The Dialogue Rant
By Windsong
So
here I sit, on my bedroom floor, listening to my music and watching rain fall
outside. Onto my face. Wait…Dangit! *slams window
closed* Anyway, this is more like
story-writing weather than article writing inspiration. When the power goes out
and my sister’s screaming downstairs because my dad scared her around the
corner, there’s nothing like settling down to write a story before I get block.
Yeah. What is article-writing
inspiration, you ask? And that would be a very good question. I’ll get back to
you when I find out the answer.
So
here I sit. I’m supposed to be talking about something. Right.
Dialogue is a key element in any story, and too often I see mistakes that ruin
what would be an otherwise incredible piece. It takes practice to be able to
write believable dialogue that seems as though it really did roll off the
tongue of its speakers, but there are a few things you can do that makes the
process a bit easier. Hopefully I can offer some tips to hone your writing
skills and bring up the quality of your pieces.
One
of the most common mistakes of writing dialogue is made in the length of
characters’ sentences. There should be very few long stretches of dialogue in
your writing. Think about it: do people normally talk for two pages without
being interrupted? Unless it is absolutely necessary for your character to
speak for so long—and if it fits well with the flow of the piece—do not let
yourself get carried away with a monologue. Though you may find it interesting
to write and supposedly vital to the plot, readers will be instantly put off by
the lack of exchange with other characters. If you find yourself trapped with a
hideously long piece of speech for one character, insert some other dialogue in
between. This makes it more realistic, interesting, and is also an excellent
opportunity for character development. Try to keep characters’ sentences short,
to the point. As people would normally speak. Unless, of course, you have a character that is known for being long-winded
with drawn-out sections of dialogue.
It’s
better to show than tell when it comes to dialogue, which also cuts down the length of dialogue. Often beginning writers make
the mistake of stating the obvious to develop their characters or to move the
plot. Big no-no. This only lights
up the sign above every writer’s head that we hope will never be plugged in.
You know, the one that blinks with cheesy music in the background, announcing
that “This writer has no idea what they’re doing!” To avoid the light-up neon
annoyance, make sure that the dialogue you give to your characters is needed
and not extra laundry lint.
Keep it Real
My personal favorite aspect of writing dialogue is the fact that every single person speaks differently. Though two characters could be from the same area, may even live right next to each other, they will still have different ways of talking. The differences in dialogue are most commonly seen in accents or dialect, habits, and their sentence structure.
Accents
A
very effective way to differentiate between characters, especially if the
specific section of dialogue is without tags. The accents can be real, or made up, though the real ones
take a bit more work and study; everyone already knows what people from foreign
countries sound like. If you throw an accent together based on what little
you’ve heard of those who speak in that manner, it’s not going to fly. No
matter how hard you flap your arms. Not only may it look and read
unprofessional, you may get some unwanted laughs out of the deal
Habits
Everyone has speech habits, things that we don’t even think
of that pop out of our mouths at random and litter their sentences. For some
it’s “uh,” for others it’s “dude!” And for still others it’s “Holy Monkeys!”
But we won’t read too much into that. Yeah. *coughs* Characters that pause
between every sentence, stutter on certain words, or cough incessantly every
five words are interesting and will add a great deal of… good stuff (yeah,
that’s the sophisticated word I was looking for) to your story. Feel free to
insert interesting speech habits into your dialogue. This adds extra spice and
that something that can make a piece incredible for a reason that readers can’t
quite place their fingers on. And as with accents, this helps to identify
different speakers in a long exchange without speech tags (he said, she said).
But make sure you remember which character speaks which way. Or the results
could be disastrous.
Ex.
As he
remembered their task, the young
[Aeh isn’t a
word, if you hadn’t noticed. This guy uses it as an interjection or an
expression of annoyance.]
Sentences
structure
Let’s face it: no one speaks with perfect grammar. Thus,
your characters should not sound like an
Ex.
“Shoulda stopped at that first part. Funnier that way.”
“Wouldn’t-won’t happen anyway.”
He nodded a little too quickly. “Right.” His
gaze traveled to the sky and rested on a canyon that blocked the sun. It was
already high in the sky, and the air that swirled around the two was warm with
its rays. The young man heaved in a quivering breath and flashed her a pasted-on smile.
“I have to go. ‘S
getting late. Gotta say goodbye to...to everyone.”
[The two speakers change their minds
on choice of words and sometimes repeat themselves. They also leave words out
and run words together.]
**All
three of these differences should be used sparingly. Just imagine a story with
two Bulgarian immigrants, a Southern cowboy, and a high-school dropout with
absolutely no grammatical skill. Can someone say...overkill? Unless
you’re going for the completely unrealistic.
