly appreciate all the time you take to do these for us on Saturdays. Thank you!!
Hope everyone has a great, safe weekend! Hubby wants to go to the river – and what hubby wants, hubby gets – I’ll just take Joel and plenty to drink and somehow I’ll get through it!! (all of his family, under one roof)…Katie…do you feel my pain?
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Eeeek Jodie, I think everyone feels your pain
Thanks so much for all your guidance, it is really appreciated!
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Leslie, you have a gift…I LOVE, and when I say LOVE, I mean LOVE Gilmore Girls…I started watching it at it’s inception and I recall the scene you rewrote with clarity…You did a tremendous job describing the setting and the feelings so well, that I could actually see the scene play out in my mind…I wish that I could write like that…one day…I love these lessons on writing and this weeks is no exception…I am learning alot, which I hope to use soon…I don’t see myself as a romance writer, though…I don’t think that I would be able to pull it off…You are awesome as are all the rest of the :monkey :monkey :monkey :monkey …I hope that everyone is having a wonderful Labor Day weekend…I haven’t made it to the Woodstock Fair and I don’t think that I will this year…oh well, there is always next year right?
Peace and love,
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Great blog. I love the way that you layered in all of the details from the basis dialogue. You brought the scene to life and that’s why I love to read.
Diaolgue is the hardest part of writing in my opinion. I am going to go back to my wip and take your tips to compare to make sure that I am following the proper procedure.
Leslie you and the othe plotmonkeys have such amazing talents. You all inspire me to be a better writer. THANK YOU for these Saturday lessons. They are helping me more than you can know.
Have a great Labor Day weekend.
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Tina – that’s one of my struggles – how much narrative is necessary and how much is too much. I’ve gone through a bunch of books and highlighted and underlined and tried to study and break it down and you know what? I still don’t know.
It’s all so arbitrary. It’s like being back in marketing again and trying to figure out how to break the rules but still live in them. :wallbash:
I had scene critiqued on RWA online site and one of the authors commented on how the hero wouldn’t have noticed if the heroine’s eyes were warm and smokey or cold and calculating. She said that guys don’t think that way.
So I pulled out Nymph King and read where the hero noticed the heroine’s “angelic face”, “luscious little lips” and “daintily sloped nose.” And how her skin was “smooth and luminous”, “ethereal”.
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I’m really inpressed how great you converted a normal dialogue into a great book scene. I think I’m not that good at it but I’ll give it a try. I think we all can learn from you and i really do appreciate that you put time and effort into that to show us how it is done properly. Thanks from all of us not so talented writers.
By the way, just ordered “overexposed” at the book store but I am from Germany and the sales person told me that it has to be imported from the United States and it can take up to 6 weeks till I’ll get it. I’m already counting days…
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I LOVE LOVE LOVE Gilmore Girls and I’m so sad that the show has come off the air. I watched the last two seasons and this summer I caught up on the first 3 or 4 or I cant remember. I still have a couple left to watch. Sigh, so good.
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Thank you Leslie! You’ve made their exchange leap off the page, which is something I aspire to.
I really appreciate these Saturday posts – I’m learning so much from you guys. Dialogue comes easier to me than layering so this will be a good exercise for me to try!
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I’m so glad this is helpful! I used to be a big proponent of writing exercises…did a workshop just on different ones I used when I was first starting to write. Maybe I’ll try to find it and dust it off. Some of them were pretty fun.
Not much time for them now, but I do have to say they can be very helpful!
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Jodie…sorry to hear about the doubts and self-questioning. That’s very common in this business, even for those of us who have 30 books under our belt (cough cough…I seriously thought about trying to get a full time job this week and just giving up…cough cough…then Bruce snapped me out of it!)
As for your experiences with what contest judges say and what you see in books…TRUST YOURSELF!! Trust your own instincts!! I never entered contests pre-pubbed and I am very glad I didn’t. It’s easy for judges to say “these are the rules, you broke rule 3, 7, 11, 42…” But I’m telling you (and we’ve all said it) in romance writing, beyond making sure your h/H have a HEA and you don’t abuse puppies or babies, THERE ARE NO RULES!
:cursing:
Write a killer story with fabulous characters and the editor is just not going to give a crap if the hero thinks the heroine’s eyes are smokey. And if she does, she’ll edit it! But don’t let things like that derail you.
