• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Question concerning dialogue

Incanus

Auror
So, a writing friend and member of this site recently commented on a few of my novel chapters. I received lots of great comments and helpful advice and appreciate the work.

There was one item pointed out–a quirk of dialogue that I gave to one character–as something to be fixed/addressed.

The character is a scholarly mage type, and I’ve made him an awkward speaker, someone who stops mid-sentence and changes direction, and someone who pauses with a fair amount of “uh” sprinkled into his dialogue.

So my question–is including “uh” in dialogue for this one character not a good idea? If so, is there another, more acceptable way of conveying this? Ideally, I would want this to take place within the quotation marks, so I’m not constantly interrupting the dialogue with tags and beats.

I’m not necessarily married to my original idea for this, so I could change it. But how important, or how detrimental is this?
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
If it's part of the character and it doesn't render his dialogue unreadable the way a phonetic accent (eg. molespeech in the Redwall books) might, then I don't see a problem with it.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
Is it only "uh" you are using for this type of interruption or are you mixing it up with various different variations of the word? It it's only "uh" I can see how it's possible to overuse it to the point where it could get annoying or distracting. I think that if you use other forms of the word it might provide some variation.
Other variations might include: uhm, uhum, ahem, ahm, ah, oh, eh, ehm, hum - and so on and so forth.

One potential benefit of this is that the above variations might carry different emotional connotations. It may be possible to take that into account as a way of highlighting the mood of the character.
 
One of the more perplexing rules of writing dialogue is that it's never written like people actually talk.

Actual speech is full of filler words, backtracking and repeating words. So, your awkward mage probably talks in a way that is closer to actual speech than any of your characters. However, in writing his use of filler words is a speech mannerism.

Speech mannerisms are really tough. They can reveal a lot about character if done right, but if done wrong they can be extremely annoying. Your character's mannerism could reveal personality traits, such as lack of confidence in himself. Or, it could just be annoying.

If you gave an example passage, we could help much better. Having a speech mannerism isn't neccesarily bad or good. It all depends on the execution.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Just a guess without reading it, but I'd get real sick of Uh real fast. Just changing direction, or blah blah... yadda yadda for a change in direction would work a little better for me, but again, too much it might get to me eventually too. Like others, I would have to see what's going on.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
I recommend "Shut up!" he explained, by William Noble. It'll change your dialogue writing life.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
As mentioned, hard to comment without sample. But could it be a case of overuse? You don't need much to get that mannerism across. IMHO, it more about timing than amount.
 

Incanus

Auror
OK. Thanks everyone. Yes, a sample would be a good idea. Should have seen that one coming.

I don’t have my work with me at the moment, but should be able to dredge up something pretty close:

“No, no,” he said, eyes wide. “It wasn’t like that! It was… uh, I mean, I saw the whole thing. It was an accident, a horrible accident. He came stumbling through the ruins, arms full. He, uh… he tripped and fell. Everything scattered. And that’s when it happened.”

Something like that anyway. I think it’s a tad better in the story, and it makes more sense in that context. Also, this is the character at his most awkward. When he’s less stressed out, he speaks a bit more fluently, but still does this a little.

He’s not going to have a ton of dialogue in the story. But he is an important source of certain, crucial info at times.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Reading "uh" is like setting a gong off in my head, apparently. Which is really weird because "a" doesn't phase me one bit, LOL. Must be due to the ... (pause) and change of thought direction. I don't think it's possible to say it's wrong to do, but... hmm, I don't like it. I must be more of a hmm person than an uh person.

It's an interesting question, but comes down to personal choice against and gauging your reader's reactions.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
If we're going to rate the stutter words in terms of awkwardness, I think "uh" is pretty high up there, so I wouldn't want to overdo it. In this case you use it right next to "I mean," and together they double the awkwardness. For the same reason I also wouldn't use "uh" too many times in a row, and changing the second one to "um" would dampen the effect in my mind.

