Dialogue-only Stories Group · 10:25pm Mar 13th, 2014
Gaze upon my amazing Photoshop skills.
With my latest two stories—Last Night, Pinkie Pie Exploded and The Perfect Gift for a Cellist—being exceptionally well received, I was wondering if I should do even more stories in this dialogue-only style where two characters only talk back and forth with each other. Many people said they liked how just enough information can be pushed into speech to give the reader enough information to understand everything without ruining the story in any way.
However, it was then that I realized I'd be a total sellout and just milk a certain story style for the heck of getting as much praise as possible if I kept doing these stories myself.
So I've decided to create a group for these stories, in the hopes some other people will be inspired and write something like this. Or not. Dunno. Either way, the group is there, so go check it out!
Seems to be something worth while.
~Leonzilla
As with everything, there's a time and place for each kind of style.
I like to contrast two of my favorite authors (I have a lot of favorite authors, so it's not too hard): J.R.R. Tolkein and Robert B. Parker.
Tolkein's books are incredibly well-detailed, and the slightest minutae is examiined in glorious detail. He paints a picture with words so compelling, you can feel like you're really there.
Parker writes lots of dialogue. Lots of it. Some of his books, there's so much whitespace, it looks like a screenplay. Great for character development; for the rest of the world . . . well, it's set in Boston, so look at a picture.
The point is, if you're good at writing dialogue-only stories, if you like writing dialogue-only stories, and, if people enjoy reading them, you're not 'selling out'--that just happens to be your style. And there's nothing wrong with that! Parker couldn't have written LotR, and Tolkein probably sucked at writing crime stories. Do what you want, and if readers like it, so much the better.
Also, cool that you're making a group. Good on ya.
You're not being a sell out, you just found something that could be very interesting.