# Dialogue: 'Natural' vs. 'Cinematic'



## Zephyr (Apr 18, 2015)

Hello all! I am new here. I have been skulking around recently, lurking, replying hither and thither, and I have not seen anything so far pertaining to this question I have, so I will ask away.

Recently I allowed a friend to read some work I had done. Upon reading it (and I am not entirely sure what kind of books/literature he finds most enjoyable) he proceeded to attack my writing as being too "wordy" and such. Well, fair enough, if it was not to his taste that is fine. Can't please everyone, am I right?

Anyway, he also said my dialogue was not believable. My children did not speak as children do, and it carried with it a kind of wooden magniloquence, to coin a phrase. 

Having that in mind, I showed it to the president of my university writing-society, and he said, "well, yes, he's right, in a way; it is wooden. But, the thing is, you're writing High-Fantasy, and it's a cinematic style of language. It works."

Which made me wonder. What do you like to see in your fantasy books? Do you like natural-flowing dialogue, that could be read in a contemporary setting and easily understood, or do you prefer cinematic style dialogue, that perhaps would not sound so natural when read aloud, but serves a purpose to the story? Personally, I prefer the latter. I do not find it necessary to have contemporary style dialogue forcefully wedged into a relatively abstract setting. I think dialogue needs to serve the story in which it is written, and not merely be responsive to mr/mrs every-day modern speaker.

Anyway, here is an excerpt of the work in question, for your perusal if you wish. See what you think.



> “Now before I can dub you, dear boy,” Sir Tell began, “there is the small matter of your beast.”
> “Ah, I knew I had forgotten something.”
> “It is a fitting beast, for this.”
> Sir Tell presented Edam with his shield, which was in a kite shape, painted red, and upon it was emblazoned the visage of a dragon, snarling, cruel and horrendous, with many horns and whiskers.
> ...


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## Feo Takahari (Apr 18, 2015)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm kind of worried you're going to flip out on folks who don't like that excerpt. It's fine to ask for criticism, and it's fine to argue what you think is the right approach, but pushing your approach this strongly and then opening the floor by directly calling for criticism brings up worries of Anne Rice. You're also talking as if the only options are "contemporary" dialogue or going over the top, excluding any middle ground or alternate approach.

Speaking personally, I go naturalistic so I can make extreme emotions stand out more. When your characters are always over the top, it's difficult to move the top. When they're a bit more reserved, it's really surprising when they're pushed to the breaking point and have an outburst.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Apr 18, 2015)

Your dialogue seems fine to me. It's more theatrical in style than my own, but that is style, after all. Some readers will like it, some won't.   

I don't think readers of fantasy would bat an eye at the style though. I've read many books which are similar, and I've enjoyed them, even if written outside of my preference.   

The key to any prose, dialogue or narrative, is clarity of expression, purpose geared toward story or character, and whether or not it interests the reader. As long as you can accomplish those three things, you're fine.   

Style, and reader tastes, are subjective. Write what you'd want to read, in the style you'd enjoy. There's sure to be others like you.


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## Zephyr (Apr 18, 2015)

Feo Takahari said:


> Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm kind of worried you're going to flip out on folks who don't like that excerpt. It's fine to ask for criticism, and it's fine to argue what you think is the right approach, but pushing your approach this strongly and then opening the floor by directly calling for criticism brings up worries of Anne Rice. You're also talking as if the only options are "contemporary" dialogue or going over the top, excluding any middle ground or alternate approach.



Quite the opposite, actually. I only placed that excerpt in as an afterthought, in case anyone was wondering what had in fact been considered "wooden" by my critique. 

I was just curious as to what people's approach to dialogue was in fantasy settings. 

Also, I would not and did not call "cinematic" or theatrical dialogue "over-the-top". I merely find there are these different approaches in their extremes. I have no doubt there is a spectrum of dialogue types, but it's not possible to quantify it, so I went for a more simplistic approach.