“It wasn’t like that! It was… uh, I saw the whole thing. It was an accident, a horrible accident. He came stumbling through the ruins, arms full. He, um… he tripped and fell. Everything scattered. And that’s when it happened.”

But yes, to me the original sentence with all its "uh"s feels uncomfortably awkward.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
You might consider trying a different approach. You are trying to show he is nervous, distracted, even unnerved. A common way to do that is to change directions in the sentence. Start/stop. You actually do this but you are using the interjection as a signal of that. IMO it is both unnecessary and distracting.

“It wasn’t like that! It was… uh, I saw the whole thing. It was an accident, a horrible accident. He came stumbling through the ruins, arms full. He, um… he tripped and fell. Everything scattered. And that’s when it happened.”

"It wasn't like that! He came through the ruins. He was ... he tripped ... his arms were full, you know? I ... he just stumbled and fell and everything scattered. I saw the whole thing. And that's when, it was horrible, that's when it happened. It was an accident!"

That is still using ellipses, which I view as something of a last resort. It's more by way of illustration.

Another approach is to have some sort of tic when he's in this state. Pulls on his beard, tugs at his eyebrows, nervous laughter or even a high-pitched giggle, wrings his hands. Drop one, at most two in a scene and you can get rid of many of the interjections.

“It wasn’t like that! It was … I saw the whole thing. It was an accident, a horrible accident. He came stumbling through the ruins, arms full. He ... he tripped and fell.” XYZ dabbed at his forehead. “Everything scattered. And that’s when it happened.”

Not elegant, but serviceable. I'm just wanting to demonstrate alternatives.
 

Incanus

Auror
Thanks for the honest feedback.

I'm a bit surprised at how distracting this seems to be for some. I've read no small amount of dialogue that I deem more distracting than this, old and new. To me, it seems like a pretty natural depiction of awkward speech, though not what I would call 'great'. I included "uh, I mean," because that's how people talk in real life all the time (yes, I know dialogue isn't supposed to be too realistic, but I'm making a bit of an exception in this case).

I'll leave it for now and take another look after more people have read the story. I could maybe dial it down a tad. Also, mixing it up with another one or two similar items is an idea I like.

I had a few reasons for doing it. One, for distinctness--no other character speaks this way. Two, it conveys the character's awkwardness without my having to 'tell' it. Three, it plays to the general level of stress occurring in the scene.

(Too add a tad more context--the reader/critter who first pointed this out elsewhere said (unprompted) that the dialogue was good in general, but thought I should address this one thing.)
 
It ought to be fine so long as you don't milk it to death. You could try coming up with some variations to the way he says it such as "eh", "hrm", "um". You could also try making him clear his throat when he tries to switch sentences.

It's all a matter of avoiding redundancy.

Sent from my SM-G386T using Tapatalk
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
For me, it could literally be as easy as not including an ellipses next to the "uh". The two together are more jarring, and when repeated more bad. Once, no biggie. Twice? errr, okay. Three in a short span? It becomes jarring. This happens with any repetition of a distinct sound... -ly adverbs do this. It's an in your face rhyme, and when offset with "..." it becomes more of a focus and stress point.
 

Incanus

Auror
So, I was writing last night and decided to go back and take another look at the dialogue we’ve been discussing here.

I now deem that there is an overuse of “uh”.

I think the solution, then, is closer to Skip’s version of the faux passage I made. I think it would be best to use five or six different things to get across this character’s awkwardness, and spread them out, thin-like. But I really like the disjointed phrasing he came up with. That’ll do it.

I’m slow, but I get there most of the time. I like to kick this sort of stuff around in my head for a few days; I think I get a more even perspective that way. I fully expect to spend a good two more years working on this novel, so decisions don’t have to be made overnight (well…expect maybe the very last decision).

Thank you MS—the collective voice of reason.
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Not to confuse the issue further, but I wouldn't have a problem with the original dialogue, provided the character's nervous personality was established (through accompanying mannerisms & context) & consistent.
 
Top