“What do you mean ‘Headaches were not listed in the brochure’ darling? Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.”
“I only meant it as a joke, sweetheart.”
“The reason I have a headache is because we spent all day on the water, and, despite wearing sunglasses, the glare off the water and the champagne we drank has given me a headache. I’m not saying it because I don’t want to have sex with you.”
“I didn’t doubt you had a headache. It was meant as a joke, but it seems to have backfired slightly.”
“A headache is a headache. What you said indicated you were disappointed you weren’t getting any tonight.”
“I’m sorry. It was meant to be a light hearted jest. This is our honeymoon, after all. I thought we could spend some more ‘quality time’ together.”
“What do you think I am? Just because we’re on our honeymoon am I an amusement park rollercoaster to ride whenever you please?”
“No, I don’t think you’re…”
“I’m not the one with a penis bursting out of my pants simply because I ogle even a glimpse of boob. Is this what you were after? Just a moment ago you wanted my boobs in your face and now you won’t look at them?”
“At the beginning of the week you were up for almost anything. I’ll never look at the mini-bar fridge in the same way again.”
“Do you think I can be turned on and off like a vibrator? Take me, baby. I’m all yours. What, all soft and soggy now? Won’t the bucking bull try and throw off the cowgirl. And I wouldn’t go comparing myself to a stallion; a Shetland pony is more your style.”
“I’m sorry I said anything.”
“Don’t turn your back on me while we’re talking. I know this is our honeymoon and we have the rest of our lives to be together, but it’s not a 24-hour shag fest. It would be good to see a bit more of the sights while we’re here.”
“Okay, we will. Is this conversation finished?”
“Not even remotely. Poking me in the back with an erection and asking if I’m awake does not count as foreplay. Sometimes I like surprises, but occasionally, some effort and consideration wouldn’t go astray. And you can forget about the camera. I am not risking candid snaps ending up on my mother’s facebook page. And while we’re on the topic of ‘Things That Annoy Me’ it wouldn’t kill you to leave the bed before breaking wind. It is not necessary to fluff the blankets to check if it smells. Stop laughing. You thought I was asleep the other night when you let one rip.”
“How did a discussion about our sex life become an argument about my personal hygiene habits? You aren’t much better. The other day in the supermarket you dropped a landmine when you were with the trolley. I came back with the bread and copped a nostril of Satan’s butt crack.”
“I didn’t know it was going to smell.”
“You whisper with a clenched fist when you fart. And do you mind not taking a whiz while I’m brushing my teeth. It’s just… wrong.”
“If you could aim for the bowl, it would be greatly appreciated.”
“I’ll aim for the bowl if you don’t leave skid marks. Nothing worse than opening the lid and finding the brown hornet has practiced landing runs.”
“That’s gross.”
“You’re the one who started down this line of argument. And I don’t appreciate morning breath that would strip paint from walls in my face.”
“I don’t have stinky morning breath.”
“How would you know? You don’t have to breathe it in.”
“This bloody headache is killing me and the tablets haven’t helped much. I’m going to sleep. Good night.”
“So, sex is out of the question tonight, then?”
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 
This is an experiment in using dialogue only to tell the story. Let me know if it’s been effective or not.
If you leave something positive, leave a negative for improvement. That’s this week’s rule 🙂
This is a difficult storytelling technique to master, and you were most definitely up for the challenge. Well done. This was great. 😀
I think dialogue only pieces can be hard to pull off. ( I’ve tried this format out for myself before).
There is a sense of comedy in this piece, and I certainly laughed at the end line. But what a dialogue piece only seems to lack, at least for me, is a sense of surroundings – however I thought this piece could work well as a one act play with stage directions.
I
Thanks for the ideas, Helen. Wanted to experiment to see how it would look. The sense of surroundings does play a huge part in establishing a mood or tone or colour.
Bravo! The dialogue is highly natural, and the scene progresses at a good pace. I don’t have a ‘negative’ but in the spirit of this week’s rule, if I were to be a nit-picky hair-splitter, I’d shave down the big fat paragraph into maybe two more instead of putting it all in one. (ignore what I just said, it’s fine the way it is, lol)
Love it! Strangely familiar ….
Positive – I was totally there, IN the room, at the end of their day, cracking up at their argument.
Negative – I got slightly lost within my own head for a minute … I had to back up to find who was saying what once or twice.
Overall I’d say it’s a success 🙂
I did wonder about adding in dialogue tags, then ditched it without really thinking about why or why not. Maybe I should have.
Mmm.. don’t know if that would make it too .. heavy or not – It was only a minor issue for me and quite possibly brought on by the fact that my brain went on strike as of 4pm this afternoon..
Happily ever after, till death do us part… Why is it the stricture of a ring around the fourth finger changes things? All these things were known before the contract was signed, but only spill out now…
Good (un-)clean fun
Thanks for the timely reminder not to get married!
This was a finely executed piece of dialogue only. It made me smile and gave a real sense of how arguments can snowball. But in all honesty I could have done without the brown hornet imagery.