As far as I am concerned, I am in agreement with T.Allen. I don't think you will please everybody, and generally I think you write in a style that has become familiar to you by that which you have read, i.e. if I read classical literature, I am disposed to write in a similar style; the same goes for contemporary, etc. Some people are bound to be pernickety about things, but accepting that some will not enjoy your writing is no different than accepting some people do not enjoy art, or certain genres of music.

P.S. I am not prone to "flipping out" either


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## Feo Takahari (Apr 18, 2015)

Sorry. I'm used to dealing with fanfic writers, so I get a little paranoid.


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## WooHooMan (Apr 18, 2015)

Feo Takahari said:


> Sorry. I'm used to dealing with fanfic writers, so I get a little paranoid.



That's totally reasonable.  They make me nervous too.

I like giving all characters different ways of speaking.  Unless you're specifically going for an "epic" feel or an "un-epic" feel, you don't need to stick to one or the other for all characters.  That's my take anyway.

Which brings the question of how cinematic should the narrator speak.  You don't want naturalistic narration over cinematic dialogue or vice-versa.


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## Zephyr (Apr 18, 2015)

WooHooMan said:


> That's totally reasonable.  They make me nervous too.



But I am not a fanfic writer... and it would be preferable/polite not to assume that I am.. 

I have thought about the "giving all characters different ways of speaking" idea, but I think perhaps it would contrast too sharply; that is to say, I would assume most people would speak in a particular fashion during that same era, if we are dealing with one universal language. Granted there will be dialects and regional variations, but if we were to stray too far, it might seem a little unusual. E.g. placing modern American vernacular into what is otherwise a setting analogous to medieval England. That's an extreme example, but worth putting into consideration, as I enjoy throwing spanners into the proverbial works :3


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## T.Allen.Smith (Apr 18, 2015)

WooHooMan said:


> You don't want naturalistic narration over cinematic dialogue or vice-versa.


Why not?

I think that could work, and work well by separating the narrator from the characters, making the narrator an "outside looking in" storyteller.

It all depends on execution.


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## cupiscent (Apr 19, 2015)

I think the most important thing is having a consistent style throughout - or at least a consistency within characters, and for those characters who inhabit the same spheres - and a style that makes sense given the setting. In the book I'm reading at present, there have been a couple of spoken lines that really jarred for me as being too much "modern speak" among characters who had previously been speaking a in a more simple, staid and measured manner. On the other hand, I just finished _The Goblin Emperor_, which has some amazing and convoluted language patterns, which totally works because it's such an intricate, self-aware court setting.


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## Svrtnsse (Apr 19, 2015)

I'm one of those people for whom this kind of dialogue doesn't work. To me, it feels like reading from a script rather than a story about people talking. I don't get much emotion from them.
One thing that might help with this would be to add a little bit about the body language of the speakers as beats that go along with their lines. A bit like this:



> “And that brings me on to the task at hand.” Sir Tell held up a finger to signal for attention.
> “Oh, of course.” Edam looked up and nodded.
> “We have discovered a dragon, nesting in the caves on the east side of the island.”
> Edam's mouth fell open. “A dragon?”



These are just quick examples to illustrate what can be done. It may or may not suit your style, but it's something I try to put in whenever I can.


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## Zephyr (Apr 19, 2015)

Svrtnsse said:


> One thing that might help with this would be to add a little bit about the body language of the speakers as beats that go along with their lines.



The problem I have with this is that, for me at least, it interrupts the flow of dialogue. It is a relatively long conversation, and pretty soon you would run out of things to say, and constantly putting in things like "he flicked his hair back" and "his mouth fell open" and "he performed some other kind of gesticulation" would get rather dull, almost like you were trying too hard or were not confident in what you had written - I saw it with a piece a friend had written, and quite literally every single piece of dialogue was met with a description of gesticulation. A conversation that should have lasted 2 minutes became a very long grind, as he was describing every single movement the characters were making while talking. I thinks it works well if you have only one or two lines of dialogue. 

