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IWW Practice-W Exercise Archives
Exercise: Overheard

These exercises were written by IWW members and administrators to provide structured practice opportunities for its members. You are welcome to use them for practice as well. Please mention that you found them at the Internet Writers Workshop (http://www.internetwritingworkshop.org/).

Prepared by: Ruth Douillette
Posted May 28, 2006




Writers are always on the lookout for good story ideas. An overheard conversation often produces a spark upon which a plot can be built. Perhaps it's the cell phone conversation in the grocery store that provides fodder for a mystery plot.

But what do you do with it?

This exercise will focus on dialogue enhancement. Take the snippets of dialogue provided below and imagine a setting in which this conversation might take place, and the characters who might speak these lines. In 300 words or less, write a scene around the given dialogue so that we understand the characters, where they are and why the conversation is taking place.

Your "enhancement" might make the conversation humorous, angry, heartbreaking, or just an ordinary dinner table chat. Through your addition of narrative and dialogue tags, the reader should be able to clearly see two characters in a particular setting having this particular conversation. Here are the lines you overheard:

"I can't believe you just said that."

"Why? What's wrong with that?"

"You're kidding me, right?"

"Hey, it's the truth. I call it like I see it."

" But, under the circumstances . . . "

In 300 words or less, write a scene around the above dialogue so we understand the characters, where they are and why the conversation is taking place.

When critiquing, let writers know if the dialogue makes sense for the characters and setting chosen. Do you know where the action takes place? Are personalities revealed? Are the dialogue tags helpful in enhancing the story without being stilted? How could the writers have made scenes better?


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Modified by Gayle Surrette.