Struggling With Dialogue

For writing, I use a software called WriteMonkey, which is great for a number of reasons, but in particular, I like the scratch pile feature, which is implemented via plugin. It's basically a collection of loose notes that shows up every time you hit Ctrl+N. I started this scrap by remarking on how great a feature it is, and moved on to lament over writer's block. Often, when I can't think of what to write, I will ask myself what to write through dialogue on the page, as if there's a me behind the screen that answers back. These exchanges (and all dialogue, in fact) are marked by a ">" at the start of each line. "+++" marks a page break, and "//" at the start of a line is a comment to myself.

I like this scrap pile. It gives form to the message, "You don't have to write something in particular." It says, "Here, write anything. Make a grocery list. List the first 30 words that come to your mind. Don't worry about categorizing. Don't think about where you'll save this file on your hard drive. Write something interesting just for the sake of interesting things."

Recently I was contacted by a friend who is working on a graphic novel and needs someone to write dialogue for it. Of course I would love to be the one, but I'm unsure, if not apprehensive, of my dialogue ability. I've begun to notice that most of my writing is narrative. An overwhelming majority, at least. I want to test my dialogue abilities, and I think I should dedicate this scratch document to dialogue. No writing time limits, word counts, or limitations; Just include dialogue.

I started browsing reddit for inspiration, and it worked. I found some. There were a few great photographs, some funnies, and a song, but right on the front page -- I swear I was meant to find it -- was a text writing prompt. It read: ***"Humans are one of the most feared species in the Galaxy. Not due to superior strength, speed, skill, or strategy. In fact, it's because in comparison to the other species, humans are batshit-crazy enough to try any half-assed plan they come up with."*** Before I even had time to think of how it might apply to *TanT*, it clicked in my head like magic. The people unfortunate enough to have been trapped on fallen worlds, engulfed by the tide as the war raged, and the Terrans lost, *would be those people*! Especially if they were stranded early enough in the war, before the gene-fixing and adaptation began. Those on any planetside in the Sol system, and any are left alive on Earth, would be perhaps not much different in kind from humans of today. The inherent dangers of such planets would make them cautious and intuitive. Natural selection would ensure they are intelligent, but not pushing the boundaries of human limits or anything, and without safe, stable, at least semi-permanent residency, and education, their kind of intelligence might be hard to recognize. *The brutal natures of these environments would make them brutal in kind, and ready to risk everything on a plan made in a moment of epiphany.*

> Still, now I struggle to come up with dialogue.

> Don't *"come up"* with dialogue; Just type what you hear.

+++

> Type.

The green cursor blinked in an out over this field on the screen in front of me. I looked back at the sample in its transpara-steel container. I wasn't sure.

> o r i g i n  u n k n o w n.

I typed the letters in one-by-one on the keypad, and with that little box filled in, I moved to the next.

+++

// It seems like I can only write true text when I'm writing about how I can't write. It seems like acceccing this expressive part of me when I'm trying to speak from the perspective of someone on another planet, doing something extra-ordinary, with superpowers is a rare occurence I have no say in. At this point, I'm tired, my eyes are rolling, heavy in my skull, and I want to give up and go to sleep. But I don't want to give up without having wrote something, so please tell me: What am I doing wrong? Please let go. I want to hear the little voice that writes.

> First of all, you're trying too hard to push it out. It's not a cheeseburger you ate yesterday, it's *expression*. You can't force yourself to express something, any more than you can force yourself to feel. If a lady, in space somewhere, tagging crap she hauled up from the surface of some planet, is not what you're feeling right now, then you won't be able to write well about it. Maybe make a note of the idea for later, if that lady is part of a larger work, and you just can't get a hold of that section at the moment, but Zee, you're an *experience* writer. It is an incredible gift, and a terrible trouble. Your writing is so well recieved because the words, composition, rhythm, and imagery are a performance to the reader. You give people a vivid experience that they rarely, if ever, have. The catch is that the experience has to be yours. You must know what it feels like to be a woman cataloguing aliens in space. You must know how it feels, and what it looks like, tastes like... Rather, perhaps instead of writing about a lady typing on her space-computer in space -- how boring! -- tell about her dreary desk job, where she feels incompetent, undervalued, and out of her league, and how she dreams of going planetside to see for herself what those ancient, demolished Fell Worlds look like, to bring back some new, revolutionary artifact or lifeform. You *know* how that feels. You have *been* stuck at a job you hate, where you don't feel you belong, sitting at a desk, when you would rather be outside, looking for cool rocks and shit. Just find & replace "cool rocks" with "alien stuff", and you've pretty much got the story.

+++

> TYPE:
//We can make this well thought out or whatever later, if need be, but honestly, forget about it.

Kassie stared at the green block cursor, blinking over the field on her screen. She zoned into it, seeing the green on black, blink... blink... blink... She glanced at the clock. 5:3:344,