Dear O'Abby: How do I write good dialogue? - From the archives

Variations of this question have come up a few times in the last couple of weeks, so O'Abby trawled through the archives and found a previous column that answers them.

Dear O'Abby,

My critique group recently told me they feel like the dialogue in my stories is letting my writing down.  They say it's stilted and doesn't feel realistic.  Do you have any tips on how to write dialogue that feels natural and smooth?

Sincerely,

Scriptless

Dear Scriptless,

I think the best tool for writing natural sounding dialogue is to read your scenes aloud.  You'll hear when it doesn't ring true.  People are often sloppy when they speak and use a lot of contractions and slang terms, so if you write dialogue using formal written English, it won't feel realistic.

Using too many dialogue tags, especially things other than "said" can also make your dialogue feel unrealistic and stilted.  Save expressive tags like "yelled", "whispered", "howled" or anything else for moments when they are really needed.  The rest of the time, "said" is fine.

And don't even use "said" too often.  A lot of the time you can indicate who is speaking in a scene through action instead of using a tag.

"I'm going now," Jim said.

Sally didn't look at him. "So go, then."

When there are only two people speaking in a scene, there is no need to break up the flow of dialogue with any tags - they can just converse.  I suggest throwing a bit of action in every few lines to keep the reader grounded in who is talking and to keep the scene from reading like a script.  

And remember.  Dialogue shouldn't be used to provide exposition.  It should drive the story forward, always, give valuable character insights and needs to fit the character speaking it.  Everyone has slightly different ways of talking, and one way to make your characters distinct is through their dialogue.  Maybe one of your characters has a favourite word they use often or incorrectly.  Maybe one doesn't ever swear and has silly phrases she uses instead of profanity.

Dialogue is fun and incredibly important to make your characters sing off the page.  So have fun with it!

X O'Abby

Dear O'Abby: How do I write good dialogue?

 Dear O'Abby,

My critique group recently told me they feel like the dialogue in my stories is letting my writing down.  They say it's stilted and doesn't feel realistic.  Do you have any tips on how to write dialogue that feels natural and smooth?

Sincerely,

Scriptless

Dear Scriptless,

I think the best tool for writing natural sounding dialogue is to read your scenes aloud.  You'll hear when it doesn't ring true.  People are often sloppy when they speak and use a lot of contractions and slang terms, so if you write dialogue using formal written English, it won't feel realistic.

Using too many dialogue tags, especially things other than "said" can also make your dialogue feel unrealistic and stilted.  Save expressive tags like "yelled", "whispered", "howled" or anything else for moments when they are really needed.  The rest of the time, "said" is fine.

And don't even use "said" too often.  A lot of the time you can indicate who is speaking in a scene through action instead of using a tag.

"I'm going now," Jim said.

Sally didn't look at him. "So go, then."

When there are only two people speaking in a scene, there is no need to break up the flow of dialogue with any tags - they can just converse.  I suggest throwing a bit of action in every few lines to keep the reader grounded in who is talking and to keep the scene from reading like a script.  

And remember.  Dialogue shouldn't be used to provide exposition.  It should drive the story forward, always, give valuable character insights and needs to fit the character speaking it.  Everyone has slightly different ways of talking, and one way to make your characters distinct is through their dialogue.  Maybe one of your characters has a favourite word they use often or incorrectly.  Maybe one doesn't ever swear and has silly phrases she uses instead of profanity.

Dialogue is fun and incredibly important to make your characters sing off the page.  So have fun with it!

X O'Abby

Two Easy-to-use Tools the will Dramatically Improve Your Dialogue

Have you considered dialogue tags lately?

I've been editing a piece I wrote almost five years ago. At the time, I'd only been writing for a couple of years, so I had a lot to learn (I still have a lot to learn and I've been at it for seven years). One of my rookie mistakes was too many dialogue tags. As I edit, I'm cutting about 90% of them.

Dialogue adds life and movement to your story, but right smack in the midst of great conversations are these little bits of telling rather than showing--the dialogue tag. The I-said, she-said, he-asked that all of us must inevitably include in our stories.

They may be inevitable, but I argue that they are grossly overused. While we don't want the reader confused, wondering who said what, there are better ways to convey who is speaking.

1.  Stage action--show us what the speaker is doing rather than telling us that she's saying it. This adds context to her speech and interest for the reader.

Clare started the car and rolled down the window. "Don't you dare think you you're going to get away with this."

Willis pulled the butcher knife from the drawer and sliced into the onion. "I don't appreciate your tone."

