Some notes on writing, with examples

 These are some posts I’ve written on Quora over the last month – a small sample (only 4), as I often write 2 or 3 in one day.

The first 3 are about dialogue and the last one is about description - so, no dialogue. All but the first include examples.
 

How can one improve their dialogue writing skills for a novel or short story? What techniques can be used to make dialogue more engaging and authentic?

I have one word for dialogue: spontaneity. I really think that’s the key, so I don’t overthink it. I compare it to learning a musical instrument (something I failed at), which means it requires a lot of practice – a point that Vincent Berg makes and emphasises in his answer.

Actors will tell you that the secret to their craft is to be in the moment (I can’t act either) and to be able to say a line of dialogue as if it’s just come into their head. Well, that’s exactly my approach when I write it.

I learned how to write dialogue from doing exercises in writing classes, so that’s what I recommend to everyone else who is just starting out. 

 
What's the difference between good and bad dialogue?

Most truthful answer: I don’t know, but I know it when I read it.

This is because anyone can judge dialogue, not just writers. Factors that contribute are more subliminal than obvious. For a start, it doesn’t distract or throw the reader out of the story, which means it’s contextual and relevant. Dialogue that jars means it’s inconsistent and doesn’t fit with our expectations of that character.

All dialogue reflects the relationship between characters, which could be one of power or vulnerability or potential friendship or potential adversary. Relationships can change and grow or deteriorate, and dialogue reflects all of that. A relationship can change from one of contempt to begrudging respect, for example, and that can be hard to pull off.

It may sound strange, but I don’t think about it too much, because it has to be spontaneous. I often compare it to playing jazz, even though I’m not a musician. You need to get inside the character’s head and know what they’re thinking. Given it’s always at least a 2-way interaction, you need to be able to swap heads. I really don’t know how I do that, but I just do.

An example always helps. Note we get some exposition as well as an insight into their relationship. Note also how mundane and ordinary the subject-matter is.

Astera asked Alfa if Carla was available for a holo-link, and within minutes she appeared in his room, lying on a bed, propped up on her elbows. Her blonde hair falling below her shoulders.


‘How was the moon?’ she asked.


‘We spent most of the time underground. Though, on its surface, you get an unbelievable view of the stars.’


‘Did you enjoy it? Was it worth the visit?’


‘I wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time there. Do you know women aren’t allowed?’


‘Actually, I did. Kym’s sister, Rita, wanted to work there, but they won’t let her.’


Astera wanted to change the subject, ‘It’s good to see you.’ He immediately felt that it was such a lame thing to say, but Carla surprised him.


Her face softened, because she knew it was genuine, ‘Good to see you too.’


He wanted to reach out and touch her, ‘Can we catch up today, do you think?’


‘Yes, I think so. What do you want to do?’


 ‘Why don’t we meet in the mall and decide from there.’


‘Okay, have you had lunch?’


‘I had a snack on the shuttle, but I could eat something more substantial.’


‘Okay, let’s sync our wrist bands so we can find each other.’


He saw her press the band on her wrist and he heard a ping on his.
 She then waved at him and disappeared into thin air.
 
 
What are some strategies to make dialogue and exposition flow naturally in a narrative, especially in scenes with minimal action?

There are 5 types or modes of narrative: description, action, exposition, dialogue and introspection. Some call introspection, ‘insight’, which it is for the reader, but I call it introspection, because it’s written entirely from inside the character’s head.

I wouldn’t overthink this, as it’s really a matter of fit-for-purpose. I’ve written scenes that are all exposition and scenes that are all description, but it’s not the norm. However, in cases where I’ve done that, it’s to compress time.

I’ve written long passages of introspection, but it’s where the POV character is alone – I did this in Elvene, when she was trapped underground.

Action is sequential, so think choreography; if it’s a fight scene, stay in one POV. But a car chase would also be action, or a space battle, which I’ve written. Again, keep it linear and sequential – one thing happens after another.

Dialogue is actually the easiest to write, though it mightn’t seem so when you’re starting out. It’s also the easiest to read, because it engages the reader, assuming it’s well written. Again, it helps if you stay in one POV.

