The Art of Embracing Comfortable Silence

A few weeks ago, my younger son said, "Mom, let's go out to breakfast." We went to a local spot, and as I took my seat, I instantly noticed an older married couple across the way. One sipped cranberry juice, the other iced tea. And they sat quietly. As my son and I chatted away about his plans for the weekend I kept stealing glances at the couple. There was no tension, I could tell. They looked so comfortable being quiet. So at ease.

In between my bites of gluten free creamed chipped beef over home fries, my brain turned to writing. Because of course it did. I'm a writer and our brains are always turning to writing.

Sometimes, when we're writing dialogue, it's okay to let our characters not respond - to be silent. This is something I learned from the genius who is my friend and the writer I co-authored a contemporary YA psychological novel with, Elisa Ludwig (more on that novel soon). One of her critique notes: don't have her answer here - let his question hang. She was right, as usual.

She also taught me how to lessen the "ping pong dialogue" throughout my manuscripts. I used to write my dialogue exactly how a conversation would go in real life. I had characters going back and forth and back and forth - many, many lines of dialogue were completely unnecessary in moving my plot forward, and instead, bogged it down.

We obviously need dialogue in novels. The question is: how much? I challenge you to go through your WIP and cut extraneous dialogue. Tighten it up. Ask yourself: does this character exchange serve the story? Is it necessary?

Perhaps you'll spend some time in a diner with an iced tea and your WIP, lost in comfortable silence.