Ok. I have a question to address to all those experienced dinosaurs of writing, those with skills, experience, and lots of savy.
I fin myself rambling on a lot, with long, descriptive, endless paragraphs, and I have a really hard time knowing when to insert and how to insert a dialogue that would make sense, and would somehow feel smoothly connected to the story.
Is that something you learn, or do you have to be blessed with the ability to do it naturally????
I can talk forever about the wolf, I never know when to let Riding hood talk!!
HELP
Mon

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sorry about my spelling

Brontosauras here...

There's no point sticking in dialogue just because you feel you need some; you have to put your characters in a situation where there's a reason for them to speak.

Fortunately, two people in one scene rare want the same thing, (even if you know they do, they need to find that out) so there's automatically a reason for them to have to negotiate: the wolf isn't just going to stand there, is he, he's going to do something or say something to get LRR into the corner for eating, and then LRR's going to have do or say something back, to prevent herself being eaten. Now there's a - I nearly said juicy, but I won't in this context - urgent reason for them to talk to each other!

Sorry, that's a bit vague, I've got one ear on whether anyone's ready for school yet.

Emma

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correction: two people in one scene rarely want the same thing

Emm, you are so obviously right!
I guess what is talking is my slight sense of guilt when I see no dialogue for a while in my story,...should I, feel guilty?
Is there such a rule which says you cannot have more than a certain amount of fact before you change your situation into one of "action", "involvment"?
I do love dialogue but in this particular story a lot of descriptive matter seems needed, and I am excessively worried about a reader searching for interaction.....
Writing is frustrating.
Monica

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I am doing the same thing but 6 hours later now...gotta go.
Mon

I should go with it for now, knowing that you won't know the answer till it's done, and then you can go back and get it right because you'll know so much more by then about the characters and situations, and you'll have a larger and sharper set of writer's tools, to tackle the problem, simply by virtue of having done more writing.

One of my best stories has (for me) very little dialogue, but I've just written a whole chapter which is almost nothing else. Horses for courses, so don't panic.

Emma

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The other thing to remember is that your sense of how long any passage goes on for may not be accurate. I've sometimes worried that a scene goes on interminably, but once I've got away from it and looked back, realise that it was the writing that took forever, and the scene actually whips past the reader in no time, in fact is a bit bald...

Plus, how it looks on the page (double spaced, wide margins) makes it take up more space visually than things do in a typeset book, so that can confuse you too. That's another reason for keeping going and then looking back, when you can see the balance of the different elements so much more clearly.

I know what you are saying, and as a matter of fact, I have also experienced the opposite in the same story, whereas I have described an event, in this particular case it's the death of twins children to a particular character in the story, very briefly because the character is only anecdotal, and never appears again, and because it was a way of setting my "family" characters into context.
I read the passage though, and wonder at times if the reader is not going to be disappointed in reading the story of this family explained in such short measure, quickly and to the point.
I wonder in other words, if the dramatic parts should demand more room by the sheer fact that they are "dramatic".
So in this case, it's not the dialogue frustrating me, but describing concisely yet dramatically, the story of a family.
Am I making any sense?
If it's not one thing it's the other,....
Mon

I know exactly what you mean - one of those moments when something or someone has to be either more, or less. If there's enough to tickle the reader's fancy, but not enough to satisfy it, it can be really annoying.

Mind you, you may be able satisfy the reader's interest with one scene that engages properly with the sad story, without having to weave it into the plot beyond that. (Though of course it needs to have thematic links with the plot, or why is it in there in the first place?)

Emma

Good tip, but I'd just have to be Hemingway to get it right.........
Mon

Pick a good book, one you really rate. Look at when and how dialogue is brought in, and why it's there - what narrative or character function it has. Dialogue should never be filler - as Emma says, characters shouldn't meet and all agree about how nice the weather is. Dialogue is a great area for exploring conflict within a novel. Work out what the conflict is in a scene then bring in characters to somehow illustrate that conflict. All good fun!

Darren

I appreciate what you are saying. I guess my main difficulty has been also in deciding whether I need to make the whole piece more concise, or whether to expand the smaller details, so that each part sounds smoother to the reader, and not dramatically smooth at times, and then matter-of-fact at other times.
When I read certain parts, it sounds to me like I'm hurrying to get the info in, and then continue with what I think is the main message. Somehow this annoyes the heck out of me. It could also be just paranoia.
I am sure my good friend David, my trustworthy editor in this case, will be right on my case about this one.
Mon

dramatically smooth at times, and then matter-of-fact at other times

I think variations of pace are very important in novel-length fiction; lots of action may well want to be followed by a breather where the reader can take in the implications of what's happened. A rhythm builds up that the reader's hardly aware of, but feels. One of the things that's boring about formula/genre thrillers and other action stuff is that it's relentless.

One thing to do, if the pace of something annoys you is to make a not querying it, but only do something about it when you've got to the end and go back. You'll have a much clearer eye then.

Emma

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I think I meant note

That is very good advice Emm, thank you.
I really appreciate it.
Mon

You're welcome

Emma

I think variations of pace are very important in novel-length fiction; lots of action may well want to be followed by a breather where the reader can take in the implications of what's happen

I read somewhere that there should be a balance of action and reaction, and that a real roller coaster bit needs to have the reaction of the character afterwards, whether this is through internal reflection, or dialogue.

Sometimes your own reactions as a writer are as good a guide as any. After dealing with a 'big' scene, I need a breather - change of focus/pace/subject/narrator, switch to time-passing narrative, chapter break - so I assume the reader does too.

Emma

Hi Mon

I guess there can be several motivations for dialogue.

For example: When the man in black pushed past me, I shouted after him 'Hey, watch where you're going'

or

'I used to love this old house, but now that Jack's gone...' The perfect gentleman he opened the door for me and we entered the hall.

or

Tempers were coming to a boil. I knew I had to speak before the fists started flying. 'Well now lads, who's for wee dram?'

I tend to use dialogue to break up descriptive passages and to slip in bits of description at the same time. Done properly the reader will find they have pertinent information without being entirely sure how they got it.

I use dialogue a lot in my stories, yet my story 'Family Fortunes' doesn't have any at all.

As Emma says, unfortuately, there are no hard and fast rules, but writing very short fiction like 'Flash' (just a few hundred words) allows you to experiment withoout wasting too much time doing it.

Best

John