For the past two weeks, I have found myself writing the first drafts of scenes entirely in dialogue without any narrative, exposition, description, or even tags to indicate who is speaking. Then I go back and fill in the details in a second pass through the scene.
I think I developed this habit because I was trying to do a better job of show don’t tell, but it’s helped me learn about how I imagine scenes in my head. First, I hear them and then I see them. While it takes several passes, I feel like I get to layer this way, like adding more and more paint to the canvas. It’s made me feel that perhaps the dialogue is the key element for me as a writer. But know that I need to get over my fear of writing narrative and description, because they can be part of active, show-y writing as much as dialogue.
Do you write scenes start to finish in one pass or do you write them over several sittings, focusing on different elements each time?
Emma Barry 