After rereading Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants I noticed a similarity in style to that story and what I’m currently writing. There’s a high bar of quality to match and it has me contemplating the techniques used and how else they can be applied. If you’ve never read the story go straight there. It’s four pages, it’s online, and if you ignore the rest of this and just read it you’ll have gotten your money’s (or however you value your time’s) worth. Man, what a wrenching, uncomfortable, look away but can’t story. The most obvious stylistic choice is a focus on dialog with the narrative taking a distant backseat. Years ago when I first read it I thought how does he make it work?
This seemingly runs contrary to the notion all dialog should advance characterization or the plot, if it doesn’t take it out. Ultimately the criteria could apply to any aspect of a story, including the narrative, but if the word count is eighty percent or more dialog that’s a tall order. There’s much that may get lost in the flow of quick back and forth dialog. But the microscope needs to remain affixed to your eye for defaulting to the mistaken justification “It’s stylistic” to then leave everything in. Before you balloon the page count ask yourself that question.
In the aforementioned story, there’s elongated small talk about a mundane drink order which ordinarily would be death for a story. Does it matter what the characters drink? In this story it doesn’t matter all that much. But the underlying importance is the interpersonal dynamic between the main characters. She’s asking several questions, unsure, leaning on him and his experience and knowledge of a land foreign to her. He gives short, uninterested, close ended answers, standoffish, not engaged on the same emotional intensity as her. There’s a clear power dynamic revealed in such an exchange that would be lost if pared back to a skeletal outline:
“What should we get?”
“Something.”
They ordered two beers.
Again rule breaking at first glance, the same lines of dialog are repeated several times in a row. It’s a variation of “I don’t want you to do it if you don’t want to,” reiterated with some changes and placed at the beginning or end of different lines. Then the girl’s replies vary in kind avoiding staleness. However, the use of repetition betrays the original plain face interpretation. Taken on his word the man doesn’t want to pressure her into making a certain choice (what that choice is is ambiguous). But he can’t stop twisting the pliers and pulling her tooth. At the end it feels more like an interrogation than honest concern. The girl says as much ending it with the comment, “I’ll scream.” Though the variances in his questions and her answers we see him grow increasingly uncomfortable and her alter the power dynamic. She’d asked a few times if they could stop talking but her final remark forces him to change his behavior for the first time.
What I’ll also point out is the near total absence of narrative emotional descriptors. At no point is anyone’s emotional state explicitly delivered. There is no “She was sad.” “‘No,’ he said sourly.” There’s only one point where she “smiled brightly” at their waitress. It’s the speech which is sour, curt, wistful, hopeful, crushing, evasive, persecutory, etc. With that restraint it forces audience engagement to discern the characters’ internal struggles. Not to send the reader on a quest for every morsel, most of it is clear on a first reading because the characters act with consistent intent.
I say act with some jest as it’s so heavily dialog weighted but that use makes the spoken word the most powerful force wielded. What would it say of the story if after the entire conversation the thing that has the most impact is a slap to the cheek or a drink thrown in someone’s face? If that’d happened at the beginning and gotten the point across then what’d be the point of so much talking? It’s restraint that keeps the story grounded. Real people trying to solve a real problem which can only be resolved through effective communication. Where’s the conflict in that? They’re bad at it.
Then there’s the narrative efficiency to consider. Even firmly in the backseat, the short scraps of narrative cycle back into the dialog with the titular white elephant-like hills a topic of conversation. The immediate surroundings are used for characterization as she looks to the legs of the table they sit at to hide from the most direct mention of the central conflict. The opening narration gives them forty minutes to wait at a platform for the next train. With just that there’s sense of limited time even if practically the girl’s choice could be made even a minute after they board. This pressure mimics the constraints placed on the characters. Then further in between the dialog a single line such as “The girl looked across at the hills,” or “The girl did not say anything,” leaves a gap in the timeline where they could have sat in silence for an undetermined period. It would fit the awkward conversation. If they only have forty minutes did they just burn one unable to pivot that sentence to the next?
This all doesn’t even touch on the story’s heavy symbolism which I wish I had the chops to get into. I’m more focused on the dialog here but I’ll posit a deterioration in the man’s confidence and grasp over the situation exemplified when he looks out for the train even though he knows it’s still five minutes from arrival. I wanted to point out the thought and craft that goes into a story like this. The words choice is basic, the sentence structure simple, the scale small, and the efficiency and restraint are cranked to the maximum. I’ve always said when you make everything in your story matter, everything matters. Nothing is who cares-ed in this piece. I prefer to write dialog and have always felt in the minority on that. This story gives me the confidence to stick to my guns knowing so long as I give the story the attention it deserves my predilections can become a feature rather than a hindrance.
Colin Klawans 