And in the morning, I'm making waffles!

by Alison Janssen

Today I want to talk to you about how good dialogue is like a waffle.

(And in case you're wondering about the headline, I used to be a nanny for a toddler who was obsessed with Shrek. We played Shrek every day, and he was allowed to watch Shrek up to three times a day -- and "watching" Shrek meant having it on in the background while we acted out each scene. Obviously, the little kiddo always wanted to be the title ogre, which left me as ... No, I wasn't allowed to be Princess Fiona. I had to be Donkey. And Donkey liked to make waffles.)

But anyway, good dialogue. How is it like a waffle? Well, think back to your last waffle breakfast. Imagine how those tall ridges turn kindof crispy and brown on the top, and how the valleys between them are golden brown and a little bit squishy. When you put a big buttery pat of butter on top of your waffle, it melted and gathered into those valleys, and then the syrup added another layer of sweet deliciousness to each little butter puddle.

Waffles need those ridges and valleys, that's what makes them good. Your dialogue is the same way: it needs ridges -- the structure of the dialogue itself -- but it also needs valleys -- time for your characters to think and feel and have those reactions pool in a little puddle of goodness before they speak again.

Basically, I'm just talking about adding "beats" to dialogue, and I had waffles for breakfast.

Take this bit of dialogue:

"What? I'm expelled from school? But why? Well, ok, there was that time I started a waffle fight in the cafeteria but come on, that was just for fun and no one got hurt or anything. How about if instead of expelled I'm just suspended for a day, and I can come back tomorrow so I won't miss my violin concert?"

It all runs together without any beats added, and the character is thinking and feeling and changing tactics too quickly for a reader to keep pace. It's exhausting. (This style does have its uses, for action scenes or if a character is feeling breathless and desperate, but overuse will tire your readers out.)

If you write plays or screenplays, this is an easy fix. You can just add in (pause) and the actors will pause.

"What? I'm expelled from school? But why? (pause) Well, ok, there was that time I started a waffle fight in the cafeteria but come on, that was just for fun and no one got hurt or anything. (pause) How about if instead of expelled I'm just suspended for a day, and I can come back tomorrow so I won't miss my violin concert?"

But if you're writing fiction, you need to find a way to let your characters have time to think thoughts and feel feelings, and you don't want to *tell* the reader, you want to *show* them, so you have to come up with creative ways to add in beats.

"What? I'm expelled from school? But why?" Fiona's stomach sank when she remembered the previous Tuesday. "Well, ok, there was that time I started a waffle fight in the cafeteria but come on, that was just for fun and no one got hurt or anything." She couldn't panic. If Principle Bails saw her get agitated, he'd expell her for sure, the wicked little troll. Fiona steadied her breath and decided to negotiate. "How about if instead of expelled I'm just suspended for a day, and I can come back tomorrow so I won't miss my violin concert?"

The beats -- or butter puddles, if you prefer (and who wouldn't?!) -- give the reader a break and clue them in to Fiona's inner workings. Without them, Fiona comes across as flat as a pancake.

And everyone knows waffles > pancakes.