One of the Facebook Groups I hang out on posts writing exercises. Sometimes they’re geared towards Bizarro, but most of the time they’re just fun practice to improve your craft. One was to generate a scene that had the characters conveying their thoughts and emotions without any dialogue. In ten minutes, I popped something out an posted it. It has a bit of a cliche ending, but I tried to work it like a flash fiction story, relatively complete in a short amount of words.

Here’s my post, I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to practice non-verbal dialogue, and let me know where I can read yours.

The State Trooper tore the speeding ticket off of the pad and handed it to Joe with a nod and a smirk, then sauntered back to his patrol car.

Looking down at the ticket, Joe’s lips tightened to a razor-sharp line when his eyes hit the amount of the fine for traveling two miles per hour over the posted speed limit — $225.

His head snapped over to stare at his date. She smiled weakly and shrugged her shoulders, then turned away, red-faced with embarassment, to watch three sparrows involved in a noisy dispute in a beech tree on the side of the highway.
Joe reached over and angrily poked an address onto his Garmin GPS unit. His date looked over as Joe pulled back onto the highway. She looked down at her hands, silent as the GPS unit’s electronic female Australian accent instructed Joe to turn onto the next exit to return her to her father’s house.

She shook her head, hating her dad for being such an overprotective parent and a law enforcement officer.