Story Building (Part IX): dialogue
Ya’ll,
dialogue is one of my favorite things to write. It gives opportunity to reveal character motives, fears, and personality
through showing (in speech), rather than telling.
Take
care you don’t use dialogue as an opportunity for
info dumps from one character to another, especially if it’s
information they both know, i.e. “Mr. Frodo, we’ve been on this journey to
Mordor for seventeen days now. I sure do miss the Shire where we used to live,
and I was your gardener.” Yeah. Anyway.
Like
mentioned before, dialogue is a great way to reveal character desire and
motivations. But real people often don’t say what they want, especially if that
thing is deep or personal. I made the mistake of writing lengthy, passionate
paragraphs of dialogue from my MC in my first novel, in which he stated exactly
what he wanted in the clearest, most preachy, unrealistic way he could. He
spelled everything out for the reader to understand. He bared his heart in the
first chapter. And he talked for sentences on end. Real
people don’t do that.
Readers
like to have the chance to figure things out. They like solving mysteries. Herein
lies the fun of writing dialogue: figuring out how to subtly give
readers what they need.
Here
are some tips/techniques to consider when writing dialogue:
1.
Personality.
How do your characters sound distinct from each other? What words, phrases, or
style of speech does each use that distinguishes
one from the other? Don’t overdo
pet phrases/words, else it will become noticeable as a technique, not a believable
style of speech.
2.
Masked.
People don’t usually say what they really feel. When someone asks you, “How are
you?” 99% of the time you say, “I’m good.” Are you really?
Have a character reveal traces of
his feelings or none. Maybe even the opposite of what he’s feeling. If he’s
crushed, have him paste a smile on his face, laugh, and talk. I’ve done that in
real life. Drop hints of what’s going on, but don’t give it to us in one chunk.
If you provide all the pieces throughout the
story, we’ll put the puzzle together ourselves.
People don’t say what they mean
either. I think it’s self-preservation. They mislead or understate. My mom asked me
recently if I’d like to go on a weekend trip. I wanted to go. But I told her,
“I don’t know.”
How will your character
protect himself by not saying what he means?
3.
Evasion. One
of my favorite things to do is have a character evade or not answer a question
from another character. Instead, he says something that answers the question
indirectly or he avoids it completely with some new speech:
“Even the dark
frightens me.” The prince snickered, but shame filled his eyes. “I act like a
child.”
Lionel swallowed
and gathered the courage to risk a little further. “I never told you that fire
terrifies me.”
“What?” The
prince laughed. “Lionel, why?”
Lionel shrugged
the cloak closer around his neck. “And you never stop hoping.”
In
the last line, Lionel avoids the prince’s question and goes back to a point
from earlier in the conversation. I don’t know why I find it so fun to do.
4.
Character Change. Generally,
this is better shown through actions, not speech. Who likes when a character
monologues about how he has learned and changed so much over the course of the
story? But you can have dialogue as part of the showing. For example, in my
WIP, Lionel of Angrasté: Assassin of Love, Lionel never calls Prince Erik by name, even
though the prince asked him to. Lionel refers to him as “Prince” or “Sir” to
his face, and “the Pig” or “Piglet” in the narrative. But by the end of the second
third of the book, you see Lionel softening. At last, without me saying,
“Lionel opened completely to the Prince and showed he trusted him,” there is
this simple line:
Lionel’s heart lifted a bit. “Respect,” he
murmured. And then he added softly, “Erik.”
It’s scary, but I’m trusting readers
to figure it out. It creates more emotion that
way too.
5.
Shorter is better. As fun as writing dialogue is, unless it’s
bursting with conflict, I think shorter is better. It depends on the character
and situation, but the lengthy chunks of heart-to-heart speech between two
males aren’t realistic in my historical fiction WIP, Defending That Which is Not Mine. Also, relying on
context to tighten and see how
much you can get across in one or two words can be fun.
“How?” the prince’s soft word spoke a
carefulness, but not one of fear. Just gentleness.
Lionel nodded slowly, staring into the
distance, almost afraid to blink. Afraid to crumble. “ARSOA.” He drew a few
shallow breaths and turned to the prince.
6.
Gestures. Body language speaks more than words, and it
doesn’t lie. Depend mainly on gestures, rather than dialogue tags or
punctuation, to convey if someone is happy, sarcastic, or angry. Look at Boruk
in the following example:
Aleksander shrugged and swirled his
wine in his cup. “Elikai is silent. Success lies in what you’ve built here.” He
lifted his gaze to meet Boruk’s again, his eyes dark and empty like pits above
his pronounced cheekbones. “Besides, you can’t take the boy from her, now, even
if you told her the truth. He’s like her son.” He lifted the goblet to his
lips.
Boruk tightened his jaw and glanced at
the sack on the mantle. “I’ll get the boy. Tomorrow.”
Versus:
Boruk shrugged and waved his hand
toward Aleksander. “I’ll get the boy.” He belched. “Tomorrow.”
In the first example, Boruk is dark
and determined, almost challenging Aleksander to defy his resolve. The second
example shows Boruk as carefree and probably drunk. I almost hear a sing-song
tone in the second snippet.
If you do a good job with gestures,
there’s no need to say, “Boruk looked at the sack on the mantle. ‘I’ll get the
boy,’ he said darkly and resolutely. “Tomorrow.”
Also, unless someone is screaming or
yelling, don’t use exclamation points to show anger or excitement. Use
gestures. It’s more interesting and gives a clearer picture. Besides, editors
joke they only want to see one exclamation point per manuscript, so
you’d better choose carefully where you want to use it.
7.
Timing. Be careful that the dialogue fits the situation.
In my first novel, I routinely made the bad choice for long, deep conversations
in potentially bad situations, like marching on patrol. The guys probably
shouldn’t be chatting, much less about things that will take their minds off
their jobs.
It
can be tough to write good dialogue, especially if I’m trying to work in deep
plot points without sounding preachy or like I’m accomplishing something for
the plot. But I’ve noticed the more time I spend on a section—the harder it is
and the harder I work on it—those are usually the best pieces of my book.
So
go hit it. :)
…
What
are your favorite things about dialogue? How can you apply the same techniques
you enjoy reading to your writing?
…
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