Hidden Monologue Example

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Order 'That little [play] was . . . the first text that I wrote in the same way in which I would later write all my novels: rewriting and correcting, redoing a thousand and one times a very confused draft that, little by little, after countless emendations, would assume definite form.'

-- Mario Vargas Llosa





A Hidden Monologue buried in the dialogue . . .
				JOAN
	Snow White in Brooks Brothers. And you missed it.

				LARKIN
	I didn't!

				JOAN
	Oh, yes you did. You always do.

				LARKIN
	We'd come out of the clinic that morning. Biting cold. I'd 
	forgotten the sound of cold like that. 

				JOAN
	Sounds miserable.

				LARKIN
	Burgess was oblivious, as always. We could've been in the 
	West Indies for all it mattered. 

				JOAN
	What did he say?

				LARKIN
	Oh, he talked about theory and strategy. The Gobi, Hudson's 
	Bay. He was doing it again with White Alice. 

				JOAN
	And then what happened?

				LARKIN
	I'm hearing my breath freeze as it comes out. Sun driving 
	off the snow. I could barely see where he was.  After all 
	those weeks inside. No warmup. "Got back your clearance,"
	he says. Just ... Bam. 

				JOAN
	Really?

				LARKIN
	Uh, huh. Like it was doing laundry. Which for him I suppose 
	it was. I knew he wasn't doing it for old times, no matter 
	what you think. "This is my ticket to the Home Office." 

				JOAN
	That's amazing.

				LARKIN
	That's how he put it. Like everybody gets one. Above a 
	certain level. Beyond a certain point. So I asked him, 
	What's my ticket? 
		
				JOAN
	I can't believe it.
	
				LARKIN
	Well, he stops and he looks at me. I know that look. And he 
	says, "You don't need one. You've got me."

				JOAN
			(Gently)
	Do you get it now?

And unearthed from this pile of dialogue . . .

The Monologue


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