Dialogue also should be able to express emotion well on its own, if you ask me


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## Penpilot (Apr 19, 2015)

Zephyr said:


> A conversation that should have lasted 2 minutes became a very long grind, as he was describing every single movement the characters were making while talking. I thinks it works well if you have only one or two lines of dialogue.



That's one of the dangers when it isn't done right. Some call it fidgety characters. It's completely possible to write a long conversation with a character performing actions without being repetitive or drawing unnecessary attention to itself. IMHO it's about the actions/activity being natural to the situation and each action having meaning.

Dialogue and narration should be working together. When a character does an action, that action shouldn't be a mean-nothing action. It should be developing character, plot, or setting, as well as convey emotion too, adding to the emotion in the dialogue and helping to bring it into focus.

For example. (Not my example. Taken from Writing Excuses Podcast)

If the text is something like this  "I don't like what you're saying to me." She looked away from him. "I don't understand it at all." 

The looking away is a meaningless action if what she's looking at isn't important in the ways I listed above.

But if the text is like this instead. "I don't like what you're saying to me." She fiddled with the knife on the table. "I don't understand it."

That fiddling with the knife on the table immediately starts to tell you what she's thinking about, because if she's going from "I don't like what you're saying to me" to I need to play with this knife, it's saying something about her emotional state without explicitly declaring it.

My 2cents.


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## Terry Greer (Apr 19, 2015)

You're right it can get a bit dull if all you're writing is little actions such as "flicked his hair back" etc. But that's the challenge - to tell you what the characters in the story are feeling - and responding to in each piece of dialogue. Obviously as the author you know exactly what each character is thinking - but the reader doesn't have that luxury and needs their hand holding a fair bit more. 

My view is that dialogue alone can't convey everything - or there wouldn't be script notes, stage directions and directors to interpret it in screenplays. Or rehearsals to explore a character for that matter. Screenplays are purposefully left as spare as possible just so the director and actors have room to impart their own interpretation onto a story. They're allowed it as they know what's coming and how to guide it to its conclusion. Novels and stories are different and the author shouldn't allow for that ambiguity as the reader only has a single shot at experiencing the story in a linear manner. To me what a character is thinking is at least as important as the dialogue.

I do personally find dialogue that dense difficult to read. I need to know what the characters think about what's being said - is it believed, is it taken as boasting, is it thought pompous - etc. It's also very easy to lose who's speaking sometimes - which also breaks the thread. Having to potentially reread sections to confirm who said what is at least as bad as being dull.


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## Zephyr (Apr 19, 2015)

Yes, it's all dependent on situation. A character's movements during such an exchange should provide something meaningful to the plot or to their development. The knife situation is a good example. Like anything, it should be used sparingly to good effect, to give more impact. Anyway, I think we are going off-topic a little bit.


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## Terry Greer (Apr 19, 2015)

Zephyr said:


> Do you like natural-flowing dialogue, that could be read in a contemporary setting and easily understood, or do you prefer cinematic style dialogue, that perhaps would not sound so natural when read aloud, but serves a purpose to the story?



You're right - my take on this issue is:

Purely naturalistic dialogue is impossible - we're dealing with fantasy worlds, and to use a naturalistic approach would mean that we would have to either use a 'modern' vernacular to stand in for that, a historic 'model' or invent one. Unfortunately the reader also has to understand what we mean - so we have to make sure anything we do write is also intelligible. This means that we can't write in a true invented/researched realistic style for our fantasy worlds (without driving the average reader away) - but we can go someway towards it with the odd invented phrase or term.
Using a purely modern vernacular is a real turn off for me - it puts no distance on the fantasy - and breaks any sense of 'reality' the world is striving for (unless of course the setting is contemporary).

The problem I have with considering 'naturally flowing dialogue' is that natural language is often filled with useless words and filler exchanges that slow down the story and exist (in real discussions) to bolster feedback and confirmation. But when written these naturalistic exchanges often make the characters just seem dumb.

