Dialogue Sandwiching Telling

Sandwich: Getting the Best of Dialogue and Narrative Telling 

In this example we see dialogue surrounding. By inserting narrative it speeds up the telling and allows for more accuracy than the character might use. For example, the character says it was just another mission, “nothing special.” But the narration tells us he was terrified of leaving a man behind. 

"We were on-mission, guarding a house. The brother-in-law of some­body's nephew, one of those things. There was a lot of that stuff there. Still is. Anyway, it was just another mission, nothing special."

The squad bulky with body armour under desert gear. The acrid smell of sweat and the way the clinging dust itched. A silent head count, his hun­dredth of the day, terrified, always, of leaving a man behind: Jones, Camp­bell, Kaye, Frieden, Crist, Flumignan, Borcherts, Paoletti, Rosemoor, and Martinez, ten men. His ten men. Martinez clowning, saying that to really guard the house, they ought to be inside, where the owner was watching the Red Wings on his satellite television. Joining in the laughter, feeling good, the air soft with the approach of sunset, already tasting the ice-cold Gatorade that would be waiting in the chow hall.

Then the sound of the engine. The joking vanishing instantly, re­placed by operational paranoia. They'd moved as a team, weapons fixed, positions good, covering the entrance to the courtyard. He'd led from the front, the first to step onto the winding alley that fronted the place.  [Underlining added.]

"It was an ambulance, an old diesel job with black smoke coming out the back," he said. "I heard a loud pop, sounded like a blown tire."

—from page 175 of At the City’s Edge