1. Community

    Community New Member

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    Can you suggest a good novel that is very dialogue heavy?

    Discussion in 'Discussion of Published Works' started by Community, Jul 11, 2010.

    I want to read a book (not including plays) that consists of lots of dialogue in it. Not necessarily from beginning to end but atleast have big sections where it's basically just characters talking back and forth. Can you think of any?

    Thanks
     
  2. arron89

    arron89 Banned

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    Most of Bret Easton Ellis' books are quite dialogue-heavy. In fact, he has one story (in The Informers) that is just dialogue.
     
  3. w176

    w176 Contributor Contributor

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    If you are into fantasy (and even if you are an extremely picky fantasy reader and genre cynical at that) the polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher short stories and novels is dialogue heavy and manage to tell fantastic scenes just relying on dialogue quite often. That man can really write, and the stories are an easy read technically and still handle hard themes gracefully while still managing to tell a story with action.

    I don't even like the sub-genre of a lone fighter dealing with the world but Andrzej Sapkowski gives me hope for the whole subgenre and show that it can have lovely literary qualities.
     
  4. Cogito

    Cogito Former Mod, Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Are you looking for powerful dialogue, or just large quantities of it?

    If you want to see dialogue used well, and fairly plentiful, read Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.
     
  5. arron89

    arron89 Banned

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    It's no coincidence that B.E.E. cites this as his greatest influence...definitely worth reading.
     
  6. Scrynen

    Scrynen New Member

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    White Noise.
     
  7. Evelyanin

    Evelyanin New Member

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    One of my personal favorites is the Sherlock Holmes series. Though most of them wouldn't be novels, there is one that you might call a short novel. The easy thing is, you can read one story, and if you don't like it, you don't have to read the rest.
    Basically, most of the stories are told from Dr. Watson's point of view, but since he isn't the main character, and isn't always present, a lot of talking goes on. Usually the victim of a strange crime needs to explain what happened, so a lot of the time is spent sitting in the parlor talking. Yet I still find it fascinating. Of course, there are times when Sherlock has to go out and investigate (He isn't perfect, ha ha), but overall, they still do a lot of talking.

    The one problem I can think of is that it often includes just one character narrating a story, so at times, the back and forth isn't as frequent as you might be looking for.
     

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