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
I agree whole heartedly about the necessity of conflict in dialogue and that dialogue should be about something and building up to something. If it’s not, then why read it? Other things that don’t belong between the quote marks are stammering and cluttered up language, like “uh” or “you know.” Cliches are very bothersome, too!
GREAT post! Dialogue definitely has to have a purpose. It may be escalating the conflict, or it may be something else. (I have a list of 6 things good dialogue can do–I think every scene w/ dialogue should accomplish a minimum of 2 or 3.)
A creative writing teacher once told our class to listen to how people really speak so we could write realistic dialogue. Worst advice about the topic EVER. Good dialogue is the ILLUSION of real speech. We don’t really talk like that!
LOL. It’s not bad advice for true beginners, I guess. I read waaaay too much dialogue (in published books) that I have to mentally rephrase because no one would actually talk that way.
OTOH, I think the most common too-realistic device I see (outside of published books) is the use of ellipses . . . which was supposed to be part of this post, now that I think of it. Darn.
I totally agree that it’s the ILLUSION of real speech. I think I once heard someone suggest that you watch TV or movies to get better at dialogue—same kind of deal.
What bothers me is when a male character talks like a woman. Too wordy. Have you noticed that?
Actually, research shows that men talk more than women, especially in workplaces, public settings, etc. People laugh whenever I say this, but empirical research backs it up.
And only in very, very rare instances should any character be wordy (in speech or narration). When I’m reading, one of my internal editor’s (it has no off switch!!) biggest pet peeves is wordiness. (The other is unnatural speech.)
Dialog can either propel the plot or sink it. This post made excellent points, thanks for it, Jordan!!
PS: What are you up to these days, writing?
Oh, thanks for asking! Caught in a perpetual editing loop (sigh), hoping to escape to submit next month.
And I recently started (very slowly, thank you baby #3) a new WIP. It’s very rough, but the logline right now is: When a Soviet diplomat is nearly assassinated in post-war Paris, she must trust an American spy and choose between her loyalties and her life.
How about you? I’m enjoying your poetry—how’s your fiction?