What If Exercises - Week of 4/12 Part II

V: Dialogue

Speech Flavor, Or Sounding Real

“I duhn know what happen. One minuh he wah dar and da next he wah gone.”

“Who are you?” A deep voice rumbled seeming to come from everywhere all at once and yet nowhere. “Name yourself.”

Narim menacingly held his metal staff diagonally across is body, “I yearn to destroy you boy.” Raising his voice, “Let this be our final battle.”

“What is going on?” Panic welled up inside, “Why can’t I get home?” I spun around with a look of dread fixed upon my face.

“Welcome my Lord,” the Captain of the guard said as we rounded a bend and exited the mountain pass, “to Ardinor.”

The Invisible Scene: Interspersing Dialogue with Action

“This is ridiculous Captain. I told you three days ago that I am not a Lord,” I snapped the leather reigns and picked up the pace of my slowing horse. “I don’t know much about what I am, but what I do know is I am no Lord.”

The Captain turned to look at me and smiled, but there was twinkle in his eye almost like he knew something that I did not. Whatever he knew would have to wait because at that moment we exited the mountain pass. “My Lord to Ardinor.”

I pulled up on the reigns halting my horse. I gazed, slack-jawed down into the valley with the twin suns setting, seeing the dirt road snake its way across the land and to where it joined the stone bridge that provided the only noticeable entrance or exit to the city that rose above the water.

“My Lord,” the Captain again turned to me, “welcome home.” His smile widened and wrinkled the weathered skin around his eyes.

“M-my home?” I stammered.