Important Lessons Learned from Dialogue and Scene

I use to stress when I was writing dialogue.  I am somewhat of an introvert, so writing dialogue was not easy at first.  After I took the advice of my creative writing instructor at Tarrant County College (Mr. Holt), it became easier.

One important point that Josip Novakovich makes is that when writing dialogue, the writer needs to have the right balance between realism and economy of speech.  Dr. Kuhne's story "Magic Coins" is an excellent example of this, especially in the first paragraph on page 264, "Like a quarter man, but gold...It was a couple of weeks ago I lost it here."  The dialogue is authentic throughout the story and the description of the characters makes it easy to visualize the tension between Cruz and the car wash owner, Jake.

Another thing that Novakovich points out is that dialogue helps set up a dramatic scene.  Dr. Kuhne creates a dramatic scene through dialogue on the first page when Cruz asks Jake about the "magic" coin.  This scene helps set up the tone of the story.  When I was Dr. Kuhne's assistant editor on the 2010 issue of TCU's journal of prose and poetry (descant), he told me that whenever you are writing fiction, it is important to have the dramatic event occur within the first two pages.  Otherwise, the story moves slow and you will lose your audience.  In most cases, when you include lots of dialogue, you will create plenty of scenes and the reader will be entertained from start to finish.