Surprised not to find many of these on Amazon and those that are there don't seem to get especially consistently good (or credible) reviews.

Maybe people don't generally regard this as enough of a topic to fill a whole book. I've read chapters on dialogue but I'd like something a bit more substantial.

Any recommendations?

I have the book on Plot and Structure in this series, and it's pretty good. This is the dialogue one , probably worth a look:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dialogue-Techniques-Exercises-Crafting-Effective/dp/1582972893/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341082252&sr=1-2



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I find a lot of my students lack confidence in writing dialogue especially. I suppose it all comes down to ear and a sense of your character. Maybe look at books on character too?

I think the more good dialogue you read (and the more conversations you accidentally eavesdrop on, not to be nosy but to listen to how two people exchange speech) then the easier it should become to write it. Can be tricky, I know.

[quote]This is the dialogue one , probably worth a look:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dialogue-Techniques-Exercises-Crafting-Effective/dp/1582972893/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1341082252&sr=1-2[/quote]

Thanks - I took a look at that one and was put off the first few reviews but now that you've made me look harder, they get a lot better further down! I'll give that one a go.

[quote]I find a lot of my students lack confidence in writing dialogue especially. I suppose it all comes down to ear and a sense of your character. Maybe look at books on character too?[/quote]

That's good advice - am maybe thinking too narrowly. I do careful reading of other people's dialogue but although I can see that it's working, I can't see why it's working in a way that I could use and think I need something to tell me.

By the way, stupid question, but I can't figure out why my html sometimes isn't working properly with quotes. Is there an easy way to quote other people's posts on this forum?

Toast, is there a specific issue that you're aware of in your writing?

Agreed that it's often about character (which you can work on) and having an ear (which is perhaps mostly about binning your iPod). The clearer you are about who's speaking, the better their voice is likely to be in your ears - and thus have a chance of getting on the page.

Also subtext and what actors think of as intentions: what (even unconsciously) is each character trying to do, by saying what they say? People speak, and say what they say, for a reason, and it isn't always the apparent one.

Also it can be about finding the confidence to leave things unsaid - and trusting the reader to hear what's going on in the spaces.

I think dialogue is one of the hardest things to learn. I agree with Leila, that it comes down to ear and having a sense of your character. I also think that good fictional dialogue improves on real life dialogue but in a way the reader doesn't notice. Which means you have to get the voices right but also have them cleverer, or funnier or more significant than in everyday life. I was just watching a bit of the film Iron Man and a lot of the dialogue is very good. It sounds natural but is actually often very funny while at the same time telling you a lot about the characters and what's happening to them.

For me, it's a case of getting right inside the character then letting them speak while I gently steer the conversation the way the scene needs it to go. That tussle - between character pull and the plot's needs - is what I think can make dialogue really take off, rather than just come across as perfunctory and generic.

Terry

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Just saw this:

Also it can be about finding the confidence to leave things unsaid - and trusting the reader to hear what's going on in the spaces.

and totally agree.

I think it was Chekov - peerless short fictioneer but also of course dramatist extraordinaire, who said something along the lines of "In real life people don't have great conversations about their broken hearts and thwarted hopes, they have dinner..." And of course it's in the conversations about could-you-pass-the-potatoes-it's-a-shame-the-crop-was-so-poor-this-year that everything else comes over.

"Having an ear" is so necessary - and yet saying so can sound so like saying that if you've gotta ask, you ain't got it, as whichever Jazz legend it was said, when asked what jazz is... But I think part of it isn't - in a sense - in getting better at dialogue, it's in working on the suppleness - flexibility, responsiveness - of your word-hoard and sentence-hoard in general, so that it's responsive whatever your imagination is "hearing".

One thing I have noticed in the WIP (and before) is how much I use

trailing off...

and self-interupted -

bits of dialogue, to try to prompt the reader, if you like, to "read into" the space what would be there.

I discovered recently that if you're writing radio drama, and you want to do that, you should give the actor a bit more of the speech, so that they know where they're heading, even if they don't get to say it:

John: I don't know if you've heard that I'm ... [going to be given the job you applied for?] Mary: Are you trying to tell me that - [you're married?] John: [interrupting] I do hope you don't feel to bad about it. Mary: Bad? Bad? How DARE you?

which I think is fascinating, and a useful kind of thinking for us to do, even though of course we could explain it all, if we wanted to. And the reader/listener's experience of my stupid bit of demo dialogue - what they read into the spaces - would be shaped by what we know of Mary and John from before.

I know you're looking specifically for books on dialogue rather than chapters, but I just wanted to flag one chapter treatment I found really helpful. It's the dialogue chapter in 'Reading Like a Writer' by Francine Prose.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reading-Like-Writer-Guide-People/dp/1908526076/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341139516&sr=8-1

She illustrates her points using excerpts from classics works particularly strong on the aspects under the microscope in each chapter - for dialogue she uses passages from Henry Green's 'Doting' and 'Loving'.