Use description to set up a scene, but keep it brief, and also use a character’s POV, and then stick with it. Dialogue always tells us something about the relationship between the interlocutors. Exposition is often included in dialogue.

Artemus was seated behind his semicircular desk with the cityscape behind him as a floor to ceiling vista; a not-so-subtle reminder of what he commanded.


He gestured for Sartre to take a seat in the only chair available.


‘How are you finding the woman called Donna?’


Sartre thought his phrasing indicated that he didn’t think of Donna as someone of any significance to him.


‘She seems okay. The girls like her and she doesn’t interfere with what they do.’


Artemus nodded as if this satisfied him, ‘What’s her relationship with Kym?'

Sartre knew that Artemus already knew the answer, so he said, ‘I believe they’re lovers.’


Artemus smiled, ‘You only believe?’


‘I haven’t asked them and I don’t intrude on their private lives, but they do spend a lot of time together and their body language suggests they’re more than friends.'

Artemus got up and the desk rotated so that he was now standing directly in front of Sartre, which made him uncomfortable. Sartre knew it was intentional. 

Artemus walked to Sartre’s left and slightly behind before continuing.


‘I’m pretty sure Donna is a spy.’


Sartre turned his head towards him, ‘How do you know that?’


Artemus looked down at him without bending his head. ‘I don’t, it’s a hunch.’


He turned on his heels and walked back to his chair, so that he faced Sartre without the desk. ‘You don’t become as successful as me by trusting people.’


Sartre said, ‘What do you want to do?’


‘Nothing.’ He let the desk resume its original position and then put his elbows on it with his hands together, his fingers resting at his nose. Then he put them down in order to elaborate, ‘She’s put herself in a position where we can use her.’

 
Why do some beautifully described settings fail to make a story compelling, and how can writers balance description with plot action?

It’s possible to do both at the same time, depending on context and where you are in the story. I think it’s important to create mood and atmosphere, and its effect on the character. This is an example I’ve given before because it achieves a number of things at once: it compresses time, moves the story forward and creates tension and expectation. 

Elvene walked across the rolling hills in front of her and only occasionally glanced back towards the ocean. She was conscious of leaving behind her only link to long term survival in the form of Alfa, who was hidden and incommunicado. She knew she was taking a huge gamble, but Alfa was no insurance policy against marauders, and ultimately the ship’s survival may be more important than hers. At times she couldn’t see the ocean at all, as she crossed shallow valleys, but it always reappeared when she climbed the western side. There was a strong wind coming in from the sea and she imagined that it could be a desolate place at some times of the year but today the sky was relatively clear with some clouds scudding across at high altitude. She reckoned that she should reach the tree line at just about sunset, though she knew such estimates could be misleading. The sun was falling towards the hills in front of her and when she reached the last valley, the shadows slowly stretched towards her like the forest was reaching out to embrace her approach.

Some notes on time travel; and why it’s not on my wish list

 This is a post I wrote on Quora in answer to a question, where I gave all the reasons I don’t. It’s a far-ranging post, including science fiction tropes and real science speculation. I also managed to contradict myself, but rather than correct it, I left the error to highlight my lamentable memory. How could you forget your first sci-fi story?
 
Have you ever wanted to time travel?

There is both a philosophical and psychological component to this question, as well as a scientific one. As a sci-fi writer, I have not entertained it, though I have written a story where characters living on different worlds aged differently, which was also done in the movie, Interstellar, albeit different storylines with different consequences.

I’m also a longtime fan of Dr Who. I especially like the 50th Anniversary episode, The Day of the Doctor, where we have 3 Doctors, played by Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt, though Tom Baker has a cameo appearance towards the end. Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald is the companion, but Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) has one of the best roles as Bad Wolf, where she’s the conscience of a sentient Doomsday machine; a brilliant, innovative plot device, especially when she plays the foil to John Hurt’s Doctor.

But arguably one of my favourite episodes is The Weeping Angels (who make reappearances, like Daleks) so I’m talking about the original episode. It’s David Tennant’s Doctor with Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman), one of my favourite companions, and one of the cleverest uses of time travel I’ve seen. 

