Story & Scene
Compare three dialogue replies
Seven optional prompts. Read online or download plain text; your answers stay with you.
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Choose the invented situation below or work in your own private notes. You can skip any prompt. Nothing on this page collects or saves your writing.
Two sisters are closing their late father's repair shop. Mara wants to keep the shop open. Nell has accepted a job elsewhere. Mara sees a train ticket and asks, “Are you leaving on Friday?”
Try the alternatives
- What question does one person want answered?
- What does the listener risk by answering plainly?
- Write a candid reply and the next response.
- Write a redirected reply and the next response.
- Write a response expressed through action and the next response.
- Under each version, record what the listener knows, suspects, or cannot tell.
- Which continuation interests you? Keep, combine, or discard any version.
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A direct answer may make room for the conversation the scene needs. A redirected answer may create a reason to ask again. An action may leave several meanings open. These are alternatives, not a ranking from weak to strong.
Keep the version that helps you continue. If none does, change the question or set the exercise aside. You do not need to submit your answers or explain why you prefer a version.
Where this comes from
This worksheet's prompts and invented repair-shop situation are original editorial material developed with the companion dialogue guide. That guide discusses John Fox's publicly available Bookfox article and distinguishes source advice from these examples. The worksheet does not reproduce a source worksheet or literary excerpt.