Back
in graduate school, the worst insult a writer could inflict on another was that
their dialogue was forced or stilted.
Bad
writing was one thing. Bad dialogue, quite another. It insinuated that the
writer had failed not only in his writing but also as a listener. It implied
that you were hopelessly unaware or socially inept.
It
was a double-whammy.
I
wasn’t immune, of course, and I sat in the stilted dialogue “hot” seat more than
once, cringing and shuffling my feet and wishing I had studied accounting or
biology or one of those studious sounding subjects like psychics or chemistry.
Years
later, I often think of those words as I’m writing dialogue, and they still
make me cringe.
Because,
face it, writing dialogue is hard.
People in books don’t speak as people do in real life, since we don’t spend our
days advancing the plot forward. We have no idea that we are part of a plot. Real
life isn’t like that.
Writing
is. And dialogue is the heavyweight of the story, sweating under the burden of
multiple tasks: emphasizing character interaction, highlighting situations and moving
the plot forward. It also controls the pace and tension. Every dialogued word
holds double, and often triple, meaning. If it didn’t, it probably should be
written as straight text.
But
how does one write realistic dialogue?
First,
listen to people talk. Very few of us speak in full and proper sentences.
Imagine
writing this: “Andy, please set the table for dinner, and don’t forget the
china plates my grandmother left me in her will.”
Well,
there’s nothing inherently wrong with that sentence, but there’s nothing great
about it, either.
Try
this instead: “Andy, can you set the table, and don’t forget Gramma’s plates.”
That’s more of how we speak in our real lives.
But
wait! Didn’t I mention earlier than dialogue can’t reflect real life since it’s
obligated to hold so many nuances?
I
did, which is why I advise creating tension by inserting small slices of
narrative within a body of dialogue (and the operative word here is small).
“Andy,”
she growled, “please set the table, and don’t forget Gramma’s plates.”
Or,
“Andy, please set the table,” Jane said, cradling her head in her hands. “And
don’t forget Gramma’s plates.”
That
still might not be great writing but it does do what dialogue is meant to do:
Create enough tension to keep the reader guessing and ultimately, continue
reading.
Other dialogue
don’ts:
·
Using
bad dialect or too much dialect/slang.
·
Using
too many pause words such as “ums” or “you knows.”
·
Not
breaking up dialogue with narrative (you know the heavy feeling you get when
you open a book to find pages of unbroken dialogue? Don’t do to readers what
you don’t want done to you).
·
Limit
the use of “he said” and “she said.” Substitute with more active words: She
yelled, he stuttered, she whined, he coaxed.
Dialogue dos:
·
Give
each character a distinctive voice.
·
Keep
dialogue fresh, fast and snappy.
·
Write
from the characters’ hearts, not just their heads.
·
Keep
the conflict alive by implying, not stating, the obvious and not-so-obvious
Of
course, just as we sometimes say things we later regret, it’s inevitable that
we will find ourselves, on rare or even numerous occasions, writing bad
dialogue. When this happens, don’t beat yourself or your characters up.
Apologize, make the proper amends, and move on.
Cinthia
Ritchie is a former journalist who lives and runs mountains and marathons in
Alaska. Her work can be found at New York
Times Magazine, Sport Literate, Water-Stone Review, Under the Sun, Memoir,
damselfly press, Slow Trains, 42opus, Evening Street Review and over 45
literary magazines. Her first novel, Dolls
Behaving Badly, released Feb. 5 from Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book
Group.
Links:
Thanks so much, Jamie, for a chance to show off the near-useless jargon I learned in graduate school, hee, hee. Posts looks great. Hugs from Alaska.
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