In which case I say go for it.
So we just started school and now
we’re into the technical junk of dialogue. *dodges flying tomatoes* I thought I
might exercise your brains for a little while. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt too
much. Writing dialogue correctly is key in having
readers understand and enjoy your story.
I’ve got a few common mistakes that make me cringe every time I come across them.
Matching
dialogue
Match your dialogue with the speaker. If your character says
something, but another character is attached to the sentence, people get
confused. Trust me, you need to make sure it is clear
who is speaking. It will result in potentially hilarious sentences, if you
don’t. This is usually a result of writers not understanding when to make a new
paragraph for dialogue, which will be addressed later.
Paragraphs
Ah, my favorite. I used to have terrible trouble with new
paragraphs for dialogue. A new speaker needs to start a new paragraph. If
you’ve started a new paragraph and there is no dialogue in it yet and the
speaker is clear, you may stay in the paragraph and put the dialogue there.
Ex.
Jahara nodded, tracing the pommel stone on her sword with
gloved fingers. “Rhonin’s late.”
“He’s worse than you are.” [See? New speaker, new paragraph]
“I’ll tell him that.” [New speaker]
“You should. He needs to know.” [New speaker]
[new paragraph, but no one speaks right away.] Rhonin appeared in front of the two in an instant, seating himself across from Jahara. “Of course I do. I’ll be sure to tell myself, Jack. I just hope I won’t be too disappointed; you know how I get when I break the news to someone as fragile as myself.” [We didn’t need a new paragraph because we already had one.]
Remember
Your Quotation Marks
I really hope this is no new news to any of you, but in case
you’ve been writing without quotation marks all these
years—you need them. Dialogue must always be inside quotation marks. If there
are no quotation marks, no one is speaking. That clear?
Good. Strange as it may sound, I hope no one just learned something.
Much of the time beginning writers forget that they’ve ended
the speaking and go right on back into their narration. Bad
idea. Make sure you stick the end quote on. Otherwise you’ll end up with
some interesting and somewhat humorous sentences/ runons.
Quotes within quotes.
These get interesting. If someone is speaking and quotes someone else (Or says
something that, grammatically speaking, needs to be written in quotes), you’re
still going to put that other quote in quotation marks, but you’re only going
to use one on each end.
Use
your commas
I believe
Ex.
“Watch that
nose of yours miss.”
“Watch that
nose of yours, miss.”
[two completely different meanings]
“Get inside boys. And don’t mind the bodies. We’ve got a fort to defend.”
“Get inside, boys. And don’t mind the bodies. We’ve got a fort to defend.”
[That mistake would send readers into hysterics, but I’m not so sure
that’s what you want…]
Pauses in speech do not necessarily mean commas go there.
Don’t just start throwing commas into your sentences. This throws off the entire
sentence structure and is very confusing. Which leads me to my next point:
refrain from over-using commas. Commas are only meant to separate compound
sentences, participial phrases, direct address, adverbial phrases, lists, and
independent clauses. Maybe I should have taken that “only” out. Yeah. But a lot
of those aren’t used in dialogue unless your character is that famous but
friendly and oh-so-cool-talking
This
is huge, people. Pay attention now, ‘cause I know
you’ve fallen asleep during the last five paragraphs. Direct address should be
used just like exclamation marks: sparingly. Nothing irks me more than to read
my old stories and see every second sentence of dialogue with a name in it.
After five chapters of hearing everyone’s name ten thousand times, we get the
idea that they’re talking to each other. And you can use other ways to indicate
that a character is talking to a specific person other than direct address.
Showing rather than telling is advised in these situations. Some things direct
address can be used for, though, are:
Emphasis/gravity
Having a character say another character’s name deliberately
can add emphasis or weight to the sentence. It can be a character developer or
indicate emotion. It can communicate feeling as well.
Surprise,
anger, or other strong emotions
Character
development
Use direct address where it would make sense. You don’t hop around all day talking to
everyone by starting all sentences with their names, so why would your characters?
Of course, someone who uses direct address a lot could be a very annoying and
interesting character…hmmm…*shifty eyes* You didn’t read that. *snatches
character idea*
You should hardly use direct address when writing a piece of
dialogue containing only two characters. It is rather
obvious that they are talking to each other, and there is no one else to talk
to, so hopefully direct address should not be needed to identify the speakers.
I
really should have some sort of conclusion to wrap all of this junk up. Yes...
I should. But I don’t. So that was my dialogue rant. I do hope it’s been
helpful. There’s a world of stuff I didn’t cover here, so don’t be afraid to
play with ideas and get creative, and yeah. I could say something profound, but
things like that never come from my mouth, so you should go about your
business. Now. Yeah.