Am I the only one whose novel comes to them in dialog?

Writing Jedi · Apr 5, 2010

People that can sit down and just type out a first draft, with narrative and descriptions and actual scenes, I envy you.

Once I get the characters locked in my head, I get these random juicy pieces of dialog that pop into my head constantly. So, I go to the Word doc and add them in. Then, eventually, I take those pieces of dialog and try to expand them into scenes and put them in chronological order and make a dang story out of it.

Another writer I know says she sees her story like a movie in her head. Not me...I hear it in snippets of dialog. (And please don't be like my friend who calls them auditory hallucinations, lol).

Anyone else?
:hi:

Stunted · Apr 5, 2010

I used to be like that too, but then I wrote a book in which the narrative stuff was more central.

Caitlin Black · Apr 5, 2010

I get the movie type thing going on.

SirOtter · Apr 5, 2010

My first drafts are very dialogue dense, then I fill in the narrative in subsequent drafts. I learned a lot about dialogue from listening to tons of old time radio, which was mostly dialogue. I don't see my stuff unreel like a movie; I hear it like a radio play.

stefanie_gaither · Apr 5, 2010

The dialogue usually comes to me first, and then I have to go back and build scenes around it. My revising usually consists mostly of going back and filling in all that descriptive stuff. And I usually try to put that off as long as I can...sort of like I'm doing right now. This site is great for procrastinating.

kaitie · Apr 6, 2010

I don't actually enjoy writing dialogue as much most of the time, and prefer the narrative bit. However, particularly once I get started on a story, dialogue is what pops into my head most of all. I have to carry a notebook around and write them down. And even then I don't write it as an actual conversation with descriptions or anything, just the pure dialogue and maybe some notes to self.

defyalllogic · Apr 6, 2010

it happens to me too. But i also get random scenes so I won't have a plot but i'll have a bunch of scenes... or there will be a great conversation that i'm not sure will actually be relevant when i fit a plot in there...

Rufus Coppertop · Apr 6, 2010

I get it too.

I could almost say it's like a bubble in my consciousness and inside the bubble is a scene with the characters chatting to each other or having confrontations with the bad guy or whatever.

Kosh · Apr 6, 2010

You're lucky. Things I write only come to me in feelings and vague images. Then I have to find the description and dialog to match.

Danthia · Apr 6, 2010

They don't come to me in dialog, but I get dialog snippets a lot while working on them. Usually an interaction between two characters over something that's mulling over in my head, say a plot twist or a hole I'm trying to fill. It also happens with internalization. I also keep notebooks handy since I've lost more great lines than I can count because I forgot them by the time I got back to my desk.

My novel ideas come from all over the place. I had one the over day that came from me thinking up what to call a bar in my book. Tavern, alehouse, bar, etc. I got to speakeasy and suddenly I had a novel premise. That happens to me a lot.

backslashbaby · Apr 6, 2010

I get a mixture. A lot of times, yes, it's all dialog!

Christyp · Apr 6, 2010

I, too, have the movie in my head! I either see it as I'm going to sleep, in my dreams (then pray I can remember it), or when I'm driving.

soapdish · Apr 6, 2010

My work tends to be fairly dialogue heavy, and yeah, it comes to me that way most of the time. My last NANO novel came to me in so many random streams of dialogue, that up until the end (and actually still, since I haven’t finished it) there are a lot of conversations that don’t even have dialogue tags or actions/movement associated with them.

At times I’m not even sure which characters are speaking to one another, or where they are having these conversations.

It’s frustrating, but it does leave a lot of stuff to fill in…so…I have some easy places to go in and add word count when I need to

But…frustrating, yeah, it’s extremely frustrating.

owlion · Apr 6, 2010

It's the movie thing for me too. Well, on and off. Sometimes it's just like someone reading it out to me, other times I can see everything that's going on.