Marriage is awesome. It’s a comedy gold mine! Glad to see I’ve seared your mind with some wikkid imagery 🙂
LOL Adam priceless comedy! I got a real kick out of this one… and typical, the man twists it back to sex! Ok so you wanted criticism… check punctuation to make sure every question has a question mark. I thought a few of the sentences a little stilted, but mostly they were great. It IS tricky to write dialogue only, because you can’t add in the pauses and little mood moments but I think you did a great job of capturing the comedy :D.
Oh my goodness. I adore this descent into marital conflict. Beautifully played from one thing to the next. And just the right finishing line. 😉
This is rude!!
Thankfully I’ve yet to experience this line of argument but I know couples who have. Another slice of suburban realism!
Only thing I’d say is give them both a couple more verbal tics to make it more obvious who’s speaking.
There’s a rude side of me I let have a little bit of leash now and again. Suburban realism for the win. Thanks for the feedback.
And people wonder why so many men cheat.
I haven’t, I don’t, but like Sam Kinison – I understand it!
I really enjoyed the humor in this and I think you did a good job with all dialogue.
The only line that threw me a bit was when she said, “Do you think I can be turned on and off like a vibrator?” I expected a reference to something he would be more likely to use. [I mean, women are more likely to use vibrators than men aren’t they? I suppose she is speaking from her perspective of what is familiar though.] Since it follows the line about the mini-bar [one of my favorites, BTW], what if she said something like, “Do you think I can be opened and closed like the mini-bar?”
Originally I had “on and off like a light switch” but it felt cliched and I wanted something more original. Might need to think of another alternative.
Good grief, that poor man! I’d say the majority of us could relate to at least half of this one, I certainly do, (but I’m not so mean). 🙂
Positive – you’re one of very few who can truly pull off a story in all dialogue Adam, and I admire you for that. I love it! And I believe it’s easy to tell who’s speaking when.
Negative – I too could’ve done without the brown hornet imagery, that takes away from the overall tone somehow, (maybe yellow wouldn’t seem as…gross?). 🙂
I write a lot of dialogue pieces but I do find it helpful to note which person is talking occasionally, not after every quote. I also got lost once or twice in deciphering the speaker. Names are not necessary when only 2 characters are involved but help when there are more people speaking. As you get deeper, though, simply saying, he (or a name) said, or she (or a name) said suffice. An editor taught me not to use adverbs after these words. The dialogue should tell the reader the mood of the person who is speaking. I loved the story and that’s the only thing I would change.
I didn’t notice it was all dialogue until you told me. So, yes I think it worked! Although I did get a little confused on who was who though.
The landmine part was hilarious!
Oh, so real! An attempt at a little light humor and it blows up in his face! Maybe the headaches weren’t in the brochure, but the rant certainly wasn’t! And as usual, she gets to end the discussion as soon as she’s on the losing end. How. True. (And he hasn’t learned his lesson about light humor, as the ending shows.)
Dialog-only is tricky to write, but I think you did pretty well overall. I stumbled a little at the end, when he rallied and starting giving back what he was getting, but picked up pretty quick.
Thanks to everyone who read and commented and followed this week’s rule. It’s not easy to leave constructive criticism, and while I like the warm fuzzy feeling of positive comments, a writer is often blind to areas of improvement.
Thanks for your honesty. After the weekend I’ll go back for a polish and a repost.
Excellent job w/the dialogue only. The last line is perfect. The one line I didn’t like was the “backfired” one. I can’t see a guy actually saying that.
That was great. I liked how the topic shifted.
Very funny! I didn’t realize it was all-dialogue either until I saw your note, so I’d say it worked.
If we *have* to leave something as a negative, I’d only point out how unrealistic it is that he got the last word in. 🙂 From my experience, I’m guessing there is more that wasn’t captured? (jk)
Excellent dialogue piece. I smiled through the entire thing. If I were to nitpick, I could tell a distinction in who was talking at the beginning, but toward the end, once they both got snarky, their speech pattern did start to blend a little.
Overall, though, I really dug this!
Ha Ha Adam …were you somehow listening to the conversation a group of my girlfriends and I were having last Thursday night over many Manhattan cocktails?? Some of the lines are almost verbatim – or are they just universal?
Very funny!!!!!
This was awesome. You get cool points for making me laugh out loud several times in 1000 words or less.
As far as using all dialogue, for a while I was looking for tags because I expected them, but I got over that quickly. It was rare that I had to double check who was talking, usually on the shorter lines. The longer portions of dialogue, the voice of each character carried through. I loved that I could tell the movement of the characters by their dialogue too. Very well done!
This is really funny, and also quite accurate in how some arguments escalate.
Brilliant last line!
Really clever, I like the conflict between these two. You’ve captured the dialogue only story well. I found the voice of the two characters sounded a little too alike.
Great writing and wit, very funny. It looks like this honeymoon period is over even before the honeymoon is over. 😀
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