Most natural sounding dialogue in books and films is really just that - naturally sounding - it belies the amount of work that has gone into honing down a huge number of dialogue exchanges into a polished cinematic exchange.
When making a documentary film hundreds of hours are recorded - but what's shown isn't just what happens in front of a camera - it's edited - it's concatenated - removing redundancy, pauses, repetition, extraneous stuff etc. Stuff that would be boring to hear in detail.   
A real conversation could take half an hour around a campfire - the reader needs to get through the salient points in a couple of minutes. 

I guess I'm rambling a bit - because I think all dialogue is basically cinematic and needs to be to avoid becoming boring. Certainly when writing I 'see' everything in my mind being played out as in a movie - it's the only way i can approach anything.


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## MineOwnKing (Apr 19, 2015)

Readers are fickle, writer/readers are worse. 
Sounds perfectly fine to me. 
You might need more fluff between the dialogue. 
Hire a good developmental editor that never holds back a punch and you will get all the honesty you need.
People that enjoy your style will eventually find it.
It takes time.


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## Manalodia (Apr 19, 2015)

A lot of people have given great advice you can sort through and determine what works best for you work. I myself find what you have written appropriate considering the setting. I've also implemented dialogue matching the setting in my story, but it is somewhat lax besides entirely proper speech from some. Keeping in mind where the characters are from, if there are phrases only they would use (invent some, if not for character), and slight variation if dealing with another character from different land. Even people back then expressed character and had phrases that denoted such. It can open up a little bit, but while still maintaining itself.
A lot of readers now aren't familiar with more traditional High Fantasy writing and won't like it. Not everyone is going to, and as MineOwnKing said, an audience that does will find you.

Keep going with what you have, but have enough room for adding certain things when it fits best. Natural dialogue is completely terrible outside modern setting non-fiction. It sounds entirely out of place in a fantasy setting to me and it catered towards "easy readers" or youth, IMO. This may not be the only book you write. Others might have a more relaxed approach, but it works for the piece you have.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Apr 19, 2015)

Zephyr said:


> Yes, it's all dependent on situation. A character's movements during such an exchange should provide something meaningful to the plot or to their development. The knife situation is a good example. Like anything, it should be used sparingly to good effect, to give more impact. Anyway, I think we are going off-topic a little bit.


I know you think this is a bit off-topic, but I feel it's an important part of dialogue.  I don't believe this is something that needs to be used sparingly. 



MineOwnKing said:


> You might need more fluff between the dialogue.


I don't believe in fluff, at all. 

In my opinion, every word should be geared toward purpose, and on as many layers as possible.  Dialogue and action, written well, is an interaction that adds layers of extra meaning, even subtext. A good writer can do this continually and you won't even know unless you purposefully take the time to dissect the sentences.   That, however, is a style choice in some regards...how much you want to utilize that technique.


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## MineOwnKing (Apr 19, 2015)

I was trying to be delicate by suggesting fluff.

I did not mean it literally. 

Picking apart my words and giving them meaning based on your opinions is rude 

Especially considering my comment was not directed to you. 

I guess it's an easy way to get 3,000 posts.


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## Svrtnsse (Apr 19, 2015)

> "You might need more fluff between the dialogue."
> "I don't believe in fluff, at all."



This right here is a really good example of when just the words that are said aren't enough to convey the full meaning of what's being said.

I don't know MOK, but I'm assuming what he really means is that some beats to break up the conversation might not be such a bad thing.

TAS however, I know reasonably well (as a poster), but I'm guessing MOK doesn't. What I'm reading into the second line is that TAS doesn't approve of adding fluff - with fluff being things that aren't relevant to the story. He's just stating his opinion on the matter, like he's done several times before in plenty of other threads.

MOK (most likely) doesn't know TAS very well, and sees the comment as an attack, both on himself and his opinion, and responds as if it were.

If this had been a conversation held in person, face to face, that almost certainly wouldn't have happened. MOK and TAS would have been able to see each other and take body language etc into account. 