However, I do jump back and forth in my story to work with my inspiration. Otherwise I can lose something pretty good forever

Jamesaritchie · Apr 6, 2010

Movies. I just follow the characters around and write down what they do and say.

scarletpeaches · Apr 6, 2010

Another 'movie' writer here. They're especially vivid just before I fall asleep, but pretty much any time I look as if I'm daydreaming, I'm watching a scene in my mind's eye.

kaitie · Apr 6, 2010

scarletpeaches said:
Another 'movie' writer here. They're especially vivid just before I fall asleep, but pretty much any time I look as if I'm daydreaming, I'm watching a scene in my mind's eye.

We just changed desks at work, and apparently the new lady isn't used to my randomly staring off into space. I was thinking about gosh knows what and looking vaguely in the direction of her desk, and she thought I was trying to figure out what a magazine she had was. :tongue

Oopsie.

Lydia Sharp · Apr 6, 2010

Mine usually start with a character in a specific situation that needs to be resolved, then it transpires into movie-like territory and I simply write what I "see", along with the internalization.
Sometimes I'll get "future" scenes coming to me in straight dialogue, though. When that happens, I write them out like a script, maybe mentioning little actions along the way... something like "she turns the car into the driveway here", or "she pours her coffee, then says..." and set it aside. Once I've written "up to" that scene, I find it easier to fill in the narrative and other good stuff in between and around the dialogue because I have a better sense of the story by then.

Lydia Sharp · Apr 6, 2010

kaitie said:
We just changed desks at work, and apparently the new lady isn't used to my randomly staring off into space. I was thinking about gosh knows what and looking vaguely in the direction of her desk, and she thought I was trying to figure out what a magazine she had was. Oopsie.

Haha. You just reminded me of something that happened to me in third grade. I've been writing short stories since before then, and they used to play in my head while I was at school... because I was so effing bored.
At one of my parent-teacher conferences, my third grade teacher told my parents she was "very concerned" about me because I constantly stared off into space and didn't get my work done. She even suggested that I might be mentally disabled. Um... no, I was actually tested as being genius level at that age. And she should have known that; it was in my file.
I entered a state-wide short story contest later that school year and made it to the quarter-finals. That shut her up. :tongue

Shadow_Ferret · Apr 6, 2010

SirOtter said:
My first drafts are very dialogue dense, then I fill in the narrative in subsequent drafts. I learned a lot about dialogue from listening to tons of old time radio, which was mostly dialogue. I don't see my stuff unreel like a movie; I hear it like a radio play.

This. Dialog, or dialogue, is my strong suit, I think. I have a lot of talking heads in my first draft, like in a radio play, then I have to add narrative and descriptions and all sorts of other things to flesh it out.

Margarita Skies · Apr 6, 2010

My story ideas come to me like a movie scene, too.

RosemaryWells · Apr 6, 2010

I see it like a movie--scenes and dialogue. I just watch and write. lol.

rosewood · Apr 6, 2010

Movie/Dialogue thing for me too. I wonder if dialogue groupies are more chatty in the real world than say someone who is moved to write because of a mental image of a cityscape or a person?

LilliCray · Apr 6, 2010

Movie person. Mostly accompanied with dialogue. (Funny--you'd think I'd be better at the little break-ups in the dialogue, if I see scenes as a movie. Well, I'd think that, anyway. Wow, can't think of the term. My characters are forever blinking, grinning, scowling, and looking at things... gotta work on that.)

I have gotten maybe two or three scenes that were all dialogue. One involving a precocious eight-year-old who thinks Santa's a pedophile, another involving a bomb of sorts, and maybe another. Not a single speaker attribution anywhere. It was really weird for me. I didn't even see those, which I'm not used to. It kind of freaked me out.

I have the staring-into-space problem, too. I think a girl at my lunch table thinks I'm a freak because I happened to stare into space straight at her once. The topic comes up at least once a day among my other "lunch groupies," too. They're just jealous because I think deeply.

SirOtter · Apr 6, 2010

Of course, I don't leave it just great globs of dialogue. I break it up with what actors call 'business' - frying an egg, looking for the remote control, removing bundles of dynamite from under the hood of the hero's car, applying pressure to a spurting knife wound, all stuff like that there in second draft. Then I weave in some plot or something in third, plant clues and disposable characters in fourth and fifth and beyond, and so forth.

Am I the only one whose novel comes to them in dialog?

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