Probably my favourite time-travel movie is Predestination, based on a short story, All You Zombies by Robert A Heinlein (rejected by Playboy, apparently). It starred Ethan Hawke and a brilliant Sarah Snook, before she became famous, and was made in Australia.

The psychological component is that I have no desire to go back and change my past, because it would make me a different person. I’m a strong believer in having no regrets despite making some terrible mistakes in my life; I own them. The alternative is to live in self-denial and eternal name-blaming. Do not go there: the destination is self-pity if not self-destruction; I’ve been down that path and came back.

The other scenario is to time-travel to somewhere in the past or future, a la Dr Who. But here’s the thing: the culture, the language and the customs are so different to what you know, that it would be next-to-impossible to adjust. Our morality is more dependent on social norms than we like to admit. It’s hard for us to imagine living in a time when owning slaves was socially acceptable and women were literally treated like children or intellectually backward compared to men. So, no, I have no wish to go there. And I don’t want to know what the future is either – it could be dystopian, catastrophic or a kinder more forgiving world. I prefer to live in the present and try to impact the future in whatever small way I can.

I almost forgot. How could I? I actually wrote a screenplay involving time travel, where a teenager is taken to another world in the future, titled Kidnapped in Time. So I just contradicted my first paragraph. Here’s the thing; spoiler alert: when he’s allowed to return to Earth and meet his father and brother, who have aged more than him, he decides to stay on the world he was taken to, because it’s now his new home. I still think it’s a good story, well told, and not dated, even though his Earth childhood is set in 1960s, like mine, though his family life is nothing like mine.

Scientifically, there are some scenarios. For example, Kurt Godel worked out, using Einstein’s field equations, that if the Universe was rotating, we would live in time loops. The thing is that if we lived in a time loop, we wouldn’t know, or would we? I think the CMBR (cosmic microwave background radiation) from around 14B years ago says we don’t. The other possibility is via multiple worlds, but I don’t believe in them, either quantum or cosmological, and if you changed worlds you wouldn’t know, because only the future would change and not the past. And then there is causality, which I argue underpins all of physics, though others might debate that, which I’m happy to oblige. Even QM has a causal relationship with reality when the wavefunction collapses and is irreversible.

A conversation with Alain Aspect, Nobel Laureate and seminal experimenter in quantum physics

 You may or may not have heard of Alain Aspect (pronounced Ass-pay), but he’s a significant figure in the history of the development of quantum mechanics. Looking him up, I was surprised to learn he’s not much older than me. He was in his mid-thirties when he did his groundbreaking experiments: among the first to demonstrate Bell’s theorem in practice, not just in theory, and effectively proving that entanglement is non-local, meaning it breaks with special relativity.
 
This was almost 30 years after Einstein died, and effectively proved he was wrong regarding his views on entanglement. Having said that, it was Einstein who set the ball rolling with the famous 1935 paper titled, "Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?" that he co-wrote with Podolsky and Rosen, so better known as the EPR paper. Aspect jointly won the Nobel prize with John Clauser and Anton Zellinger for his definitive experimental contribution to that topic.
 
So I was surprised and very pleased to come across a 55 min interview with him by Brian Greene on YouTube, as part of a series. I read an interview with Aspect decades ago in a book co-edited by P C W Davies and Julian R Brown titled The Ghost in the Atom. It included interviews with other luminaries in the field like John Bell, Eugene Wigner, John Wheeler, David Deutsch and David Bohm, plus more.
 
Aspect is French, but his English is excellent. It’s unusual to find interviews with experimental physicists as opposed to theoretical physicists, and I would call it refreshing, because he tends not to elaborate or speculate beyond what the evidence tells him. Having said that, Greene presses him on what his intuition tells him, and even that is informative, because he keeps it simple.
 
While I was watching, I made some notes. I did not know that he was the first to produce isolated photons. If you go to roughly the 16-17m mark, he explains how he ‘split’ the wavefunction of the photon into ‘2 half wave packets’ (along 2 separate paths using beam splitters), which seems impossible for an individual photon. He says that the only way he can explain it is with non-locality. In his own words, ‘if I measure the wave packet on the right, the other wave packet on the left instantaneously collapses to zero.’
 
