Dialogue in journal style short story

Orion101

Hello,

I'm working on a short story, written in the style of a journal and would like to work in some dialogue. I think this may have been done in Dracula, but it seems that this is against the norm for stories of this type, possibly because if time has passed, the narrator would likely struggle to remember what exactly has been said.

Does anyone have any observations on, or experience with, this?

What about justifying the clarity of memory with the significance of what follows?

bigsmokewriting

It's possible to get away with including bits of dialogue but if you find yourself including a lot, journal style probably isn't the best. As you say, the idea is that with a journal someone's recording events after they've happened, so that their memory is likely to be a little fuzzy - but obviously people tend to remember important things like insults, compliments, secrets, confessions, etc in more detail.

The Mad Hatter

If I was doing it, I'd be thinking of ways to make the unreliability of remembered dialogue feature in the story somehow. But that's how I write anyways.

I'd say for the most part you could go with indirect speech: "He told me I had a big head," rather than direct: "Dear diary, 'You have a big head,' he said."

(And before you ask, I have no idea.)

mathepac

Just an observation, but didn't Dracula include letters to/from the main protagonist, Jonathan the newly minted lawyer, as well his diary entries and extracts from the log of the wrecked ship, so there were multiple story-tellers with a diversity of perspectives on the story?

I know that what (IMHO) worked very well in a Gothic novel might not work in a short story, but it created opportunities for "delayed" or "remote" dialogue as well as musings on written communications.

EileenG

I reckon you'd use a lot of reported speech, but for the important things, you can use direct speak.

eg. ...We were talking about how different hair products worked, and she said it depended on your type of hair, and she kept going on about it and then she looked at me and said "Your hair is too frizzy to be able to style at all, you should just shave it off." I just spluttered something stupid, I was too shocked to think of anything to say...."

Orion101

thanks Eileen - found this useful. There's a lot of interaction between characters in the story, and I'm finding that too much reported speech is dragging it down.