Had the above quote been a part of a dialogue in a story, it would almost certainly have required beats to clarify what the participants really meant.


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## Russ (Apr 19, 2015)

In modern writing the trend seems to be towards more natural language rather than what I might term more formal, antiquated or dramatic speech.

My understanding for the reason for this is that one hopes that your reader will identify and empathize with certain characters in your work, and it is easier to do so when the characters speak in a way that immediately impacts or is identifiable to your reader, i.e. more modern.  Take a look a young people reading say Shakespeare for an extreme example, they are distanced from the work because of the difficulty of the difference between the way they think and the way he writes.  You risk the same thing when you right in too formal or dramatic a fashion.

If connecting with your readers on a emotional level is one of your goals, I suggest it is easier achieved by writing in a way that resonates with your reader, not one that makes them slow down and think about what your character just said, or makes them think he/she has a serious stick up their ass.

I also believe that writing in gestures or movements in your dialogue is very important.  Science tells us that a great deal of our communications is done through body language not just our words, and thus pure dialogue without some actions can come across as very unnatural and it can results in failures to communicate many parts of the message.

The place this happens a great deal these days (as pointed out so ably by Svrtnsse above) is on the internet.  Where a lack of tone, facial expression and body language leads to many, many misunderstandings.


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## Manalodia (Apr 19, 2015)

Brilliant, Svrtnsse.


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## Zephyr (Apr 19, 2015)

Svrtnsse said:


> This right here is a really good example of when just the words that are said aren't enough to convey the full meaning of what's being said.
> 
> I don't know MOK, but I'm assuming what he really means is that some beats to break up the conversation might not be such a bad thing.
> 
> ...



Hmm. I don't really think you can compare a potentially volatile forum conversation to a carefully scripted novel. Besides, I never said I am against adding beats (which this topic isn't even supposed to be about) and that section of dialogue I quoted isn't indicative of _all_ my dialogue, so I really don't know why we are still flogging this horse carcass.


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## Manalodia (Apr 19, 2015)

Russ, I think writing is a different format than the internet. A person has the ability to edit or clarify what they mean on the net, while in a book that would break everything to go back and explain something that should have been clearly stated. Not every line needs an action, or it will eventually be flooded with gestures that may end up unnecessary. I've read many books that only denote action when important, which was when called for. It seems the level of action you are suggesting is implying every little thing a person does, including superfluous information; I may be reading into it too much.

As for formal vs. modern, why suggest removing part of the element of a setting for the reader's sake? I understand readers sell a book, but an author writing only to appease readers is no better than a sellout artist, in my opinion. Compromising in such a way would alter a vital point perhaps the OP is trying to create. If young people can't read Shakespeare but are expected to know mathematics of advanced levels earlier and earlier, the priorities are sadly off.


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## Russ (Apr 19, 2015)

Manalodia said:


> Russ, I think writing is a different format than the internet. A person has the ability to edit or clarify what they mean on the net, while in a book that would break everything to go back and explain something that should have been clearly stated. Not every line needs an action, or it will eventually be flooded with gestures that may end up unnecessary. I've read many books that only denote action when important, which was when called for. It seems the level of action you are suggesting is implying every little thing a person does, including superfluous information; I may be reading into it too much.
> 
> As for formal vs. modern, why suggest removing part of the element of a setting for the reader's sake? I understand readers sell a book, but an author writing only to appease readers is no better than a sellout artist, in my opinion. Compromising in such a way would alter a vital point perhaps the OP is trying to create. If young people can't read Shakespeare but are expected to know mathematics of advanced levels earlier and earlier, the priorities are sadly off.



You make some good points.

I don't suggest that one needs to add in a gesture or movement with every line, but rather that a complete lack of gestures and body language can come across as unnatural and misses a chance to communicate with the reader.  I would think that there is a happy medium where the gestures can add to the communication with the reader without clogging the page or dragging things out too long.

