inform a reader, directly or by implication, of something he must know
if he is to catch the full savor of the story. These are the most
general conditions to be borne in mind in writing dialogue. It remains
to discuss the necessity that a writer consider the matter of situation
while transcribing speech. The necessity requires discussion. Not only
is it stringent, but it is politely ignored by too many books on
technique.

The abstract statement is that the same person will talk differently
according to his situation at the moment. Jones is Jones, of course, but
the Jones who discusses preparedness with Smith is a different Jones
from him who telephones to summon the doctor for his dying child, and
his speech in each case will not be the same. My lady will not berate
her maid for a fault as she will reprove her lover, and the head
bookkeeper talking to a subordinate and to the boss would impress a
listener as two different persons. The man and his speech are influenced
by the event. The writer of fiction, being under constant necessity to
counterfeit life, must keep the speech of his characters in accord with
the situation as well as with the general looseness of actual talk.

It may be said that this necessity to write dialogue with an eye to the
situation of the persons is merely a more narrow phase of the general
necessity to be natural. That is true. The writer will never go astray
who lives his story in imagination and sets down the speech of the
characters as it would have been phrased in actuality. The only trouble
is to determine just how the persons would have spoken, and it is a
trouble because it requires more than a vivid imagination. Imagination
will embody the course of events for a writer, will touch in the setting
with glowing color, but imagination alone will not supply the words
spoken. To find them, the writer must employ his intellectual faculties
as well as his imaginative powers, and precisely for the same reason
that the characters must employ their intellectual faculties in
speaking. One who writes a story lives vicariously, lives another's life
for the time being, and where that other would be forced to think, as in
speaking, the writer must think likewise. Where the other would be
forced only to observe, as in witnessing events or observing setting,
the writer can rely solely on his imaginative powers.

There will be little difficulty in meeting the demands of the situation
that is casual an