Dynamic Dialogue: Bring Conversation and Life to Your Writing
Dynamic Dialogue: Bring Conversation and Life to Your Writing
The Gift of Gab
Dialogue is an important tool that every writer should strive to
master. Good dialogue does the following:
- It yanks the reader into the story, rather than keeping him at
arm's length, as a casual observer.
- It gives valuable insight into each character - his
socioeconomic and educational background, his mannerisms, his
thought processes, his reactions to others, his attitude.
- It provides clues about the time period and setting.
- It helps keep you from getting bogged down in lengthy
narration, provided you don't let your speaker get bogged down
in lengthy narration.
Good dialogue is dialogue that is essential to the story or to
the readers' understanding of the character. It always serves a
purpose - either it moves the story forward towards its
conclusion, or it illustrates an important facet of the
speaker's character. Good dialogue is not idle chit-chat.
Writing Believable Dialogue
Believable or natural dialogue is not the same as "real speech."
Listen to a group of people talking in a restaurant (yes, of
course - eavesdrop!). Record them, or attempt to faithfully jot
down what's said. Real, everyday speech is not very interesting
to the casual observer, for the most part. It won't be
interesting to your readers, either. How many real conversations
have you heard that are devoid of annoying little
lack-of-forethought time fillers, like "well," "you know," "uh,"
"um," "like," and so on? A well-placed "uh" or "um" can render
dialogue more believable, but use them very sparingly to avoid
turning your dialogue into a sleep aid.
Good dialogue should sound natural. One of the best ways to
gauge this is to read it aloud, or ask a friend to read it aloud
to you. Subvocalize, if you're very shy. If your tripping over
the words, or getting your tongue wrapped around your eyeteeth
and can't see what you're saying, then it's not natural.
Try to make dialogue match character. Consider the character's
socioeconomic status and background. A guttersnipe speaks
differently than a college professor. Consider "My Fair Lady."
It would be easy to distinguish Henry Higgins from Eliza
Doolittle, even if the same person read their lines. As Eliza
learns, she is more careful and precise in her speech, even,
than Higgins - because she is conscious of and cares about the
perceptions of others. To her, it is not a game. He can afford
to be casual in his speech, even though it is not truly in his
nature to be; she cannot.
Use dropped terminal consonants (doin', goin', seein', wanna,
gimme, etc.), contractions (don't, wouldn't, didn't, etc.),
profanity and slang if the character would naturally use them.
Pretend your mother and your Fifth Grade English teacher will
never read your work. You can't be a real writer and live in
fear that someone will be shocked to learn that you know "those
words." Consider using profanity when it's out of character to
give dialogue "shock value." For example, if the preacher's wife
runs across a dead body in her geranium bed, she's not likely to
say, "Oh, dear, it's a corpse." She might actually scream and
yell a bad word. It'll get the reader's attention if you
suddenly have a well-established character act out of character.
That said, remember that profanity is the last resort of little
minds, and use it sparingly - for deliberate effect.
Show - don't tell! Make sure your characters understand this
rule. Using dialogue to relate past events may tempt you to tell
the story in between quotation marks. Don't let one character
simply narrate the whole story. Dialogue should give us insight
into each character's unique traits - it's your opportunity,
regardless of the point of view from which you've chosen to
write, to give the reader a glimpse of the character's thoughts
and emotions. Use dialogue to show how characters respond to
situations and react to one another.
A Few Quick Tips
- Consider the character's socioeconomic and educational
background.
- Give the character a distinctive "pet phrase" or set of
commonly-used expressions (e.g., "Valley Girl" speech). Be
careful not to exaggerate speech mannerisms to the point of
annoying the reader; a little seasoning in the pot works better
than dumping in a whole jar of spice.
- Show, don't tell! Avoid academic or wordy statements, unless
they reflect a character trait.
- Use contractions, dropped letters (goin', doin', etc.) slang,
profanity, accents, etc. with deliberate intent.
- Recognize when characters are likely to relate past events in
present tense.
AVOID:
- Unnecessary repetition of a phrase or idea.
- Small talk that doesn't illustrate character OR move the story
forward.
- Having one character address another by name (they know to
whom they are talking; it should be clear enough to your reader
in context and by other means)
- Wordy, academic, stiff, stilted phrases rolling off your
characters' tongues, unless it's a character trait.
Notes on Formatting Dialogue
- Dialogue starts and ends with quotation marks: " and "
- If one speaker's lines extend beyond one paragraph, each
paragraph of dialogue opens with opening quotation marks (");
the last paragraph ends with closing quotation marks (").
- Punctuation goes inside the quotation marks: "And so,"
explained Liz, "that's why I killed him."
- When one speaker is quoting another, the quotation is enclosed
in single quotation marks: ' and ' For example: "I told him Liz
said 'Eat more oatmeal.'"
Challenge Yourself!
Try writing a story using nothing but dialogue between
two or more characters. Don't include any dialogue tags ("he
said," "she cried," etc.). See if you can convey all the
elements of a good story, including distinct and interesting
characters, through dialogue alone.