Describing/recalling conversations that happened

[tomlitilia]

Background: I've always hated erotic stories that involves "you". It never worked for me, maybe because I know I didn't do what the narrator tells me I did. But I like a good challenge, so I've decided to try my hand at it, and the way I hope it can work is to write the story as a letter, in this case as a written confession from a wife to her husband (oh yes, it's an LW tale).

Problem: What I find most challenging with the letter format is when (in this case) the wife describes conversations. Using quotation marks like a normal story doesn't work because it breaks the style; no one would use quotation marks in a letter. Instead I end up with the wife giving the synopsis of conversations, but that has it's own problems. It's a lot of "I said..." and "he said..." It ends up boring and dense.

Question: Does someone have good pointers for how to write conversation synopses in this style that doesn't make the narration stale? Also grateful for good examples.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

Dialog is challenging in any point of view, IMO. I try to reduce the he said/she said as much as I can, but that's at the risk of losing the reader.

For something like 2nd person, where the story tells what "you" do, I'm not sure how that'd work with a letter. Is it something like,

You sigh, and put pen to paper. "Henry, I'm sorry to have to tell you this,
but I cheated on you. Remember Darryl? We fucked just after the office party
when you'd gone to home feeling sick."

A tear runs down your cheek, landing on the paper. This is so hard for you.

 

[tomlitilia]

Dialog is challenging in any point of view, IMO. I try to reduce the he said/she said as much as I can, but that's at the risk of losing the reader.

For something like 2nd person, where the story tells what "you" do, I'm not sure how that'd work with a letter. Is it something like,

You sigh, and put pen to paper. "Henry, I'm sorry to have to tell you this,
but I cheated on you. Remember Darryl? We fucked just after the office party
when you'd gone to home feeling sick."

A tear runs down your cheek, landing on the paper. This is so hard for you.

Well, that's not in line with the letter format. It's not 2nd person per se. "You" just exist as a character "I" am confessing to.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think I would use regular dialogue formatting in this situation, even if I thought it might not be strictly realistic in terms of what I likely would do in a confessional letter.

Why? Two reasons.

First, it's much more pleasing and easier to read than if you narrate all the dialogue. That's just not fun to read.

Second, readers will become accustomed to it. You can make readers accustomed to almost any convention as long as it's clear and you are consistent about using it.

So that's what I'd suggest.

 

[tomlitilia]

I think I would use regular dialogue formatting in this situation, even if I thought it might not be strictly realistic in terms of what I likely would do in a confessional letter.

Why? Two reasons.

First, it's much more pleasing and easier to read than if you narrate all the dialogue. That's just not fun to read.

Second, readers will become accustomed to it. You can make readers accustomed to almost any convention as long as it's clear and you are consistent about using it.

So that's what I'd suggest.

I tried it and it doesn't work for me. It breaks the voice and the main character (narrator) becomes less believable.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

It might help to share an example of a bit where you've used that perspective and felt it didn't work, especially the transition from the letter writer's narrative to the letter writer quoting a previous conversation.

 

[tomlitilia]

It might help to share an example of a bit where you've used that perspective and felt it didn't work, especially the transition from the letter writer's narrative to the letter writer quoting a previous conversation.

Fair enough. Here is the said-heaviest paragraph so far:

The mood changed quickly, and it didn’t feel so odd to simply ask if they had looked at pictures. At first, they were cautious, but it didn’t take much encouraging to get them to admit they had. Ben said I probably didn’t want to know how much. I laughed and said I actually did. It was just silly banter, but from there on we didn’t have to pretend it hadn’t happened. We talked about the photo shoot, and they said they never thought I’d agree to do it. I told them I surprised myself too, but I didn’t have any regrets--which was true. I mean, I regretted it afterwards, but it might be the best best mistake of my life if it revealed that I don’t have to hide from you that I’m a bit of an exhibitionist. OK, more than just a bit, it turns out.