I can still remember when I was studying physics at university in the 70s, writing that a single photon could travel down 2 separate paths and being marked down for it. I’ve no idea where I read it, but Alain Aspect proved it in the 1980s.
 
When asked specifically by Greene, ‘Does the photon travel down both paths?’ Aspect answers unequivocally, ‘Yes’. But then he says ‘if he takes a measurement, it only appears on one side’. Curiously, when Greene asks him about the well known ‘measurement problem’ and what his ‘intuition’ is on that, Aspect said he doesn’t have one: ‘it’s a great mystery’, but then says it’s ‘irreversible’. Aspect then says that if you ask a cosmologist, they will say there is a wavefunction for the whole universe, where there is no measuring apparatus. I think that’s the nub of the issue. Non-local means instantaneous, which is Aspect’s description, and by my simplistic reasoning, this means the entangled particles must occupy the same ‘now’ in time, though no one ever mentions that because it’s a heresy. And if you have a wavefunction for the entire universe, then arguably you have the same ‘now’ throughout the universe, which is even more heretical.
 
The best part of this video is that Aspect takes us through the entire history of entanglement, starting with Schrodinger who coined the term and famously said that 'entanglement was the defining characteristic of quantum mechanics separate from classical physics'. I think, along with superposition, it’s what led me to believe the Universe obeys 2 sets of rules: quantum and classical. QM rules before decoherence of the wavefunction and classical physics rules after.
 
Naturally, Greene asks him about the MWI (Many Worlds Interpretation), which some argue overcomes the measurement problem. Aspect responds that ‘it’s a logical solution, but it’s absolutely not palatable’ (to him), while acknowledging it’s popular with many cosmologists. Just as an aside, Mithuna Yoganathan (from the Looking Glass Universe YouTube channel) specifically eschews the idea that the Universe obeys 2 sets of rules and that alone makes MWI attractive to her.
 
Interestingly, Aspect makes an analogy with the second law of thermodynamics (~21m) by pointing out that it can’t be derived from Newtonian mechanics, where everything is time-reversible. I’d say the same applies to chaos theory. A lot of laypeople are unaware that Schrodinger’s equation is deterministic, meaning it’s time-reversible, but the ‘measurement’ makes it irreversible. Paul Davies has made this same point. Aspect doesn’t articulate this, but what he’s saying is that the second law of thermodynamics is just as ‘radical’ (my word, not his) as QM when it comes to confounding our expectations based on previously known physics.
 
Greene says, ‘[QM] has been unreasonably successful and unreasonably effective’ to which Aspect replies, ‘Yes.’ This introduces their discussion of the 1935 EPR paper (~22m), and is arguably the most erudite and stimulating part of the discussion, because it logically leads to a discussion on John Bell’s theorem in some detail, which is what led to Aspect’s now equally famous experiment.
 
Another aside: on Quora I met a physicist, Ian Miller, with whom I had some interesting and convivial conversations. He’s one of the few people I know who disputes Bell’s Theorem, or at least its consequences, and has argued he can refute it. I’ve always respected him, simply because he knows more than me, and I too have some heretical ideas, plus I agree with him that in SR, it’s the ruler that changes and not the space it’s purporting to measure. Much later, I learned that Kip Thorne, of all people, made the point that it's impossible to tell the difference (between the ruler and the space its measuring) from the mathematics alone. Regarding Bell’s Theorem, Miller contends it’s just mathematical not physical, yet Alain Aspect would beg to differ.
 
One of the aspects of Bell’s theorem that many people don’t know is that Bell wanted to prove Einstein right, but effectively proved him wrong. Others have contended that Bell’s conclusion to his own discovery was that the universe must be super-deterministic, but I know he didn’t say that in his interview in the book I cited earlier, and Aspect doesn’t mention it either. I can understand, however, if you believe that the entangled particles don’t experience the same 'now', then superdeterminism is a logical conclusion. Hossenfelder is a keen advocate for superdeterminism.
 
In fact, Aspect claims that Bell was a ‘realist’, which I understand means that he believed what Aspect believes: there is an independent reality (to the observer) and non-locality is a feature of the Universe. I remember reading an article in New Scientist, where it was argued you can have realism or ‘locality’, but not both.
 
