Sometimes I feel like my efforts to improve my work go unappreciated at home.
Take dialogue, for example. It’s one of my favourite toys; I constantly have little bits of conversations evolving in my head. Random things. Tiny bits of conversational flotsam that distract me from the real world. Sometimes this dialogue applies to a story I’m working on. Other times it’s generated by a situation, and I know it will never fit in anywhere. Still, it’s fun to play with, and I think the paractice helps when it comes time to write dialogue in a story.
OK, so sometimes this leaves me giggling to myself in the grocery store for no apparent reason, but strangers thinking I’m off my rocker is a small price to pay for entertainment and experience.
I recently decided to take this show on the road— that is, I’ve started grabbing every opportunity I can to inject dramatic or interesting dialogue into conversations with my husband. Now he thinks I’m nuts. Really, though, it’s so much more rewarding when he has no idea that he’s my guinea pig.
Example:
AJ: “Kit, do you know where the Windex is?”
Me: “Pointed. At. Your. HEAD.”
I think I should get bonus points for the fact that I did, in fact, have a squirt bottle of the blue stuff pointed at the back of his cranium, but that’s beside the point. You see how this works?
That one just got me The Look. Other attempts haven’t gone so well. Like last weekend, when I decided to go all old-school Batman with a nasty twist, just to see how that went:
Me: “Leaking LADY-BITS it’s cold out there!”
AJ: *dead silence* “That… was the worst thing I have ever heard.”
Me: (after laughing until my stomach hurt) “I didn’t say what was leaking…”
AJ: “Doesn’t matter.”
Come to think of it, we have a lot of those moments when I know he wants to say, “Please don’t ever speak to me again,” and I wouldn’t even blame him.
So here’s my challenge for you: choose your target(s). In the middle of a conversation, use your whip-smart brain and writerly instincts to inject something dramatic, suspenseful, cheesy, or completely bonkers into a conversation*. Defy someone’s conversational expectations. Turn your dinner conversation into a one-sided scene from Flash Gordon, or imagine yourself as a world-weary PI and your [sister, boss, uncle George] as the dame with legs that won’t quit who just walked into your office with a sob-story that makes you reach for your [whatever world-weary PI’s drink]. On your way out the door to get groceries, convince the dog that you only have five minutes to get to the store to diffuse a bomb/stop the alien body snatchers/defeat the Invasion of the Watermelons of Death.
Trust me, dogs love that shit.
And please, report back to us here, whatever happens. (Disclaimer: I am not responsible for what happens if you try this on the wrong person and they call the police. That’s all on you, you weirdo.)
–
*Sarcasm doesn’t count, everyone does that.
disregard the prologue 
May 14th, 2013 at 8:42 am
This is a brilliant idea, I need to get on this.
May 14th, 2013 at 9:00 am
Please do. I want to know what you come up with. 🙂
May 14th, 2013 at 9:29 am
I did have that moment the other day when I far-more-ominously-than-intended informed my housemate she would be dead by morning simply because of the way the cat was looking at her. That was pretty amusing, once the horror-struck look disappeared from her face.
May 14th, 2013 at 8:47 am
*giggles* Exactly where is the challenge in that? I swear, if other species have a hive mind, my family has some kind of hive madness that runs rampant whenever two or more of us are together. My mum stated on more than one occasion that she’d never go out in public with any of us ever again XD I don’t blame her^^
Then again, she has seen me with my friends, so I guess she knows that the slightly embarrassing family is still easier to handle than a whole group of crazy people who seem to have no sense of shame whatsoever…
May 14th, 2013 at 9:02 am
My family is a bit like that. Not so much with dialogue, but my mom and I once went to Ikea and ended up with sheepskin rugs on our backs like capes and garbage cans on our heads, head-butting each other because… I have no idea.
Actually, this was the first time my husband ever went to Ikea with us (and the last, come to think of it), so he can’t claim he didn’t know what he was getting into.
May 14th, 2013 at 8:56 am
Challenge accepted! 😀
May 14th, 2013 at 9:00 am
Yessssssssss!
May 14th, 2013 at 10:32 am
A college friend (he coined the phrase, so full credit to him) and I did something like this with a specific phrase. We still say it to each other. In the middle of a serious conversations or during one of those odd pauses, we would blurt out ‘Peanut Butter is NOT a lubricant’. Never failed to stun people.
May 14th, 2013 at 10:37 pm
Well, you had a point…
May 14th, 2013 at 10:39 pm
I guess we did. Honestly, I never really thought about the phrase too much.
May 14th, 2013 at 10:39 pm
I’ve been thinking about it… O.o
May 14th, 2013 at 10:35 am
I love this! (And Monty Python 😉 ) I’m a believer in guerilla dialogue. I often get the look your husband gave you. Thankfully I have a friend who gets it. We often tell each other, “Have a picture of Queen Victoria” (a reference to an old British show called The Goon Show–http://www.thegoonshow.net/).
May 14th, 2013 at 12:56 pm
Hilarious. Please name all your posts after Monty Python skits from here on out. I lol’d at this post.
May 14th, 2013 at 1:00 pm
Haha, that would be amazing!
May 14th, 2013 at 5:39 pm
I do this all the time with the BFF. I never cease to surprise her. But it’s even more entertaining if you can do it in different accents.
May 14th, 2013 at 5:46 pm
Also, your title gave me a fit of giggles. 🙂
May 14th, 2013 at 10:37 pm
Yaaaaaaay
May 14th, 2013 at 5:57 pm
Hey now, I giggle in the grocery store too. I also talk to myself while cooking.
May 15th, 2013 at 2:47 am
I do this all the time! People think I’m crazy, but at least now I have a place to refer them in my defense. “Look! I’m not crazy, I’m just a writer!”
May 15th, 2013 at 6:54 am
“Not crazy” might be stretching it, but at least we’re not alone in our insanity, right? 😉
May 15th, 2013 at 4:47 pm
♥ ♥ ♥ !!!
I’ve done this before but not for too long a time. Must. Do. Again!