In both cases above, we know who is speaking because it's the person who is doing the action. 

2. Body language--they say body language conveys more than words, so use it in your writing. Show us the emotion and meaning behind the dialogue. The same piece of dialogue can take on new meaning through the use of body language.

Loretta swallowed hard and scratched her arm. "I'm ready to go."

Loretta hooked her hand on her hip. "I'm ready to go."

Again, we have a clear sense of who said what, but the dialogue is enriched by the emotion and meaning that the body language conveys.

There are places where dialogue tags will be needed. You won't be able to get rid of all of them, but like the dreaded adverb, use them sparingly and only when absolutely necessary.

********

Melinda Marshall Friesen writes sci-fi and urban fantasy for teens and adults from her home in the great white north. 

L is for Letting Your Characters Listen #AtoZChallenge

The #AtoZChallenge 2017 Theme at Operation Awesome is the Publishing Journey.

Today we have guest poster Brandon Ho on Operation Awesome, writing about why you should Let your characters Listen when writing dialogue.

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Listening

When I was a senior in high school, I started attending a local college. My first class was a history course, and the professor started talking about the advances scientists were making in the time with limited resources. It sparked a memory of something I learned about how someone measured the circumference of the world by placing sticks in the ground and measuring their shadows from the sun, all this before the world is flat even became a thing... I think. Could this have been during the time that my professor was talking about? I raised my hand and posed my question. I could immediately tell something was off with the quiet, blank stares I felt from everyone in the room. The person next to me whispered, "Dude, he just said that." This was my older brother, by the way. "Weren't you listening?" I tried to sink into my chair and disappear for the rest of the class. I made a mistake: I didn't listen. 

This is something that I think we all do on some form or another; we'll zone out, or we'll listen only to know when to insert our response rather than hearing what they have to say. And I bring this up because I feel like a mistake we make in writing is not allowing our characters to listen. 

Speaking without listening

We have that cool line that we want them to say, the plot point that needs to go forward, or maybe a deep harbored outburst that we always wanted to say out loud to somebody. The lines may or may not be bad unto themselves. But when we allow our character to disregard the dialogue, situation, or surroundings, we weaken the impact of their dialogue.

Michael Caine shared what he thought was the greatest advice to give to actors: "to listen and react." This is important because as an actor if you don't really listen to what the other people are saying, pay attention to what they're doing, and react to these two things, then the performances feel hollow, false, and contrived. The same thing happens when you allow this to happen to your protagonist, or even the characters the protagonist has to interact with.

Listen to your Characters 

I feel like our modern day has pushed us in a climate to villify the other; social media is filled with memes designed for "gotcha" moments and pointed remarks that tear down others and make them look dumb. When we tell our stories, we can't do that. You need to understand your heroes as well as your villains, or your smaller roles. As Brandon Sanderson always says, "Everyone is a hero in their own story." Meaning that the villains should be able to articulate clearly why they do what they do and believe them; so should the side characters, or those who hold opinions you may not agree with. As you listen to these characters, their reasons and justifications for what they do, and allow them to actively engage within your stories, you'll find them to be further enriched and heightened as your protagonist struggles to achieve his/her goals.

Listen in your life 

That being said, pay attention to how people speak, act, or react in life. If you ever need a source of inspiration, you can see it in the way they pull their hair in a ponytail with their hand as they drink from the water fountain, touch someone's shoulder to show they're interested, or look away from the person speaking when they're no longer interested in the conversation.

When we listen, we can give our characters a voice. When our characters listen, they can become strong in theirs.

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Brandon Ho was raised in Colorado and attended the BYU film school in Provo, UT. He is the director of the short film “My Hero,” winner of the 2012 College Television Award for Best Children’s Film. He actively seeks both old and new ways to use film as a teaching and promotional tool. Working closely with experts in the music and educational industries, he has produced music videos teaching children strong values and book trailers to promote reading. He is currently working on the web series Unsung Heroes.

Pre-Writing: Getting Into Character

PRE-WRITING

For May, our OA Writing Tips topic is Pre-Writing. How do you get ready to write a novel?

When I first started writing, I didn't know pre-writing existed. I dove in, head first, and felt befuddled when I bonked my head on the bottom of the pool. Through the years, I've begun to appreciate the idea of pre-writing. My favorite way to get ready for a big project, and the one I'm going to talk about today, is...