 

[NotWise]

Fair enough. Here is the said-heaviest paragraph so far:

The mood changed quickly, and it didn’t feel so odd to simply ask if they had looked at pictures. At first, they were cautious, but it didn’t take much encouraging to get them to admit they had. Ben said I probably didn’t want to know how much. I laughed and said I actually did. It was just silly banter, but from there on we didn’t have to pretend it hadn’t happened. We talked about the photo shoot, and they said they never thought I’d agree to do it. I told them I surprised myself too, but I didn’t have any regrets--which was true. I mean, I regretted it afterwards, but it might be the best best mistake of my life if it revealed that I don’t have to hide from you that I’m a bit of an exhibitionist. OK, more than just a bit, it turns out.

This is written in first person and addresses "you" only once. Aside from being a fairly long paragraph, I don't have much problem with it. You're simply relating a story to an audience of one. I would treat dialogue as in any other first person story.

 

[SimonDoom]

Fair enough. Here is the said-heaviest paragraph so far:

The mood changed quickly, and it didn’t feel so odd to simply ask if they had looked at pictures. At first, they were cautious, but it didn’t take much encouraging to get them to admit they had. Ben said I probably didn’t want to know how much. I laughed and said I actually did. It was just silly banter, but from there on we didn’t have to pretend it hadn’t happened. We talked about the photo shoot, and they said they never thought I’d agree to do it. I told them I surprised myself too, but I didn’t have any regrets--which was true. I mean, I regretted it afterwards, but it might be the best best mistake of my life if it revealed that I don’t have to hide from you that I’m a bit of an exhibitionist. OK, more than just a bit, it turns out.

A few thoughts.

1. I don't know how long your story is, but I'd recommend keeping it relatively short. I think it would be hard to read a long story told in this form.

2. If you don't want to formate dialogue in the usual way, I would at the least recommend that sometimes you break up a passage of dialogue so each person's statement is recounted on a separate line. Not all of the time, but some of the time, so as to mix up paragraph length and provide variety.

For instance, the above paragraph could be broken up this way:


The mood changed quickly, and it didn’t feel so odd to simply ask if they had looked at pictures. At first, they were cautious, but it didn’t take much encouraging to get them to admit they had. Ben said I probably didn’t want to know how much.

I laughed and said I actually did.

It was just silly banter, but from there on we didn’t have to pretend it hadn’t happened. We talked about the photo shoot, and they said they never thought I’d agree to do it. I told them I surprised myself too, but I didn’t have any regrets--which was true.

I mean, I regretted it afterwards, but it might be the best best mistake of my life if it revealed that I don’t have to hide from you that I’m a bit of an exhibitionist. OK, more than just a bit, it turns out.

xxx

The first break separates Ben's statement from the narrator's, but it also breaks statement that makes point A from a statement that makes a contrary point, so there's some sense to it. It also emphasizes in a single line the narrator's surprising point.

The second break separates the shift from her specific line to a more general summary of dialogue. It ends with her statement to them about no regrets.

Then the final break separates her recounting a line of dialogue to her readdressing her partner. I think it enhances clarity.

You don't HAVE to do this for this paragraph, but I'd recommend doing this some of the time with your dialogue passages.

 

[AlinaX]

I did a letter series with a fair amount of dialogue. Probably the best is:
https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/bellway-ch-04-dinner

 

[tomlitilia]

This is written in first person and addresses "you" only once. Aside from being a fairly long paragraph, I don't have much problem with it. You're simply relating a story to an audience of one. I would treat dialogue as in any other first person story.

The story have more paragraphs.

 

[tomlitilia]

A few thoughts.

1. I don't know how long your story is, but I'd recommend keeping it relatively short. I think it would be hard to read a long story told in this form.

2. If you don't want to formate dialogue in the usual way, I would at the least recommend that sometimes you break up a passage of dialogue so each person's statement is recounted on a separate line. Not all of the time, but some of the time, so as to mix up paragraph length and provide variety.

