Tag Archives: good dialogue

Mechanics

How to write the stuff around the dialogue

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Flip open any book, and you’re sure to find them: dialogue attribution using verbs other than “said.” Breathed, whispered, inveighed, called, shouted, yelled, extrapolated, interdicted, translated, interpreted—there are literally hundreds of verbs for speech.

But despite that, “said” is still the default dialogue tag. Yes, every book on the market contains speech verbs other than said—but that’s a big reason why “said” is the default dialogue tag: because other tags are so noticeable. “Said” is practically invisible; we read it without really noticing it, while other dialogue tags call attention to themselves.
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Technique

Indirect dialogue

This entry is part 6 of 8 in the series Dialogue

Sometimes the ability to write good dialogue becomes a crutch. We feel like we should show all possible dialogue—but it’s just not the case.

Sometimes, the story—the pacing, the conflict, and most of all the reader—is better served by summarizing dialogue. This seems to be the case in stories where one character is telling another about actions the reader has already seen. Most of the time (unless we’re going for a Rashomon effect), the reader stands to gain nothing from rehashing an event that the other character needs to hear about.

It’s really not a sin to write something along the lines of “She related the whole story of X” or “He caught her up on the status of the battle.” If the POV character is the one telling the story, the reader probably needs very little cues. If the current POV character is listening to the story (i.e. we saw the scene from another character’s POV before this), we might get into some more detail with the POV character’s reactions and interpretations.

This might also work well if the readers haven’t seen the event in question—but they’ve already heard about it. For example, in a mystery, a detective or PI might interview half a dozen witnesses who all saw essentially the same thing. We definitely don’t need to see every single full conversation—the pertinent parts (like the details only one person saw, or the red herrings, or whatever) are all we need.

On the other hand, if the readers haven’t already seen the events being described, it might be better—and often less confusing and simpler—to write out the character’s full run down. If it turns into a speech, break it up into a conversation, or at least add reactions from the POV character. (I can’t think of a time the POV character would give one of these speeches. Maybe for backstory? Ack.)

Now for the third hand. I haven’t decided if I like this technique, but every so often, I see something like this:

Billy and I moved on to the next painting.

“That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.” He curled his lip in disgust.

Well, I thought he was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, and told him so. “And also, you stink. But most of all, your taste in art stinks.”

Now, this would never work for me if the second paragraph said Well, I thought he was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen. “You’re the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. And also, you stink. But most of all, your taste in art stinks.”

But for me the jury’s still out on the first version. I’m a dialogue lover, so I would tend toward just putting it in dialogue, and cutting the “Well, I thought . . .” part—I mean, if you say it, the reader’s going to figure out that they’re thinking it, right?

What do you think? How does that example of indirect dialogue work for you? How else might we use non-dialogue for dialogue?

Photo by the Michigan Municipal League

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Technique

Is this too much like how people talk?

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This entry is part 3 of 8 in the series Dialogue

All too often, it seems, I hear something that isn’t working in fiction justified because “that’s how it is in real life.” That may be, but fiction is not real life. Fiction has to be believable, consistent and have a point. Oh, and be interesting. I don’t think my life has ever felt like all four of those things at once.

Dialogue in fiction has to be all of those things, too—and dialogue in real life seldom is.

“Hi. How are you?”

“Good. You?”

“Fine. Really coming down out there, isn’t it?”

“Yep. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Nah, I’m good. What have you been up to this week?”

“Not much. Cleaned the basement.”

Is it boring? Let’s face it—we all have conversations like the one above, probably several times a day. And yet there’s almost never a place for something like this in fiction.

Much of the time, we can skip to the heart of the conversation. We don’t need the warm-up parts—and including them may be a sign we’re starting the scene in the wrong place.

[27 pages of the above . . . aaaaaaaaaaand scene]

Boring multiplied, yes—but more importantly, there’s no point, no conflict here. Conflict is necessary—something most of us try to avoid in real life conversations. As Nathan Bransford says:

A good conversation is an escalation. The dialogue is about something and builds toward something. If things stay even and neutral, the dialogue just feels empty.

Dialogue in fiction is like a symphony or a theorem. (Sounds appealing, eh?) A symphony will develop musical themes and work to a climactic point (often with a literal crescendo). Similarly, a theorem builds on each previous fact to reach its apex, the conclusion. Extraneous arguments and points aren’t included. Well-known theories can be summarized (AAS for triangle congruity) (oh, come on, you remember eighth grade math, right?).

“Vanessa, you drive me crazy!”

“Shut up, Jerica! Or should I say Jerk-ica?”

“I swear, if you ever pull that kind of stunt again, so help me, Vanessa—”

Okay, that looks ridiculous, doesn’t it? And yet when we’re really upset in real life, we do use the other person’s name surprisingly often. (Or maybe it’s just me; I’m pretty sure I’ve argued with my husband by only saying his name.)

These jump out when we read fiction. I read a book six months ago where the author apparently didn’t know this (though it wasn’t his first book). Entire scenes of dialogue had the characters calling each other by name in literally every line of dialogue—sometimes up to three times in a mini-speech. Even non-writers commented on this in the online reviews.

What do you think? What else doesn’t belong between the quotation marks?

Photo by Adam Bindslev

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