Getting Into Character:

So, taking a leaf from Twilight's Stephenie Meyer--who wrote her first book beginning with the intense emotional dream she'd just had: a conversation between a girl and a vampire about how much he wanted to kill her and how hard it was for him to refrain--I like to begin by writing a conversation between two or more characters. This gives me an idea who my main characters are, and why they are at odds with each other. It immediately establishes the main conflict, each character's main motive, and the justification each will use to feel like the good guy in the conflict.

This comes naturally to me because I often feel the impulse to open a new scene with dialogue. It's counter-intuitive for me to do what the experts say and begin by setting the scene. In my mind, it's the conversation that means the most. This type of pre-writing works with my natural inclination and gets the creative juices flowing.

Even if the conversations won't ever feature in the finished novel, they put me firmly in the heads of the characters I'm going to be leading on their wild goose chase of adventure, woe, and resolution.

How do you pre-write?

Look for answers from the rest of the OA gang throughout the month.

Reasons for Rejection: "As you know, Bob" Dialogue

Happy Sunday everyone! And welcome to my first official non-intro post on Operation Awesome!

As mentioned in my introduction post two weeks ago, I am an intern at a literary agency and one of my responsibilities involves reading the slush pile. The agency asks for a query, synopsis and the first fifty pages with submissions, but usually, I can tell if something is for me in the first ten pages.

Within the first ten pages, I either fall in love with the voice or I don't. There a lot of different things that make me fall and love and a lot of things that make me reject but today we are going to talk about a reason for rejection I call "As you know, Bob" dialogue.

This is a way of exposition dumping that seems clever because it is done through dialogue but comes off sounding very unnatural because... well... the characters have no reason to bring it up. Consider this scene.

"I can't wait to visit the rain forest this summer." Bob said.

"Are you sure? As you know, Bob, your parents were killed by a vicious tiger in the rain forest leaving you an orphan when you were very young." John replied.

This is a slightly exaggerated example, but the issue should be obvious. John is telling Bob something he already knows. Why bring it up? Its not as if Bob spontaneously forgot this life scarring trauma. This dialogue is here solely for the benefit of the reader and it comes off as awkward.

Exposition is hard. We have to find lots of clever ways to hide it. Sometimes we stick it dialogue but if not executed right, it will stand out like a sore thumb and the agent will be quick to throw the pages in the rejection pile, as natural dialogue is one of the most important elements of any novel. So what's a simple way to fix 'As you know, Bob' dialogue?

Simple: Put someone in the conversation who DOESN'T know.

JK Rowling is a genius in many ways but the best thing she ever did for the Harry Potter books was to make the main character Harry Potter, a boy who knows nothing about the wizarding world. He has to learn as he goes along, just as the audience does. In this way, Harry is an effective narrator. If he was a wizard like Ron it would be much harder to explain the world to the audience without some exposition riddled dialogue.

Exposition in dialogue is fine. But make sure that it makes sense. Put a confused outsider in the mix and you are on your way to a much more natural conversation. And that's another reason for rejection you can cross off your list!

Dialogue tags: Which side are you on?

Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms. ~Alfred Hitchcock

Recently, I've been working on a novella for the Flora series. The books in the series are in the main character's point of view, but this novella is in someone else's--it bridges the gap between book one and book two. Being as the character isn't from "here" (he's from a place where they are yet to use electricity, and the clothes are different, and they speak differently, et cetera...), I'm writing from a different point of view than I'm used to. And, in trying to make this character stand out on his own but not be boring, I'm finding myself more aware than ever of dialogue tags and the way writers use them. Which, of course, made me wonder what most of you all do, and if you're as aware of them when reading as you are when you write.

Screen shot from Dictionary.com

To me, the word conversation pretty much says it all... people don't stare at one another, deadpan, their voices monotone, when they interact in real life.  When they respond, they interact, they shout, they whisper, they stand up straight, they cower, they crouch. To say he said without adding anything, always, can (in my opinion) make a read feel stiff.

I've seen fellow writers on a few different sides over the years, including:

*Never do anything other than he said/she said because the readers are smart enough people to get what's left unsaid.

*Throw every description available out there, because the reader will appreciate it.

*Hey--whatever works and is necessary to make a great story--do a mainly she saids, along with a few glowers, a few grimaces, a few chuckles...

As a writer, I am on the "whatever works" side; but I do think it depends on the book and the characters and the author's voice. 

How about you? Have you ever found yourself pulled from a story because of specific dialogue tag use? What do you prefer to write? I'd love to hear about it in the comments! :)