One of Aspect’s salient points is that the famous arguments between Bohr and Einstein became epistemological, meaning they were philosophical differences rather than differences in reasoning, but only when Einstein introduced entanglement of more than one particle. According to Aspect, when they were arguing about one particle, Bohr’s arguments were based on pure logic. As Greene points out, the EPR paper introduces the concept of ‘hidden variables’ which, according to Einstein is what would make quantum mechanics ‘complete’. Aspect claims that Bohr’s response to the EPR paper was purely philosophical. In hindsight, we know we had to wait for Bell to give it a mathematical framework, which would ultimately make it testable, which is what Aspect achieved.
 
Just on that point, it illustrates the necessary relationship between mathematics and physics. There is an intrinsic relationship between a mathematical model and the need to measure physical attributes to determine, not only if the mathematical model is valid, but what its limitations are. This, in effect, is how the physical sciences have advanced since Newton. We have reached a point where some of our mathematical models can’t be measured using the technology currently available (string theory, anyone?).
 
Aspect says that Bell found ‘you cannot have locality in a hidden variable theory rendering all the predictions of quantum mechanics in the EPR situation.’ (~28m) I find this interesting because I’ve come across people on YouTube (Hossenfelder) who claim that Bell’s Theorem doesn’t disprove hidden variables. They could be right, because Aspect is not saying that non-locality rules out hidden variables and Greene doesn’t ask him. But Aspect’s conclusion certainly rules out Einstein’s hope that hidden variables would save locality. Aspect gives credit to David Bohm for reformulating the EPR thought-experiment in terms of a dichotomy – spin-up or spin-down – and not a variable of position and velocity as per Einstein.
 
Aspect goes into some detail concerning his development of his experiment, including the work of others, which took him 7 years. According to Aspect, John Bell followed his work and respected his result; even saying publicly, ‘I am sorry for the result, but I respect it.’ Which says a lot.
 
At 41m Greene brings up MWI again, saying that many argue it solves non-locality. To which Aspect responds that, for him, accepting MWI is ‘worse’ than accepting non-locality. And Greene agrees.
 
Greene also raises the issue of free will, and Aspect’s response is amusing and, in his own words, ‘Simple. If I don’t have free will to adjust the knob on my apparatus, I stop being a physicist.’ Green smiles, yet doesn’t give his views which I’ve written about elsewhere. Greene is a free will sceptic, if not denier (like Hossenfelder). Aspect elaborates, arguing that the contrary position is: ‘If it’s written in the Great Book, ever since the Big Bang, it’s an explanation for everything.’ So, not a believer in superdeterminism.
 
He spends some time explaining how non-locality doesn’t contradict SR (special relativity) in as much as you can’t use it to signal FTL (faster-than-light), though I do in my science fiction, which is why it’s called science fiction. He points out rather cleverly that it’s solely because of the random nature of QM that you can’t use it to send a signal, because the measurement outcome is completely unknown and can’t be forced. Because it’s random, neither party can know the outcome.
 
Towards the end, he explains how he has become an ambassador for science, which I imagine he’d do brilliantly. He says he is an ‘optimist’ despite attacks on science, especially under America’s current administration.

Addendum 1: I've discussed this topic before, back in 2009, when I reviewed the book I cited, The Ghost in the Atom. Back then, I wondered if QM was the consequences of a hidden dimension, which is still a possibility, though I now think it's a description of the future, which is why it can only give us probabilities.

 Addendum 2: Since writing this, I watched a video with Curt Jaimungal, where he discusses Bell's Theorem much more esoterically than I can. But he referenced a paper by Joanna Luc (30 Jan. 2025) What are the bearers of hidden states? On an important ambiguity in the formulation of Bell’s theorem.  A very lengthy and detailed paper, 23+ pages long, but she makes the following statement right at the end.

Strengthened Bells Conclusion: All HVTs consistent with the predictions of QM for Bell’s Experiment are non-local. (HVTs means hidden variable theories).

Note that this is consistent with Alain Aspect's conclusion, quoting Bell (refer main post).