'Dialogue and Jane Austen'

Today in class we discussed dialogue and how to place it into our projects. Some of my fellow students are writing fiction with a little history included and I thought about how the use of dialogue was appropriate for The Jane Austen Experience. This project does not contain direct speech but it does contain letters to Elizabeth.
I started to think about how Jane Austen incorporated dialogue in her novel Pride and Prejudice; of course she mastered the art of dialogue and the narrative combination easily.

"Dear Ma'am, do not go.-I beg you will not go.-Mr. Collins must excuse me.-He can have nothing to say to me that any body need not hear. I am going away myself."
"No, no, nonsense, Lizzy.-I desire you will stay where you are."  (Chapter 19)

There were many tips to help me work out how good dialogue works well and what mistakes we make when writing a piece of work. Interestingly, I thought that the main tips (from Pam McCutheon's website: www.pammc.com/dialogue.htm ) appropriate for this project would be 'to reveal the character' and 'establish tone or mood'. This could be achieved by developing the character of Elizabeth; maybe including some letters from her instead of just including the ones I write to her.

Some of the common mistakes attributed to writing dialogue in Pam McCutheon's piece, included the use of 'too much dialect' and 'sounding too stilted'. In the case of The Jane Austen Experience, dialect or the sound of the language is what I am trying to capture, so I think that within the context of this project, the use of dialect is important; used at a minimum. I do not feel that within the letters that I will sound too stilted. During the Regency period, letter writing was an art form and punctuation was minimal. Long drawn out sentences were used and commonly sentences were likely to continue for sometimes more than three or four lines. The detail was immense with many descriptive words, which was hard work for a reader. Imagine reading a sentence that continues for more than four lines without any punctuation; when did they take a breath?

So although I will be using a little creative licence in my work, I think it is important to look at how dialogue can or cannot be used in this project. The letters although are not direct conversation (which includes both parties one after the other) but if I include the return letters of Elizabeth; they become a running conversation and therefore dialogue.

Dearest Elizabeth,
It is with anticipation that I wait for your next letter to arrive...