While I suspect I don't have as well a developed philosophy of writing as an art as you do, and I do tend towards commercial concerns when I think about writing, I don't think that writing so that the reader better identifies with your characters is "appeasing" the reader, rather it is about communicating your message better to the reader.

To me, writing is about two things.  Firstly getting a message of some sort across to the reader, and/or simply entertaining your reader.

Unless the goal is to write formal or archaic dialogue than I believe that it interferes with getting your message across to your reader which undermines both of the goals of writing.  I would suggest that anything that forms a barrier between the reader and the characters you want them to care about is a bad thing, while conversely anything that makes your readers feel closer to your characters and gets them invested in the fate of those characters is a good thing.  If we want our readers to care, really care, we need to draw them close, not keep them at arms length.

I confess I lean strongly towards the "we write for our readers" camp. If you are talking about writing for oneself then there is no need to go to a forum to see what others think now is there?

Personally I love Shakespeare.  But he has an advantage that none one on this site really has, he has thousands or tens of thousands of teachers forcing  young people to read his material.  I certainly don't have that advantage.  I need to use more modern, less co-ercive methods to get my message to readers and hopefully entertain them at the same time.

Is writing to entertain and communicate with your readers, or even changing your writing so that more people will buy it "selling out"?  That is a complex question, but I don't think it is.  Writing, to me, is a partnership between the reader and the writer, and all partnerships need some compromise to work.  I try not to disappoint my partners and am frequently willing to compromise with them both in my business and personal life.

I do however hope to "sell out" in the most positive way possible.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Apr 19, 2015)

MineOwnKing said:


> I was trying to be delicate by suggesting fluff.
> 
> I did not mean it literally.
> 
> ...


I'm sorry you took offense. My intention was not to injure or be rude.

As a reader of your post, I have only the words you write. Anything beyond their face value did not come through. In light of that, I expressed an opinion contrary to what I saw regarding "fluff", which I took to mean stage direction and similar that may not contribute to moving story, or character, forward.

When you post in a thread, people will respond to you, regardless of whether your comment was directed at them. This is a community of writers and not a forum of two people. If you wish to direct comments to one person alone, the Private Messaging system is available.

Now, let's set this aside, move forward, and remain on topic.


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## Svrtnsse (Apr 19, 2015)

I did not mean to compare the conversations had on an online forum to the conversations written in a thoroughly considered story. I meant to illustrate with a practical example how lack of body language and facial expressions can lead to unforeseen misunderstandings. Talking is about more than just words.

But, let's get back to the topic at hand...


Zephyr said:


> Which made me wonder. What do you like to see in your fantasy books? Do you like natural-flowing dialogue, that could be read in a contemporary setting and easily understood, or do you prefer cinematic style dialogue, that perhaps would not sound so natural when read aloud, but serves a purpose to the story?



One of my main motivations for reading - and specifically for reading fantasy - is escapism. When I read, I want to get away from the real world, to spend some time in, well... somewhere else. Because of this, the flow of the language is important to me, not just in dialogue, but throughout the entire story.
I don't like it when I come up against long complicated words that I'm not entirely sure what they mean, or how to pronounce, and I don't like it when characters speak in a way that seem stilted or unnatural. 
That doesn't mean that I want to read a contemporary language even in a non-contemporary setting, but it means that I want characters to speak in a way that I can believe a person would actually speak in.

One way to look at it is as if the text is a barrier between me and the story. If I'm sitting down to read and get away from everyday life, I'd prefer it if I don't have to struggle to get to the world on the other side.


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## Reaver (Apr 19, 2015)

MineOwnKing said:


> I was trying to be delicate by suggesting fluff.
> 
> I did not mean it literally.
> 
> ...




Take it easy. T.A.S. isn't picking apart anyone's words. He's simply commenting on your comment. That's what we do here.

*EDIT* I realize that I'm re-hashing what T.A.S. has already said in a previous post, so please accept my apology.


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## Garren Jacobsen (Apr 19, 2015)

Zephyr here is how I think about dialogue. Would my character really say what he is saying?

