I've been trying to figure out exactly why written dialogue is completely different from a spoken conversation, is it just that you leave out the 'ums' and 'ares' in writing, or is there something more too it, like making sentences very crisp to get the message across with the minimum of words. What do you think makes good dialogue?

A good exercise to try to see the difference is to engage in a little eavesdropping. (Come on, we all do it.)

Just listen in to a conversation, then later, try to write it down exactly as you recall it.

Read it back and you'll find it makes very little sense. I think people tend to speak in their own little languages, that don't make sense if you aren't part of their circle. (Certainly my brother does, but he's into rap music....)

Dialogue, however, has to make sense, and it happens to be one of my least favourite aspects of writing, trying to get the dialogue right.

As you know Becca, I am no expert, but this is what I do.

I am speaking my dialogue as I write, if possible out loud, but sometimes in my head too. More than that I am feeling it. That way I know whether words are said angrily, sarcastically, quietly etc. The real emotions are with me, the tears and the fears. I try not to put in those adverbs after the speech to convey the emotion, but I do try and convey them within the dialogue itself (although I may often fail). I also tend to need to show it visually somehow - whether this is correct or not, you can tell me, but I use ... for fading away and - for when speech is interupted. I really, in my dialogue do not worry too much about grammer, because I don't think we do in everyday talking do we? For me it is more important that it sounds realistic - unanswered questions, interuptions, going off the point a little, being unreasonable - all the things we maybe do in an ordinary conversation. Instead, for me, the most important thing to convery is the emotion - I would rather actually make sure the emotion is in place first, before I even think about it making sense. Sometimes I do have to go back and tweek a little, but when I do, I say the words out loud, as the characters, not as a narrator. If the dialogue moves me when I read it, in the way in which the characters themselves are experiencing the emotions, then I know I have succeeded, if not I have failed.

Great question Becca, and I had not actually thought about this before. It has made me think a great deal.

I'd be interested in how the experts do it!!

Best wishes
Carole

Oh and hi BJ - just wanted to say that for me, unlike you, dialogue is my favourite part to write, maybe because I can let go a little more and be free. Of course I have no idea if it really works or not, but I do enjoy writing it anyway.

Carole

yes, Carole, I think that's more or less what I do, I want to make sure the feeling is there, and tend to do it through expressions or the characters moving around in some way. I thought next time I was writing dialogue I'd try to see exactly what I was up to, it's automatic now that I can't easily realise what the process is.

BJ, I have written down bits of conversation, especially when people are rowing on my street, and no, they don't work. Single liners do though, and some of them can be priceless!

Written dialogue has to cut out all of the noise. It should be relevant to the story, or at least to the characters.

Normal spoken conversations, especially between people who have known eachother for many years, can contain far too many in-jokes, personal slang and references to past occurances.

Putting something like that into dialogue would have to stop every other line to explain the history behind what is being said.

Therefore, the two are - and always will be - completely different.

That's my opinion, anyway.

One great tip I read somewhere was to write sections of dialogue as if you were writing a play, ie just the spoken words and minimum stage directions. That way you are forced to convey the emotion through the dialogue itself.

I've tried it, especially when I've got a large chunk to write and it seems to work.

Gina.

Gina, that's an interesting tip.

Just realised I missed a bit out, that's the trouble with trying to post with two little ones pestering.

What I meant to add is that once you've written the dialogue in play format you can then add in explanations, feelings, inner thoughts etc. I find that writing in this way keeps the dialogue flowing.

Gina.

Even better.

I like writing dialogue too, but I have to say that I don't think about it too hard. I guess I always try to write what I think is realistic dialogue, and I think one of the big pitfalls that new writers sometimes make is using their entire vocabulary in dialogue. The plain truth is that people use only a fraction of the available words in everyday conversation (unless you're Clement Freud, or Brian Sewell or one of those ferociously intelligent and well-read correspondents...) and often their sentences are badly structured and far too long, with lots of 'ands' connecting apparently unrelated bits together. I agree about putting in movement too - it's rare conversations where the participants are entirely static, particularly if they're emotional conversations.

Um... I'm thinking of posting a bit of dialogue from my erotic novel for comment (but it won't be an X-rated conversation!)
see the Fiction II group.

cheers

On the subject of dialogue, here's a diatribe that I shared with Andrew on his Icera Stone chapter 2. This piece made me think a lot about written dialogue, because I found it tremendously difficult tor ead, although I was already engaged with the story. Anyway, after much ehad scratching I came up with the following points.

1 The issue of question marks. I think these could be used much more sparingly. I find that in reading, only direct questions really merit a question mark, wondering or musing can simply finish with a full stop, or perhaps peter out with an elipsis... (OK, I know I use them far too much).
Example:

‘Perhaps you should have gone up the Hill, after all?' Vicky suggested, 'You still can go if you want to? You have time. I could drop you off at the path behind the church?’ Now, there's three in here, and I'd lose them all, or possibly, just possibly, keep the middle one.

2 Ditto exclamation marks. Again, in reading, only statements that are really shocking need exclamation marks, statements of vague surprise can do without, I think.

Example:
‘It is not really my thing!’

3 Contractions are used all the time in speech. I think this helps us to read speech as speech, rather than as a collection of words that are exchanged between two people. So we use I'll rather than I will - unless we're going for a particular emphasis; they're rather than they are; didn't not did not; it's not it is; there's not there is; and often yeah rather than yes.

Examples:
‘What is that on the top...


4 Erica uses Vicky's name a lot out loud. Now, people tend not to do that to our faces. I have one colleague who does, and I'm always conscious of it, it sounds quite forced to me. I think particularly since they've only just met, and in slightly strange circumstances, Erica would be a little embarrassed, and is unlikely to be so... er... so gushing towards Vicky. I can see an occasional use, particularly in regard to questions perhaps, but scattered all across the dialogue, no, it doesn't sound real.

5 Long passages of pure dialogue, unbroken by movement or comment. In practice, we're always accompanying speech with facial expressions, hand gestures, shrugs - I think using some more of this to break up the rather bald rhythm and give the two characters more personality.



Andrew was kind enough to acknowledge that some of my points might be valid, but I'm sure that others may feel I'm being overly picky... go and see for yourself!

This may seem like a minor point, but I wondered whether people had any views on double versus single quotation marks..."hello" as opposed to 'hello' for speech?

I tend to prefer the latter but its just on aesthetic grounds, probably because I seem to have so much dialogue in my stuff to have double everywhere looks a bit over the top.

Any views?

Andrew )

How odd, I've just read this whole thread thinking it was recent and it's not.

Andrew, I prefer singles too - it seems more logical to put the double ones within the singles when the speaker is quoting rather than the reverse. And I think they look tidier too.