One thing I have noticed in the WIP (and before) is how much I use trailing off... and self-interupted - bits of dialogue, to try to prompt the reader, if you like, to "read into" the space what would be there.

Completely agree. I don't know if it helps, but I'm only happy with my character's dialogue when I can hear them saying it in my head, and it sounds like a real conversation. If it sounds like an excerpt from a very bad movie, then it's back to the drawing board...

Toast, is there a specific issue that you're aware of in your writing?

I think it's just that I can see that other people's dialogue is better than mine! And in all sorts of different ways but every piece of good dialogue that I look at seems to have different strengths and seems to work for different reasons that I can't really see if there's some underlying principle or principles at work.

What you say about what people are trying to do in a conversation and what's not being said is really helpful - it's that sort of specific principle that I need pointing out so that I can build from it. I don't seem to be very good at developing insight just from close reading.

I agree with Leila, that it comes down to ear and having a sense of your character.

Thanks, Terry - I don't think I've got much of an ear. When I listen, I focus on what people mean, rather than how they say it and as a result, my characters mostly don't speak very differently from each other. I will have to spend the week really trying to focus on listening to see if I can start developing that skill. Also, I started writing my draft hoping that my characters would leap into life but mostly they didn't, so that hasn't helped.

I discovered recently that if you're writing radio drama, and you want to do that, you should give the actor a bit more of the speech, so that they know where they're heading, even if they don't get to say it

That's fascinating! Thanks for passing that on.

I just wanted to flag one chapter treatment I found really helpful. It's the dialogue chapter in 'Reading Like a Writer' by Francine Prose.

Hi MPayne - I tried reading RLAW a while back and it rapidly went over my head, at which point I resold it on Amazon! Wish I hadn't, now...

The most useful pointer (or maybe just the pointer that at this stage I'm most able to make use of) regarding dialogue was in Sol Stein's On Writing in which he gets you to be clear about what "script" your characters in a scene are working to. For example, a headmaster might be working to the script that a boy at his school deserves to be expelled and the boy's mother might be working to the script that her son is in the right; and then you just let them fly.

he gets you to be clear about what "script" your characters in a scene are working to. For example, a headmaster might be working to the script that a boy at his school deserves to be expelled and the boy's mother might be working to the script that her son is in the right; and then you just let them fly.

That's a much clearer version of what I was trying to say.

And of course the overall script for the scene will throw up different intentions at different stages: first the headmaster is trying "to explain", then when the mere mother gets stroppy he's trying "to overawe", and when she threatens in return to tell the governors about him pinching the games mistresses bottoms he might switch to "to placate"...

There are different aspects to finding the voices of different people.

One is what you might call external aspects of that character - period, age within that period, gender, class, background, education... How does that affect what they say and how they say?

The other is what you might call internal aspects: their nature. This can mean that even - say - two sisters can sound quite different from each other, even though many of the external things about them are the same. Are they friendly and chatty, or quiet but benign? Prickly and reserved? Aggressive to most but equally forthcoming with a lover? Do they talk in long rambly sentences or long coherent ones or short fierce ones or short, trailing-off vague ones? What figurative language are they likely to use? (crude example: a sailor might use nautical similes and metaphors)

It is perfectly possible to decide these things quite cold-bloodedly, and still have it work. It doesn't, in that sense, have to be something you can either do instinctively nor not do at all. And - see Laurel & Hardy - it does no harm to think in terms of finding the biggest contrast possible, which makes both sides of it seem more so.

One exercise I give students sometimes is to get them to write this, for themselves:

1. I opened the door and saw... [something dramatic - shocking, comical, peculiar, whatever]
2. I felt as if/like a... [metaphor or simile appropriate to character]
3. I thought, " "...
4. I said, " "...

And then, having got close into one head - your own - do the same for each of their important characters in turn, working really hard to make both the way that the thing in 1. is named, and all the rest of it, as characteristic as possible.

I highly recommend Lorrie Moore's short stories for great dialogue. An interesting Guardian article about her, including her use of dialogue:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/10/lorrie-moore-collected-stories

Also, not directly related, by great reading if you haven't seen it before is her essay, How to Become a Writer:

http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/Colleges/College%20of%20Humanities%20and%20Social%20Sciences/EMS/Readings/139.105/Additional/How%20to%20Become%20a%20Writer%20-%20Lorrie%20Moore.pdf

Hi Emma - thanks for those tips, and the exercise - I'm going to copy and paste the advice from this whole thread into a document and print it off! Am pleased to hear that applying those characteristics can work in cold blood (which is appropriate for the level I'm at).

Hi Terry - both great links, thanks!