Saturday, January 15, 2011

So Good I Didn't Even Notice

I was reading a book the other day and I kept thinking that the dialogue didn’t sound right. It was strange and unnatural. And then it occurred to me that I have never read a book and noticed the great dialogue. I mean, I notice when characters are funny or witty or something but I never think to myself how natural the dialogue sounds. Which seems like a shame. I notice wonderful descriptions, emotional stories and well developed characters and other things that go into a good book but I don’t notice the dialogue unless it’s bad. I’ve tried to write dialogue and I’ve read enough bad dialogue to know that writing good dialogue isn’t easy. So the writers of good dialogue should get some recognition. But they don’t get any from me. The problem is that when dialogue is done right it is so natural that it doesn’t stand out. At least not to me. So I want to thank all the writers of good dialogue out there. And apologize that, even after this big revelation, I will continue to fail to notice it.

I wonder what else was so good that I didn’t even notice it.

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