Junkyard quote1, week 2

"Asshole." -my brother, Seth
Okay, so I realize this language isn't particularly poetic, but I think, under certain circumstances it can be really interesting. Take the instance under which I heard it: I've always been quicker with the comeback or the insult than my brother. I'm the wit in my family...that is until I married Chip (but that's another story). The point is, it kills my brother that he can't come up with retorts as quickly as I can, so "asshole" really means, "I can't think of anything to say, but I can't let you have the last word" when he says it. This detail, coupled with others of course, can be really telling about my brother because the subtext of what he says is often so much more interesting than what he actually says. That, to me, is the power of dialogue. While we may try to keep as true to what is actually said as possible, we can also teach our readers how to read that dialogue through the details surrounding that dialogue. In essence, we can make the words the people in our essays say, actually say so much more than the words, outside of context, could.