Saying more by writing less

    Dialogue is something that I have so much trouble writing -- making it seem both realistic and engaging -- and something that Roth does very effectively. Roth writes in a simple, straightforward manner, devoid of much excess descriptions. The sentences are also mostly short. This moves the conversation forward in a rapid, realistic way. He has a good sense of when to break up the flow so it doesn't get too monotonous, interrupting the dialogue with phrases like "she didn't answer and walked ahead of me again." "She turned to me and smiled." Brief interruptions like this help to set the scene without being long enough to turn our attention away from the conversation that is happening. He could have easily continued the dialogue with out including something like "she turned to me and smiled," but even a description that simple both sets the general mood of the conversation and adds something concrete that we can envision. When there is too much open dialogue with no description, it sometimes becomes hard to imagine people actually speaking these words.
     When I try to frame the scene of a conversation, I usually ended up adding too much description, thus breaking up the flow of the conversation. I do this out of fear that the plain dialogue will get boring too quickly. However, a skilled writer like Roth shows how using subtle interruptions within a conversation can be effective without going on for long or even saying much. I think we can learn much from Roth's writing by paying attention to the simple but effective way in which he frames and relays a conversation.
    He also -- in this passage at least -- is generous with using periods instead of commas. This makes the writing read very easily and gets the point in a lucid manner, without any unnecessarily long sentences to muddle up things. You never have to read over a sentence to understand it's meaning -- the point comes across clearly. This makes the writing both more engrossing and easier to read. 
    An author as skilled as Roth shows how much we can learn from such a short and simple excerpt -- by writing exactly what needs to be written without any unneeded fluff.