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Tips

Ignore Your Mom: Eavesdrop

by Lauri Jean Crowe

One of the most difficult things for me to pull off in a short story is believable dialogue. Why? I don't talk much, except to my kids, and most of my other conversations are written or digital email blurbs. Sounds funny, but I live a bit of a hermetic life by choice.

So, how do you make your characters believable? You ignore your mother's advice on politeness and you eavesdrop. Your exercise this month is to go against conventional wisdom and stick a glass to the wall, writing down everything you hear.

Go to a local restaurant and gently listen to the conversation of the couple in the booth next to you. Or, listen to the cashier and the customer in front of you while at the grocery store. Record these images of language and then write them down as you recall them adding in details of the surroundings to write your short story. that's the easy part.

Now, with those same characters you have recreated from your eavesdropping efforts, place those characters in a different situation and keep their dialogue consistent. Think about what your cashier would say if she were the customer instead. Place your restaurant couple in a sexual encounter, or at a swim meet. How do their voices change? How do they stay the same?

Eavesdropping is an especially useful technique if you are trying to get a specific dialogue or scene that you aren't familiar with in your everyday surroundings. For example, I'm a caucasian woman and would have difficulty creating a believable scene between two black men.

Now, you don't have to listen to entire conversations, just a few minutes to get a feel for the character and voice of the person. You don't want to invade privacy. The rest can be left up to your imagination. However, if I were you, I wouldn't tell your mother about your technique. She might think it's something other than good character development!

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