Role Play and Real Play

Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter - What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts - 

The Exercise - 

Have a fellow writer do this exercise with you. Make up situations involving two people who disagree about something - for example, two friends who have planned to shoplift something, and one is getting cold feet. Or a landlord and a tenant disagree about the terms of a lease. Next, tape your dialogue as you and your friend "act out" the two "roles" in a scene. Don't decide what you're going to say ahead of time. Improvise, through dialogue, as you go along. Then transcribe the dialogue exactly as it was said.

Here is where your writer's ear comes in. Read over the written account of your scene. How much of the original exchange is useful for your story? How much of the dialogue might you summarize? And are there any "perfect" lines that you would keep? Finally, try writing the scene using the transcribed dialogue to give shape to the scene. How much of the original dialogue would you keep?

The Objective - 

To hear and see how real talk is repetitive, disjointed, and boring. At the same time, to train your writer's ear to transform actual speech into carefully crafted dialogue.

Author's note: Hubby didn't want to do the role play and taping with me, so I tricked him into doing the following with me.

Me: I'm taking Austin to work this morning. I'll be leaving about 10:40. He needs to be there at 11:30.

Hubby: Huh? Where? What are you doing?

Me: What do you mean?

Hubby: Where are you working?

Me: I'm taking Austin to work. Are you okay? (Have to make sure he isn't having a stroke - he is 75 after all)

Hubby: Ohhh, I thought you said you were going to work.

Chuckles from both of us. Typical conversation as one of us isn't hearing 100%

Me: You need hearing aids! 

Hubby: Uh ah. No, I don't!

Me: Why is it so hard for you to admit? What is it called … you get a pension for your hearing loss!! (laughter from both.)

Me: Money every month for hearing loss. Why is it so hard to admit you need hearing aids? Then I break into song - You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you, don't you? It is!

Hubby: No, no, you forget to say Austin and then blame me for not hearing right!! (laughing from both)

Me: Denial, denial, denial… okay, that's enough, we aren't getting anywhere.

Hubby: You just can't admit you forgot to say Austin when you told me where you were going! (I leave the room laughing, and as I leave, I get the last word in.)

Me: Denial!

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Okay, now here is my written version without the dialogue:

When my husband appears to miss what I am saying, I mention how he may need hearing aids. Sometimes he pretends to hear me and doesn't look befuddled. Today he did. We laughed throughout the conversation, as it had happened a few times before, and he knows I'm right. 

We are both in recovery, and that makes it difficult to live in denial, but he is trying with the hearing aid business. It is not my decision, so he will probably not get hearing aids until something he misses causes him some kind of hardship.

It could be vanity, so I manage to sing to him while we are going back and forth in our disagreement. Singing is a part of teasing each other, and he loves that part, especially when it is he who is singing.