For instance, the above paragraph could be broken up this way:


The mood changed quickly, and it didn’t feel so odd to simply ask if they had looked at pictures. At first, they were cautious, but it didn’t take much encouraging to get them to admit they had. Ben said I probably didn’t want to know how much.

I laughed and said I actually did.

It was just silly banter, but from there on we didn’t have to pretend it hadn’t happened. We talked about the photo shoot, and they said they never thought I’d agree to do it. I told them I surprised myself too, but I didn’t have any regrets--which was true.

I mean, I regretted it afterwards, but it might be the best best mistake of my life if it revealed that I don’t have to hide from you that I’m a bit of an exhibitionist. OK, more than just a bit, it turns out.

xxx

The first break separates Ben's statement from the narrator's, but it also breaks statement that makes point A from a statement that makes a contrary point, so there's some sense to it. It also emphasizes in a single line the narrator's surprising point.

The second break separates the shift from her specific line to a more general summary of dialogue. It ends with her statement to them about no regrets.

Then the final break separates her recounting a line of dialogue to her readdressing her partner. I think it enhances clarity.

You don't HAVE to do this for this paragraph, but I'd recommend doing this some of the time with your dialogue passages.

That's a great point. Thanks

 

[SimonDoom]

I did a letter series with a fair amount of dialogue. Probably the best is:
https://www.literotica.com/beta/s/bellway-ch-04-dinner

I think the way you handled dialogue worked well here. You didn't recount long stretches of dialogue, the remembrance of which in a letter would strain plausibility. Just snatches of dialogue that one can imagine somebody actually remembering. The dialogue you recounted was important, and short and memorable. And there was enough of it to give variety to the manner of storytelling. This, to me, is an example of how you can include some dialogue in a letter-story and still make the story believable.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

My first thought is that I don't think readers pay as much attention to repetition of "said" bits as writers do. That's a generalization and one that I'm sure will meet with disagreement, but it's something to think about, especially if you find yourself ruining perfectly good sentences to avoid them. I have massacred paragraphs to try to eliminate similar issues, only to come back long after the fact and realize that I should have left them alone.

My second thought is that part of the problem may be that this isn't how you would write a letter. At least, it doesn't sound like a letter to me. Part of it is that it's a little wordy for a letter of the modern era. I can't really imagining receiving a letter where my correspondent explicated their actions to the same degree. I think you can test this a bit by reading a sentence to yourself and trying to imagine it in a letter you might get from your friend most likely to send a detailed letter.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with "the mood changed quickly, and it didn't feel so odd.." But, it doesn't sound like something I would expect to read in a letter. Of course, that is one of the limitations of this particular POV and delivery method. You recognized the limitations and wanted the challenge, so I'm not knocking the decision to use this point of view. It just may be that you can't use it to convey the same detail you could convey in another format.

I wonder if it would help to weave in some bits that are directed to the letter's recipient in the same way dialog might be? For example:

You know how the mood in a room can suddenly change? That's what happened. All of a sudden, it didn't seem strange to ask if they had seen the pictures. As you can imagine, they were cautious, but it didn't take much encouragement to get them to admit they had. Ben got all sly like he does sometimes - you know how he is. He told me I probably didn’t want to know just how much they'd been looking at the pictures. But, the thing was, I really did want to know. I don't know what came over me, but I just came right out and told him so...

It may seem like it triggers the "you" aversion more than the original, but it might help to make it sound more like a letter and less like a regular narrative. I don't think you can really get rid of the "saids." I think the best you can do is make them work for you. If they're really bugging you, one way to camouflage them is to describe the writer's reaction to what was being said, instead of directly recounting what was said. ("When he told me he saw the pictures, it made me feel X" as opposed to "He said he saw the pictures.") It's not a very subtle slight of hand, but it can break it up. You could also try giving more of a summary than a chronological account. ("That's when they admitted the hadn't just seen the pictures. They'd been enjoying looking at them - a lot.")

Lots of luck working through this!