For example I have one character, Julian Jacobsen, I call him Jude. He's part of a diseased magical community that is severely oppressed by the rest of the mages. His family hates him. But he had a great mentor teach him how to deal with the disease and his family. Hid coping mechanism is sarcasm. Some ones a jerk to him he retorts. His nature is brusque. His words are small. And his sentences short. He doesn't pontificate he doesn't speak much. Action is his modus operandi. 

I have another character I'm working on, a law student. He speaks a lot, goes off on tangent, and thinks more than acts. His word choices are longer, more formal, and more precise than Jude's. His sentences, particularly his written sentences, are long and wordy. He uses technical jargon judt to use the jargon at every chance. 

So, on the one end we have a more natural speaker with a lot of body language on the other a more formal and controlled speaker. But no one in their respective books will be like them. Jude's sister will be more formal. The soldier friend of the lawyer will swear and use simple words and be more emotive. 

My take is summed up as this: do what your character would.


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## skip.knox (Apr 20, 2015)

To return to some of the original comments, I did not hear anything in Edam's speech that would suggest anything other than a mature adult. He speaks the same as the other characters around him, so he doesn't *seem* young to me. Other people say he is, but he neither speaks nor behaves like a child or an adolescent. That may be one factor in the assessment of wooden.

A second factor has already been mentioned. There's no tension or conflict in the dialog. Nothing seems to be at stake; everything is explanatory, save for the one moment of embarrassment. 

You will note that neither of these belong either to "natural" or to "cinematic" approaches. Those categories seem arbitrary at best, in any case. There is only dialog that works (as in the usual--moves the story, develops character, sets mood, etc.) or dialog that doesn't work. It can be high-flown and ornate, or it can be modern and hip. Both approaches can fail. Either can succeed. For myself, I would work on writing dialog that succeeds, and let literary critics invent categories for it.


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## Manalodia (Apr 20, 2015)

Russ said:


> You make some good points.
> 
> I don't suggest that one needs to add in a gesture or movement with every line, but rather that a complete lack of gestures and body language can come across as unnatural and misses a chance to communicate with the reader.  I would think that there is a happy medium where the gestures can add to the communication with the reader without clogging the page or dragging things out too long.
> 
> ...



You make good points yourself, yet even though Shakespeare is forced on students, none of them will care for him outside the classroom or in life if they really don't. Writing is indeed about communicating with your readers the best way, yet most times the readers find the author. Just because he changes the dialogue does not mean the content will be anymore appeasing to the reader; it likely will still be set in archaic period, which they cannot relate to in itself. This is fantasy after all, so the readers would expect or be delighted to find archaic language being in a work. Some love that authenticity.

Writing is very much a form of art; now do artists make art based on the their audience or expressing themselves to the audience? There is some difference, but it is very much the same at the heart of it. Nothing wrong with wanting commercial success, but how many other authors want that same thing and compromise similarly? Individualism may not be promoted in society know, but a strong one with dedicated vision can't be denied. I think it is a brave notion to take such a chance and see how even other writers perceive it.

I think we all hope to in some way if need be with as little "give" as possible, but all seek to maintain our loins and be successful at the same time~ ^_^


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## Manalodia (Apr 20, 2015)

I think another thing to consider about the setting, if it is indeed based off of times of yore, that youth were mature for their age. They did not have luxuries like we do now and childhood was brief as they had to prepare for life. Nobles might have more of a relaxed period, but eventually the daughter would be married off, requiring her to be prepped as a respectable lady and the son was to take after his father or another respectable profession. It was no different for the poor, save less to look forward to but hardship and hard labour. 

The poor had a very lax tongue depending in some cases (some were more proper than others), and the nobles had a very formal way of speaking. Children, those in school especially, were expected to bare themselves with due manners. It is not unrealistic that the main character may sound adult, but there could be room for adolescent thought/action.

Zeyphyr may not have entirely honed his writing skills and use of the style, but the direction is evident and we can point him in the right direction.


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