Murakami on Dialogue

Haruki Murakami has an interesting take on the use of dialogue. His books seem to be more about characterisation than plot and so there feels as if a lot goes into the construction of his dialogue. And in that I have three observations:

Sumire frowned and sighed. "If they invent a car that runs on stupid jokes, you could go far."

"Put it down to an impoverished intellect," I said humbly.

"Okay, all joking aside, I want you to give it some serious thought. What do you think she showed me there? If you get it right, I'll pay the bill."

I cleared my throat. "She showed you the gorgeous clothes you have on. And told you to wear them to work."

"You win," she said. "She has this rich friend with clothes to spare who's just about the same size as me. Isn't life strange? There are people who have so many leftover clothes they can't stuff them all in their wardrobe. And then there are people like me, whose socks never match. Anyway, I don't mind. She went over to her friend's house and came back with an armful of these leftovers. They're just a bit out of fashion if you look carefully, but most people wouldn't notice."

I wouldn't know no matter how closely I looked, I told her.

Sumire smiled contentedly. "The clothes fit me like a glove. The dresses, blouses, skirts - everything. I'll have to take in the waist a bit, but put a belt on and you'd never know the difference. My shoe size, fortunately, is almost the same as Miu's, so she let me have some pairs she doesn't need. High heels, low heels, summer sandals. All with Italian names on them. Handbags, too. And a little make-up."

"A regular Jane Eyre," I said.

Dialogue

The dialogue is written in two different styles. Firstly, with the usual quotations: "A regular Jane Eyre", but also as a direct tell to the reader: I wouldn't know no matter how closely I looked, I told her.

Murakami uses this to break up conversations, much in the same way as changing sentence length changes the pace of the narrative. In his latest book: After Dark he resorted to colons: Kaori: "Well, I never". It's an interesting choice and it works, but I'm not yet sure why.

Adverbs

In eight lines of dialogue there are two adverbs. Their use: I said humbly and Sumire smiled contentedly, keep the pace of the dialogue going. The reader isn't side-tracked with a list of what each character is doing at this time, or with an elongated discussion on relating just how contented Sumire looks.

We're all told we should avoid adverbs and adjectives however Murakami shows their perfect use. He is taking the dialogue and modifying slightly to enhance their manner. And sprinkled disparatley they have greater power. If, "put it down to an impoverished intellect" hadn't included the defining I said humbly the reader could easily, and wrongly, imagine that the character, K, giving a wink or a self-important smile of his own - which would be out of character certainly.

And with Sumire, we get a spiel that pours out of her about clothes, serving, from her contented smile to consolidate her infatuation not so much with the clothes but with her love interest Miu.

These short adverb breaks help the dialogue inform the reader on these characters. Sumire has until now dressed like the Beatnik Jack Kerouac, is turning by proxy into a woman as her infatuation with Miu grows.

K's character comes across in his wit, his references and his self deprecation.

Beats

We can use the sparse descriptions of movement or manner to inform the reader on the beats of the scene. During conversation Murakami only relates a change in expression or a movement when a character reacts to something - ahh, the art of brevity:

1. Sumire frowned and sighed.
- she is upset by K's joke.

2. I said humbly.
- K tries to ingratiate himself by making a self deprecating statement. He didn't mean to offend.

3. I cleared my throat.
- K is preparing to say something important (and of course, we have the distinct impression, or at least I do, that he fancies Sumire. He's not averse to giving her a compliment).
- She doesn't pick up on it. There is no reaction, because...

4. Sumire smiled contentedly.
- ... whether or not she picks up on his compliments she seems more enamoured with all thought of Miu than K.

Beats

So, here I am rewriting one of my short stories into a Monologue, whilst bearing in mind what my tutor has told me:

... you will need to do a lot of filtering to pitch your work for speaking actors... you need greater economy in indicating space and time, and you need to pace the pieces around what playwrights call ‘beats’ – the changes of direction which give a performer a clue to mood and keep the audience on their toes...

http://wondering-mind.blogspot.com/2007/03/professional-development-collaborative.html

http://www.ehow.com/tips_5213.html has this to say about beats in a Monologue:

Divide your monologue into "beats." Within each beat, analyze your
character's objective, actions, and emotions. A beat changes every time the character's objective changes. Beats usually work best when analyzing an entire script.

But, I also found the following on: http://dannystack.blogspot.com/2005/12/beat-sheets.html:

‘Beats’ are the dramatic structure of your scene. They help build to the
point and purpose of what you want to establish.

Perhaps a better example would be the Ghostbusters scene I referred to a few posts back when we meet Peter and Ray for the first time. The purpose of the scene is to introduce them as characters, show that they’re involved in the paranormal and get them to the library where the ghost has appeared.

But the drama/comedy of the scene is played out with Peter trying to impress a vacuous blonde with his paranormal test and Ray coming in spoiling his moves before they go on their way. The scene has three beats.

Beat 1: Peter tries to impress the blonde by favouring her answers over the geek who he supplies with electric shocks and the geek, fed up, leaves.

Beat 2: Peter moves in on the blonde, buttering her up for his seduction.

Beat 3: Ray bounds in, interrupts, and forces Peter to dump the blonde so that they can check out the ghost in the library.

It's important to note that a 'beat' is not an exchange of dialogue. They're mini-beats if you like, to help progress to the proper beat. For
example, Peter, the blonde and the geek go through a few funny exchanges but the beat is for Peter to impress the blonde and be alone with her.

In writing for soaps, quite often you are given the “story beats” of the serial element. For example, you may get the story line: “John goes to tell Sarah that he’s impotent but he can’t quite summon the courage. Sheila and Maria prepare to adopt their first child together.” Etc. So, as the writer, you’re looking at this outline, and these story beats, and thinking of how to break it down into small dramatic beats of action so that you can do each scene justice.

I don’t know a lot of writers who actually take the time and bother to write a full ‘beat sheet’ (where you list the scene’s purpose and its relevant beats). Crikey, sometimes an outline and treatment can be hard enough without having to go to this much detail. But if you attempt a scene by scene breakdown or a ‘step outline’ then this is essentially expressing the key beats of what’s happening and how it’s going to be dramatised.

In writing for TV, it’s invaluable and obligatory, and perhaps if we all took the time to do it with our features then our scripts would have that extra edge of efficiency, drive and purpose to make the characters and drama truly stand out.

So, I need to pay heed to this in my screenplay also. Gah! Should have guessed this... McKee's been talking on and on about it in Story. It's about time I re-read that too.