Who’s Talking: Dialogue and Point of View in Personal Essay
Lesson 3 of 8: Finding Your Essay’s Heartbeat
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Today, we’re going to look at dialogue and point of view—who’s talking and how. Personal essays are often told from the point of view (POV) of a first-person narrator using the pronouns I, me, my, and mine. This is my story based on experiences from my life—so that choice for POV makes sense. But I/me isn’t the only point of view used in personal essay. We’ll explore other POVs and how to present dialogue, too. Let’s dive in.
Here are some thoughts about dialogue before we get into the readings. These questions always come up.
Memory and Dialogue. We don’t walk around recording our daily conversations, so dialogue is recreated. Even though personal essays are true stories, we won’t remember past conversations word for word, no one does. We do our best to represent what was said accurately. We won’t include every line and word from a conversation in our essays—it’s not a trial transcript. We’ll select the dialogue that best moves the narrative and shows the readers who is talking and how.
Presentation. Dialogue can be external, like two people having a conversation, or internal, like an individual thinking in their head. Dialogue can be presented several ways, in quotations, in italics, or with no quotation or italics, and we’ve already seen these different styles in the essays we’ve read so far:
“Really?” he asks, eyeing the tubs. (“Taste Test!” by Eric Lemay)
I’m sorry, I said… (“Swerve” by Brenda Miller)
Oh yes, that’s strep, says the doctor on the screen. The color of that mouth, a dead giveaway. (“Strawberry Tongue” by Danielle Harms)
Try me, he said. (“Generation Gap” by Sarah Moss)
I thought, That sloth is as slow as grief. (Internal Dialogue: “The Sloth” by Jill Christman)
The key is to present dialogue in a consistent way throughout the essay so that your reader understands when someone is talking and who’s talking. Keep dialogue attribution, what comes at the end (or sometimes in middle or beginning), straight forward: he asks, I said, I thought. You can use more active verbs to attribute dialogue, such as he screamed or I shrieked, but do this sparingly. Let the dialogue and action show the emotion, how the words are spoken. And forget the adverbs: he screamed loudly, I shrieked hysterically. These adverbs are redundant. A good editor will strike these out. Again have the dialogue and action do the showing.
Note: With every guideline for creative writing that you are told (by me or anyone else)—there will always be exceptions.
Here’s an example. When writing dialogue and the speaker changes, typically we’ve been told to hit return and start a new line. But in our first Readings, Brenda Miller doesn’t do this, neither does Kate Moss. Huh? But the writers Eric Lemay and Danielle Harms do separate speakers’ dialogue by white space. Phew! As you can see, there is no one set way to present dialogue—the key is to stay consistent and clear, so you don’t lose your reader.
And what’s white space?
The space on a page without words. The empty lines created by hitting return on the keyboard that create white space between lines and paragraphs. White space signals the reader to pause and/or to get ready for a change in speaker or content or approach, like POV.
What if the narrator speaks a language other than English or uses non-English words and phrases?
If the narrator occasionally uses non-English words or phrases in dialogue (or elsewhere in the prose) often the context will be sufficient for the reader to follow. Rely on the reader to “Google it” as needed. Footnotes or a glossary are not necessary in personal essays. If a narrator or other character always speaks in a language other than English, you can include a couple lines, or snippets of dialogue, in that language to show this.
What do I do about accents and dialects in dialogue?
Including words and phrases that demonstrate an accent or dialect can show how the speaker sounds and add to the voice of the essay. But you don’t want the speech or verbal mannerism to distract the reader, a few examples may be all you need to show this. The same goes for slang and colloquialisms. Be careful not to stereotype—use a balanced, minimalistic approach.
“Whiting” by Deesha Philyaw
“The Game for Winners” by Kimberly Elkins
“Badge” by Wendy Fontaine
In “Whiting,” Deesha Philyaw uses yet another way to present dialogue. She starts with the attribution in italics and follows with the dialogue, not in italics but in quotations.
My father said, “I already buttered the grits and the biscuits for you. You know how to pick the bones out the whiting, don’t you?”
She groups his dialogue together in three spots, My father said, My father said, My father said. And maybe she got “creative” with his first long paragraph of dialogue. Maybe that wasn’t said all at one time. What do you think? Does it matter? Does the dialogue still feel authentic and ring true?
