I think Sharley's Wobbly Ducks must be a species related to my Wonky Ducks, as discussed here:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2009/04/ugly-ducklings-and-wonky-ducks.html

That post also links into the Voice question.

Oh, she was quoting you, Emma, and I might have misremembered. She probably did say wonky ducks. Thanks for the link.

Yep, I was thinking wonky as the misshaped variety rather than falling over - and in terms of Emma's blog.

Ah, my fault, then. Wonky it is. Wonky I am.

Whereas I'm a bit wobbly...

We can be wonky and wobbly together... But let's hope not for long.

wonky and wobbly

!

Blogpost is here - thank you SOOOO much Deb for raising this.

I suspect it's going to be very popular, and I'm certainly putting it into the resources section - I know that it's a problem I see a lot of in students' work, but haven't had a label for till now.

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2013/03/ping-pong-dialogue.html

<Added>

Ha! Another writer-teacher friend commented on FB that she's just used "ping-pong dialogue" in an editorial report ... it's obviously in the ether.

The blog entry is great, Emma. You explain things so clearly. I am honoured that my query has been immortalised.

I should be the one thanking you, though, for your sterling advice as always.

Deb

I was right - it is doing well - several RTs of the link, and 500 pageviews in a bit over 24 hours, and the majority of those either the blog in general, where it's at the top, or that page specifically...

I realise I've just committed some very ping-pong dialogue, because

a) it's a phone call - which is much talking-head-ier than any other kind of dialogue

b) it's a crucial little turn in the plot, but my imagination wasn't working at the level of what the PoV character might be thinking, or doing, as he talks.

So I concentrated on putting down the line-by-line moves towards the moment when the PoV character suddenly resigns his job, and made a note that it may need a bit of fleshing out later, if it's too bony as it is.

Oooh, glad it's doing well, Emma!

It's also reassuring to hear that you do ping-pong too, occasionally, as a first draft. So I guess it's okay to do it so long as one watches out for it like a hawk when redrafting, and amends appropriately.

I find that late in the book it's often quite ping-pongy in first draft, because I know exactly where the conversation is trying to go and just need to work out - line by line - how it gets there. Plus, I'm not also trying to sneak information and setting in under cover of the dialogue, because most of that work has been done.

The drawbacks of letting it be ping-pongy (I've just made a note on that passage that it'll need work) are a) that you forget to flesh it out with gesture and sense-data and stuff, just to make the scene alive and present and all-involving

But, more seriously, the danger is b) that you forget to use whatever it takes to get the reader to "hear" what one or more character is thinking, and most of all the subtext - which they may not be conscious of thinking at all.

The point I was making about whether gesture etc. accords with the dialogue, or is in counterpoint with it, is hugely important in thinking about what dialogue is doing in the scene - and the story. We're not writing radio plays, which makes it easier, of course: we have all the tricks of the fiction-writer at our disposal, for going inside heads and expressing the gap between the outer and the inner world - and we shouldn't forget to use them.

we have all the tricks of the fiction-writer at our disposal, for going inside heads and expressing the gap between the outer and the inner world - and we shouldn't forget to use them.

Thanks Emma - this is useful. I need to do more of that.

Longing for the migraines to clear up so I can get to grips with the MS again.

Aha - fascinating comment on my blog post: apparently "ping-pong dialogue" is a common complaint in scriptwriting, where it refers to dialogue which states straight out what the character wants: the character say what they want to say to each other, rather than going via subtext and indirection, as we do in real life.