Dialogue and Flashback

FROM THE AUTHOR: I am writing my first real novel. I excel at descriptive language (growing up loving Tolkien will do that) but writing dialogue is new to me. Things like pacing and mundane stuff like formatting are enigmatic right now. I believe ive made progress, and im ready to test it out on a critical community.

Bonus: this excerpt starts with a FLASHBACK. (That wouldn't be immediately apparent without the end of the last chapter, which isn't included in this. So I thought id explain. I did include the first paragraph AFTER the flashback for clarity. I would love thoughts on how I handled the transition.

I felt warm sunlight on the side of my face as I lifted it from the desk, blinking and yawning loudly. I groaned and rotated my wrist. My forearm was numb and red where my head had been resting. Wiping a line of drool from the corner of my mouth, I looked stealthily around the room.

"Good morning, sleepyhead."

Evelyn's voice made me jump.

I grimaced, peeled a damp research assignment off my elbow, and looked over my shoulder.

"Nrrhhh... Is Professor Falk still out?"

"Lucky for you, yeah." She smirked. "What's wrong with you? Falling asleep in waveforms again? It's a nine o'clock class. Even the party houses can slug through that."

Her usual frown settled back onto her face as a strand of ash-blonde hair slipped across one eye.

Evelyn Strauss was uncommonly pretty for a graduate student in Stellar Orbit Numerology. Most women who looked like her had already escaped academia with two- or four-year degrees in law, communications, or maybe aeronautics sales if they had the right connections.

Not usually research.

Less money.

More work.

"He was up laaate again. Too much caffeine and anime, am I right?" our other classmate, Clair LeDoux, chimed in, joining my character assassination.

Clair was two years younger than me.

Six younger than Evelyn.

Sometimes she acted like it.

Her light-brown hair was cropped short.

It suited her.

I rubbed my face and put on a melodramatic pout.

"I was working. Not playing. I'm going to earn another half-credit before the end of the month while you two waste time harassing me. Careful, or I'll graduate before both of you."

I finished with an exaggerated nod toward Evelyn.

She scoffed, the playfulness disappearing from her voice.

"Working on what? Acoustics and Harmonics again? Ryan, you're twenty-four years old. Far too young to be studying tired, dead sciences—and far too old to keep ignoring the facts."

She reached into my desk, snatched the magazine sticking out of the drawer, and held it aloft.

DR. SCHMID IN THE HOT SEAT
THE €700 MILLION MISTAKE

HAS ACOUSTIC HARMONICS FAILED SCIENCE?

VISIONARY OR FRAUD?

"If you graduate early because you padded your transcript with pointless electives about failed science, don't come looking to me for applause."

She tossed the magazine onto my desk and slung her purse over one shoulder.

"Focus on your major. Photon Telemetry has a future. The world is moving too fast to waste time in band camp, Richard."

Her voice softened slightly when she used my first name.

She still didn't look back as she walked out.

The handful of students lingering in the classroom watched her leave before quietly returning to their own conversations.

Clair looked at me with soft eyes, absently tugging at her earlobe like she always did when she was uncomfortable.

"I'm gonna go make sure she doesn't forget our group project in AdCalc." She smiled. "Don't let her get to you, Rich. You're exactly where you're supposed to be... doing exactly what your dad would've wanted."

I stiffened.

She caught it immediately.

"And for God's sake," she added with a grin, "eat something healthy for lunch. You're going to die of a diabetic coma before your fourth Odyssey Year if you don't quit living on Coke and chili dogs."

She darted in, pinched my side, and skipped toward the door, throwing me a wink over her shoulder.

I answered with the most deeply offended glare I could manage while gathering up my drool-soaked papers.

"Bro," one of my classmates muttered without looking up from his book, "pass the controller if you're not gonna play."

...

The security door slid shut behind us with a heavy clunk. I rubbed the daydream from my eyes.

SSG Rivers stepped to the left, folded his hands behind his back, and settled into a silent watch beside the entrance, apparently content to remain there for as long as Gravitic Applications required us.