Philyaw doesn’t show her responses to her father’s dialogue, or if she did respond. Why do you think Philyaw chose to show only her father’s spoken words? Could that be a way to show the imbalance in their father-daughter relationship? Could that say something about the value of his spoken words in the past and the focus she gives his words now? What do you think?
Please share what you think about Deesha Philyaw’s use of dialogue in the Comments.
One of the great things about personal essay is that there are many ways to write one. As craft goes, there’s nothing off limits. (Your only constraint is telling a true story.) Point of View is another technique you can manipulate to tell your story in a different but authentic way.
First-person, the I POV. In ‘Whiting” the story is told from the daughter’s point of view using a first-person narrator and the pronoun I—and it works. Now let’s see how switching from that traditional POV can impact how a personal essay is told.
First-person plural, the we POV. Kimberley Elkins’ essay, “The Game for Winners,” starts with the pronouns “we” and “us”—first-person plural, a group of kids from school, acting in unison.
We called it fainting. Gathered in a knot at recess or after lunch in an empty corridor or a corner of the gym, wherever the teachers, who’d been told to stop the game, couldn’t find us.
Second-person, the you POV. But by the third sentence in “The Game of Winners,” the essay moves to the second-person POV and uses the pronoun “you,” a singular you, and stays in that POV through the end.
The game went like this: you knelt and breathed deeply, one, two, three, and then jumped up as hard and as fast as you could, a boy’s arms wrapped around you from behind in a bear hug, squeezing the air from your diaphragm.
Why does the narrator tell her story using the pronoun “you?” What effect does that have as you read the essay?
Second-person narration implicates the reader bringing them directly into the story, the reader and narrator become one. Using second person to tell the story creates an interactive, connected, intimate experience for the reader. It can make the reader feel a range of emotions from discomfort and fear to understanding and empathy and more. How did it make you feel?
One person, Two Points of View—The Then and Now Narrators
Let’s look at the essay, “Badge,” by Wendy Fontaine. The essay opens, in scene, with the narrator (in first person, using I) preparing to sell Girl Scout cookies. How old is she? 9? At most 11? Let’s say she’s 10. How do we know her age? From the details! 1. She’s a Girl Scout. 2. She needs her mom’s permission to go to the neighbor’s home. And 3. She is unaware of the slang use of the word pussy.
Over the next five paragraphs the young narrator describes walking through the trailer park, her fear of spiders, and her neighbor’s trailer.
In paragraph six there’s a shift. The narrator says: I don’t know a lot things. And she lists the things she doesn't know at age 10, including the facts that the neighbor is probably stoned and that her father is an alcoholic and depressed.
These are things I’ll learn in time, and there will be no badges for any of it.
Here, the narrator who is speaking is older, more experienced, matured. We’ll call her the now narrator, who in the present moment looks back at herself at age 10, who we’ll call the then narrator. In both situations, now and then, the pronoun I is used—but the narrator is speaking in two different points of time, in two different states of mind—recalling scenes from her 10 -year-old perspective and reflecting as an adult.
Why is this relevant? Because when you write a personal essay you will often be looking at a situation from two perspectives—then and now. Your outlook on the event or situation that you remember, whether it was many years ago or not so long ago, will have changed with time. Your aim in writing personal essay is to uncover the new truth that is revealed in the exploration—that recognition, realization, or epiphany. You as the narrator, the essayist, change from then to now and learn something from the experience.
Can you switch the point of view within an essay? Yes—but have a reason and do it carefully.
If you switch the POV, that change should serve the essay. We saw how Elkins’ switched from “we” to “you” early on in “The Game for Winners.” She started the essay explaining how we, a group of kids, played a furtive game of fainting. But overall this essay is about the narrator, an individual, how she felt when playing this game and how it manifested in her later in life, so Elkins’ moved to a singular POV with you. You want to use the writing craft to support the essay’s throughline. what’s it’s about and what it means.
Switching the narrator’s POV can easily confuse the reader. In a short essay, you can probably change POV once without losing the reader, but not more (there are always exceptions). Inserting white space, i.e., starting a new paragraph, when changing POV, can help the reader to follow and stay on track.
Here I point out some points of craft for each essay, but there’s lots more. Use The Language of Creative Nonfiction Writing Craft resource to help you identify other writing craft. Share what you find in the Comments.