Honestly, as a reader, things that truly leap off the page as being something a character would or wouldn’t think/do or say (especially “guy” characters) do bother me. But never enough to stop me from reading on if I’m really into the story. And I don’t for one second believe they’d be enough to stop you from selling if you wrote a damn good story.
Lecture done.
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Yahoo LESLIE!
“OVEREXPOSED” available everywhere here in R.I.
I now am the proud owner of two books and ready to devour
the canolli, end to end, before the day is thru.
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lol Jeannie…have fun! And, probably you should wear asbestos gloves. I’m hearing from readers and reviewers who say it’s one of the hottest Blazes they’ve ever read. (Who, me?
)
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Oh My Lord,
You can’t get a job.
You need to write.
You will survive just fine.
I’ll let you know tomorrow how I like OVEREXPOSED.
:hug2: :flower4you: :hug2:
jeannie &
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Jodie wrote:
had scene critiqued on RWA online site and one of the authors commented on how the hero wouldn’t have noticed if the heroine’s eyes were warm and smokey or cold and calculating. She said that guys don’t think that way
That’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it? I mean…if the guy is a cop, for instance, and he would most certainly be looking at a woman’s eyes and making judgments. Hell, any man might. People judge each other by our expressions, body language, looks…that’s how fiction is written.
I think that some authors do frame things in words that are too girly, but I don’t find the words “warm” “smoky” “cold” or “calculating” as girly words, so I think you’re just fine.
It’s all in the way you say it, I think. Guys do think differently than girls. Hmmm…could be another interesting blog topic.
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Leslie Got my Ove Gloves on!
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Meant to also give Leslie a huge SHOUT OUT for putting this blog up today!!!
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Thanks Leslie and Julie!! It’s funny because I loved Nymph King and have been disecting it to study. The first time I read it I didn’t notice him using girly descriptions so that’s why I went back and pulled it out to see how he “saw” the heroine. When I read those descriptions I was like
because warm and smokey certainly didn’t sound girly compared to those – especially after she’d downed a half bottle of liquor! 
Big sigh…it’s nice to know that even you guys have doubts once in a while. Maybe I’ll go down half a bottle and see if inspiration (or more courage) strikes!!
Thanks Bruce!! From one very grateful reader for snapping Leslie out of it!!!
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Jodie, I haven’t read Nymph King yet (it’s on my TBR…very high up!) but I’ve read Gena’s other books and she writes GREAT guys. She definitely knows her male POV. She’s a great author to study.
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Great blog. I like your book version better—-have never seen Gilmore Girls.
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The first time I’d ever heard of Gena was when she guest blogged here. Since then I’ve read a lot of her books and have enjoyed all of them, but there was something about Nymph King that I absolutely loved.
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Okay Jodie you hooked me I’m buying Nymph King :banana:
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Hmmmm….wonder if it has anything to do with the delicious cover?
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Oh yeah, on the cover, Julie! :happy2:
Our Leslie Kelly is one
of romance writing’s pros
Her September release
is titled “OVEREXPOSED”
It’s sizzling and sexy
as you’ll certainly see
There’s even a scene
That re-defines Canolli
So go buy “overexposed”
it’s a great romantic read
Let’s let our Leslie Kelly know
She writes just what we need
:flower4you: :hug2: :wub:
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Hilarious! I’ve seen the episode. Have all six seasons on DVD and waiting impatiently for season seven. I think you definately captured Lorelai’s thoughts. Suki’s reaction was so great.
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OMG JEANNIE! LOLOLOLOL!!!
:banana: 
You are TOOOOOOOO funny!
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lol, Jeannie, I love that you are now known as Jeannie and Zoey!!!
Jodie you sold me, I’ll have to check out Nymph King…I think Gena is going to owe you for promoting her book…lol
Leslie, I finally got Overexposed and I’m sooooo excited!!! I’m in the middle of a Jude Deveraux book now but I’m anxious to finally read the canolli book….As a matter of fact, I was visiting with family today and my cousin came in with canolli’s and all I could think about was you!!!!! I didn’t even read it yet and already I associate you with canolli’s :happy2:
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lol Tina! Let me know just how hungry you are for cannolis once you read the book.