I’ve been studying painting lately, because I’m working on a manuscript in which one of the protagonists is an artist. I’ve learned that artists often start with a rough sketch that may appear to be nothing more than blocks of color. You’ll forgive another painting metaphor, I hope, because of course this reminds me of writing a novel.
Photo by Dominic Morel -- sxc.hu
A painter working on a still life, for example, will start with swathes of color as a base for background, flowers, vase. Then refinements are added: a shadow on the wall, the texture of petals, the curve of the vase.
In The Art of War for Writers, James Scott Bell writes, “The innovative writer will sometimes write dialogue only, then fill in the blanks.”
I stumbled upon this technique accidentally, before I read Bell’s book, because dialogue comes naturally to me. Sometimes I wind up with something scriptlike: just a character’s name and a colon and a line of dialogue, followed by more all the way through the scene. For me, that’s the easy bit.
Filling in the blanks? That’s the difficult part. I can picture the scene in my head, but translating it into words…Sometimes I wish I could just paint it. Unfortunately, I dabbled in painting just enough to learn I haven’t the talent for it.
The hardest part seems to be weaving the descriptors–the action beats and sensory details–into the dialog seamlessly, so they appear part of a seamless, organic whole. This thing we do is indeed an art form. And, as with the finest art, when the work is completed the rough beginning lies unseen. All that is visible is the finely finished topmost layer.
Nice metaphors! My hubby writes awesome dialogue, but he’s weak on beats and descriptors. I go through and add them, and it’s hard not to add too many. I’m constantly removing descriptors from my own dialogue because it slows things down too much.
Kessie, sounds like you guys make a great team!