Dialogue Tricks and Traps

Don't ever end stories, books, or chapters with something like, "I can't help it if I don't exactly understand [these events]. After all, I'm only a [cat, goldfish, chair, fly on the wall, string bean in a cookpot.]" This device is simply too cutesy and contrived for almost any market except television (which never, ever tires of presenting the same old tired 1950s cliches over and over, using the same heart-of-gold-hooker and soft-hearted old curmudgeon cardboard "dolls," but they already have staff writers to do it for them.) Sometimes the audience can actually recite the predictable old dialogue with the actors:

(looking around angrily, hands on hips) "Would somebody please tell me just what the hell is going on around here?"

(clenching fists) "But you don't understand!"

(Lucy Ricardo stance) "I can explain."

(crossed arms) "We're waiting."

"Don't look now, but we're being followed."

Or, worse, the coy "We have company" (meaning the cops are right behind your getaway car.)

Ad nauseam. Get it all out of your system, if you must, and then discard this trap forever so you can produce work that will live on.