“Whiting” by Deesha Philyaw
Uses similes (a comparison using like or as):
… a fraction of what it cost me to gather up the pieces of a girl, shattered like broken seashells gathered from the sands of the ocean floor.
This is your inheritance. Spread it like a balm on your broken heart: …
Uses repetition, which adds rhythm and emphasis.
Every bone in the whiting is an apology. Every grain of the grits, an apology. The cat’s head biscuit, a mound of apologies. Everything my father does not say.
“The Game for Winners” by Kimberly Elkins
Uses sensory description and simile
—A tingle in your stomach, a hard trail of thrill burring up to your chest like the compression of body in the seconds an airplane’s wheels leave the ground.
Marks time and creates new language
—Years later, you found the same whoosh of unbecoming with the drinking…
“Badge” by Wendy Fontaine
Uses specific details and simile:
spiders black and yellow, as big as Easter eggs.
Uses alliteration and simile:
…webs, white and wispy, like a dead man’s hair.
✍️Take an essay that you have written in the past or take one of the Readings we’ve covered and read it aloud changing the point of view. Change the I’s to you or we. Or change you to I. What effect does the change have? Do you find one POV works better than another? Why?
✍️ Let’s start to dig into what these essays are about on a deeper level. Here’s a question for each.
In “Whiting,” Twice in the essay, Philyaw tells us what she doesn’t know. Why? What’s significant about that?
In the Game for Winners,” Elkins’ describes finding “euphoria” in the fainting game. What does she mean?
In “Badge,” Fontaine includes three paragraphs about spiders? What/how do the spiders add to the narrative?
Put your answers in the Comments. Let’s have a chat about this!
And Ask me anything. I’ll do my best to respond to each and every one.
Write on!
Andrea A. Firth
Next up is Lesson 4: Beginning, Endings and Titles. That lesson will arrive in your inbox on Wednesday, April 10. You can find the introduction post here if you’re new to this course.
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On the Deesha Philyaw question. I think she structured it this way because of the last line "Everything my father does not say." I don't think he said any of those things. I think it is her giving voice to all of the things he did not say.
On the POV in "The Game of Winners" I for sure think the 2nd person switch is about putting the reader into the mindset to grasp the physical sensations associated with the whole bear-hug pass out business. I think this POV for this purpose works a lot better for physical scenes. When people use second person for emotional scenes it feels a little forced and totally varies whether I feel pulled in. Physical though, gets me nearly every time. (Also, in this specific instance, I feel like this is just how we describe games. Whenever you're telling someone about a game, you say, "you..." so, maybe a coincidence? I feel like if she'd gone with "we" it would have been an odder choice. Then again, "you" comes of as more personal and conversational in tone, which it seems she has throughout. So, I think I'd attribute the personal way she describes the game as being a casual tonal choice rather than one aimed at bringing a more visceral reaction. How I took it, anyway.
Exercises:
I think she's telling us she didn't know this during those breakfasts because it would have changed the context. As in, she's not just participating in these breakfasts because he might die. Or for any reason other than, well, that's what happened. Maybe, better to say, she wanted to mention that he died without adding any additional meaning or weight to the story that is being told, but should provide some final context for anyone thinking, "So, what happened next?"
I think Elkins means there is something euphoric about being nothing, thinking nothing, and feeling nothing. So, not like euphoric in the sense of feeling real good, but euphoric in the relief that comes from not having to exist for a few moments.
I'm not so sure about the spiders. Could have some meaning, but it might also be one of those fascinating visual threads that hold a story together that we look for too much meaning in when really it's just what happened that the author remembers that keeps a rhythm and pattern for our brains to enjoy while we read. I'm always hesitant to read too much into things like this. But maybe that's just my own justified limitations with close reading.
I felt like that spiders in Badge help create fear and raise tension. It helps develop the father who wants protect his daughter, but can't as he can't mow the grass every day, she has to go the neighbor's trailer by herself. The idea of mowing away spiders is something that would convince a kid but not an adult. The spiders get scarier, adding tension, as the piece moves along. The narrator must overcome her fear of spiders to walk back, like she has to overcome her fears of the man who goes down the hallway, spiderlike, on her own or for some higher reason like the troop is counting on me. When can she, and the reader, trust an adult - the one who says he mowed away the spiders or the one who says he's going to get his wallet.