It's All About the Dialog III

Last month I wrote a bit about dialog, but it was all just mechanics. But remember that good dialog is so important to your fiction because dialog is the best place to reveal your character’s inner self.  It is also the place where you can most easily destroy your character, and your book.  I know you’ve been told that every writer should have his own individual voice.  If you want your characters to become real people, they too should each have an individual voice, and that voice should grow organically out of who that person is.

You must think of every character you create as a real person, as real as you or me.  How you speak is the result where you come from, your age, your ethnic background, your gender, whether you’re a leader or follower, and whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert.  So you need to know all of that and more about every character before he opens his mouth. Your speech is also affected by what groups you have belonged to.  For example, ex-cons and retired soldiers have distinctive speech patterns that are very different.

One final tip on making your dialog fresh and believable.  When you have a conversation written and you think it’s the way it is supposed to be, the final test is done by ear.  Read your dialog aloud.  Say exactly what you wrote, and if you find yourself tempted to change it in the reading, consider changing what is on the page.  If you stumble over an unintentional tongue twister, change that too because people don’t usually say things that are hard for them to say during conversations.  And pay attention to the word choices.  Consider this sentence from a book I was asked to critique: 

“Your sourpuss persona is rubbing off on everyone, including Whimsy.  She’s seven years old and by now you should have adjusted to being a parent—-she deserves more from you.  It’s Christmas, for pity’s sake!”   

Now, if you had written that and then read it aloud, I hope you would ask yourself - would the person who used a phrase like “sourpuss persona” also use a phrase like, “for pity’s sake?” 

The test by ear is the final test of whether you’ve written strong, believable dialog.  I hope these few tips will help you put better words into your characters’ mouths.

It’s All About the Dialog II

I’ll begin today’s dialog class with a reminder to keep it visual. In all fiction writing you’re setting a scene.  Whenever conversation takes place, there’s more going on than just the words

In last week’s dialog example (don’t make me repeat myself – it’s right there below this post) I think plainly stating that Eve was laughing at Adam has a lot more impact than slipping in the word “chortled,” and letting us see what’s happening between them involves us in the conversation so much better than the one-word clue that Adam whined.  If you paint a word picture, your reader will be able to accurately guess when the dialog is loud or soft, friendly or not.  In the revised example, I think you got the idea that Eve snapped at Adam when she said, “not anymore.”  Even if you didn’t, you probably understood the tone well enough.

I think the reason “said” substitutes are pet peeves for so many editors is that it’s the easiest way to express some thoughts, and nobody likes a lazy writer.  They want to know you’ve really thought about what you want to say and have searched for the best way to say it.  So go ahead and use the old reliable word, “said” along with other, equally neutral words like “replied” or “asked” and find better ways of letting us know that your character smiled, hissed or sputtered.

Now even the use of “said” won’t save you from another dialog evil.  Consider this:

Tommy was startled when he opened the door and mike walked in.

“What are you doing here?” Tommy asked nervously.

“I’m looking for you,” Mike said angrily.  “Where have you been all day?”

“I had to leave,” Tommy said softly. “The thing in the closet sent me away.”

“Thing in the closet?” Mike said fiercely.  “I’ve had enough of this nonsense.  I’m going in there and toss everything out.”

“No, no,” Tommy said, frantically. “If you go in there it will kill you.”

Hopefully you noticed and maybe even got a little uncomfortable with the adverbs in this passage.  Adverbs are a lazy way to try to make dialog more expressive.  They are almost always unnecessary if the dialog is well written.  Personally, I don’t think you ever need to use an adverb in your writing again in life. For the purposes of dialog they’re easy to do without.  Just think of another way to express the same thoughts and feelings. 

Next week, a few more tips on keeping your dialog realistic.

It’s All About the Dialog

A great story with weak characters is a big a fail, but so is wonderfully developed characters who spout weak dialog. Like all writing, good dialog requires both craft and conception. It’s the best way to draw readers into your story and get them involved with the characters.  The conversations between your fictional people should reveal character and promote the plot as well.  You don’t want to waste dialog on anything the character says that doesn’t promote these two goals.

