Today on our blog we have a Q & A with writer Dan Crawley, who will be leading a workshop at our upcoming FlashFest:
WHAT IS SAID AND WHAT IS DONE: EFFECTIVE DIALOGUE AND ACTION TO REVEAL CHARACTER WITH DAN CRAWLEY BUY TICKETS HERE.
What made you choose this particular topic for your session?
I think both dialogue and action can work individually and in tandem to reveal characters successfully. Plus, they can move the narration forward in interesting ways. I tend to babble too much in the first drafts of my stories, so when I let characters do their thing, it opens up my writing to exciting new possibilities
What do you hope participants will get out of it?
I hope everyone will come away from this workshop with amazing dialogue/action moments to include into their own characters and stories. I love how the characters will surprise us by what they say or do. I’m looking forward to sharing stories, discussing these devices with everyone, and accomplishing some dialogue/action writing of our own!
Do you have a favourite piece of writing that reflects this topic? Either your own or someone else’s.
Raymond Carver is a master of using these two devices together to create indelible characters. “Night School” is one story that uses these tools very effectively. We will be reading his writing and other writers’ flash fictions that showcase amazing dialogue and action.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m writing new flash fictions and micros all the time. But I tend to write slowly these days, enjoying the process. Also, I’ve got a new novella-in-flash brewing.
Where can we find out more about you and your writing?
Thanks for asking! I’m on twitter at https://twitter.com/danbillyc and here is my website https://dancrawley.com/
Dan Crawley is the author of Straight Down the Road (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2019), The Wind, It Swirls (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2021) and Blur (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2023). His writing appears in numerous journals and anthologies, including JMWW, Lost Balloon, North American Review, SmokeLong Quarterly: The Best of the First Ten Years 2003-2013, Wigleaf, Quarterly West, and Atticus Review. He is a recipient of an Arizona Commission on the Arts creative writing fellowship. Also, he has multiple nominations for Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and a Pushcart Prize. He has been teaching creative writing, composition, and literature courses for 27 years at a number of community colleges and universities throughout the Southwest. And for three years, he was a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Northern Arizona University, leading fiction workshops at all levels.