Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different

by Chuck Palahniuk

It’s only in porn that the talky parts work better at the beginning.

Our church, St. Patrick’s, had no lock on the front door until I was a teenager. You could go inside and feel safe and collect your thoughts. Now only shops keep such hours so it’s no surprise that shopping has become our comforting pastime. The twenty-four-hour supermarket has replaced the twenty-four-hour sanctuary.

It’s the main character, Rynn, in The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane who is forced to kill those who want to molest her. Or it’s Dolores Claiborne in Stephen King’s book of the same name, who tries to kill her suffering, suicidal employer.

Unknown at the time, emerald green or “Paris Green” dyes contained heavy amounts of arsenic. The deeper the color, the more poisonous the fabric. Up to half the velvet’s weight could be arsenic, thus six pounds of Scarlett O’Hara’s dress might contain three pounds of dissolved arsenic.

So avoid tennis-match dialogue. That’s where one character says something, and another responds with the perfect quip. Think of situation comedy dialogue. Snappy comebacks. Perfect rejoinders. Setup and spike. Instant gratification. Tension is created and instantly resolved. So it never accumulates. The energy remains flat. For example: Wendy snuck a glance at him. “Do you have herpes?” Brandon looked away. Gradually, his gaze came back to hers. “Yes. I do.” Question answered. Conflict settled. Energy returns to a big, boring zero.

Instead, if you were my student I’d tell you to never resolve an issue until you introduce a bigger one.