One dialog mistake that will scare any publisher’s editors away from your work is using dialog to clumsily fill in your back story.  You must not have one of your characters tell another one things that person already knows. You hear it on CSI every week – one expert explaining things that another expert certainly knows. You can get away with this kind of thing on television, but not in your novels or short stories.  Readers know how unrealistic this is.   

Here’s another scary example of bad dialog that I made up.   I’m exemplifying here a writing technique that makes many editors groan.  It’s the result of writers trying to make their dialog more colorful:

“I won’t put up with it,” Eve shrieked.  “I’ll leave you if it happens again.”

“You can’t do that,” Adam moaned.  “You’re a part of me.”

“Not anymore,” Eve snapped. 

“But I love you,” Adam whined weakly.

“Then your time in paradise is over,” she chortled.

She chortled?  Silly, but do you see what’s happened here. In an effort to make the dialog more interesting, you can end up making it laughable.  There is nothing wrong with the simple word “said” in your dialog. You might fear that it’s boring, but actually it’s neutral.  It’s almost invisible.  And because it does not draw attention to itself, it keeps the reader’s focus on your characters’ words. 

If you want variety in your dialog, consider varying the format and adding some action or description.  Here are the exact same quoted words, with the surrounding words rewritten:

Eve’s words exploded at him. “I won’t put up with it!  I’ll leave you if it happens again.”

“you can’t do that,” Adam said.  Pain showed on his face.  “You’re a part of me.”

“Not anymore.”

“But I love you,” Adam said in a low, childlike voice.

“Then your time in paradise is over.”

There’s the same conversation, with only one “said” and no substitute verbs.  Of course those substitute verbs do carry meaning, and maybe it’s important to you that we know that eve was laughing at her man in that last line.  If that’s true then it’s okay to just say so.

“But I love you,” Adam said, trying to hold her eyes with his own.  He withdrew in horror when Eve laughed right in his face.

“Then your time in paradise is over.”

We’ll talk more about our made-up conversation next week, and discuss other dialog tips.

What's It All About?

I’ve been contemplating some of the questions I am often asked at writers’ conferences and clubs. It seems to me, contrary to obvious assumptions, that the simplest questions draw the most complex answers.

For example, there’s “What should I write?” If the person asking is seeing me as a fellow writer, they might really want to know what books are selling right now. If they see me as a publisher, they may really be trying to find out what my company is looking for. Either way I tend to take the questions literally. Therefore I answer the question with a question: “What do you read?” When I get a quick, strong response the rest is easy. If you’re an avid reader of romance or legal thrillers or horror tales, that’s what you should write. Write that book you really want to read. Occasionally someone is honest enough to admit they don’t read much. In which case my answer is: “Don’t write.”

Almost as often I’ll be asked something like, “What’s the most important part of a story?” Among fiction writers, this is sometimes a confusing issue. The person I’m talking with may want my take on whether fiction writing is an art or a craft (of course, it is both, and they are equally important.) Or they may be focused on the so-called elements of fiction. Perhaps they’ve written a character driven novel and are being told that a story is all about the plot. Or they have something to say, a strong theme but their first readers say it’s the dialog that pulls the reader into the story. Or they’ve created a wonderfully complex universe in their speculative fiction story, and a good friend has tried to help them by explaining that world-building isn’t what people want. They need to have a unique voice.

I get it. We all want to assemble the parts and build a sturdy novel or short story, and we want to know what part to focus most on. Sadly, the true answer is to the “most important part” question is: “All of them.” A great story with weak characters is as big a fail as wonderfully developed characters who spout weak dialog. Every one of those elements is vital to a great story. And the worst part is, you can’t even develop them separately. Those elements grow organically, like crystals, and rely on each other to grow strong. The setting helps shape the characters whose actions drive the plot that expresses the theme revealed in the dialog IF the story is being told from the right point of view.

That said, the elements of fiction can be discussed separately, and I’ll try to do some of that in the next few blogs.