Writing is a solitary occupation.
It can also be a mutually interactive task, involving two or three people.
It is often both of these, at different times in the life of a work of fiction.
Dialog is one of the most powerful tools for moving a story forward. It can reveal the personalities of the author's characters. It can reveal the setting of the story. It can detail the ebb and flow of action and reaction, move and counter-move, thrust and parry. Done well, it can almost tell the story by itself.
So - you've written a story, or a scene from a story. The only thing missing is the speech of the two characters to put flesh on the bones of this plot. You sit solitary in your writing place, and you put speech into the mouths of these characters. This is a delicate process. Too much dialog, and you'll lose the reader's interest. Too little, and the story will only be half-told.
Finally, you're done. The dialog is polished and ready for the reader's gaze.
Or is it?
There's one sure-fire way to determine if this is in fact the case. Here the solitary, brow-furrowing act of writing dialog is turned into an interactive event between the author and one or two trusted confidants. These can be beta readers, critique partners, or just good and savvy friends.
Invite your partners to read the dialog with you, to speak it and see if it works. Does it sound natural? Is it stilted? Are the words appropriate for the time or the speakers? Does it flow, or just sit there?
It's a well-established principle that reading a story out loud can reveal things about the story that reading it to oneself will not. Hearing the words causes the brain to process the language in ways that differ from the processing of words seen by the eyes. Hearing dialog is a good way to reveal the quality of conversations in the story.
Thus, the solitary act of fitting words to the story can be changed into a communal activity if we invite others to participate in a sort of readers theater. What was done by one, can now be done by two or three, and make the object of all this attention better in the bargain.
So, to this, what do you say?
