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Dialogue is HARD

Scott Ryan

Acolyte
First post - sorry if it's old hat, so to speak.

I, like many people on here, am I attempting to put a story down in the pages of a book (or a Kindle) for the first time. I built my world, fleshed out my characters, wrote an outline and now I'm 84 pages deep in what is increasingly looking like about a 600 page book haha anyways, I just discovered this forum and wanted to simply vent - dialogue is hard! Getting into the mindset of each character as I write is something that I guess probably just takes practice but does anyone else have this issue? I find myself almost having to physically step away with each speaker in order to find where said character is at. Then must try to avoid having them sound like a cheeseball! Argh! Cool site, glad I found it. Hope everyone is doing well!
 

Saigonnus

Auror
Welcome to the forums. I am not sure how detailed your characters are in regards of mannerisms, character traits. Sometimes that can help determine how a character might act/react in conversatio. All of us use certain phrases or idioms everyday, and the same would likely be true of characters. As you write, perhaps you can take notes on those things so that you are consistent at least.

Generally though, authors just need to practice for the dialogue to seem natural.
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
Dialogue is actually my weakness. It still comes out fairly rough and sometimes too on-the-nose, and sometimes I can't hear the characters. But overcoming it is a practice issue. Practice writing dialogue of all sorts. Read it out loud and listen to yourself, and then cut out the boring parts. People watch and listen in on the conversations around you - but try to be cool about it. Read lots of great dialogue and then pick it apart for what makes it work and what doesn't. And always make sure to write down the snippets of dialogue that pop up in your head. You never know what they'll be good for. I have a quote stuck on my monitor. "While you were raising goats, I was raising armies!" Don't know who says it, but I think I like her.

Welcome to Scribes and good luck!
 

Saigonnus

Auror
Dialogue is actually my weakness. It still comes out fairly rough and sometimes too on-the-nose, and sometimes I can't hear the characters. But overcoming it is a practice issue. Practice writing dialogue of all sorts. Read it out loud and listen to yourself, and then cut out the boring parts. People watch and listen in on the conversations around you - but try to be cool about it. Read lots of great dialogue and then pick it apart for what makes it work and what doesn't. And always make sure to write down the snippets of dialogue that pop up in your head. You never know what they'll be good for. I have a quote stuck on my monitor. "While you were raising goats, I was raising armies!" Don't know who says it, but I think I like her.

Welcome to Scribes and good luck!

Watching good movies is another strategy you might use to better your skills. There are always pithy one-liners or or those witty barbs that go back and forth.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
To me, dialogue is similar to prose. You use it convey information about the world, the characters, and the plot. But I find you can have more fun with it depending on who your character's are. Dialogue doesn't represent the way real people speak. It's just an illusion of sounding real. In a real conversation, people use unimportant filler words like Ummmm and Like, and go off topic in deep tangents a lot. In prose, those things should be used sparingly.

I find that dialogue comes out best/easier when it takes place in the proper context. What I mean by that is if you want to have conversation about how the warp drive works, generally, the best place for that to happen is in the engine room, probably not in the cafeteria. I'm not saying that it can't happen in the cafeteria. I'm just saying the engine room offers up more opportunity for details to come out more naturally. In the cafeteria, you're going to have to work for it more to set up the context so it doesn't feel forced.


"While you were raising goats, I was raising armies!"

That is a cool line. Sorry, but the smart-ass in me can't help but imagine a third person barging into the conversation, and while pointing an accusing finger at each party, they say, "You raised goats, and you raised armies. Bah. I kid you not little billies. I raised an army of goats. Moooahahaha."

OK, I'll just kick myself out the door now. And yes, I'll pause to let it hit my ass. :p
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Dialog comes readily for me. I often find myself writing scenes in the dreaded white room (the one with black curtains, near the station). The dialog is probably my most often-used tool for discovering character voice. In early scenes there's not a lot of differentiation, but I start messing about with phrasing, word choice, using or not using contractions, and so on, and pretty soon I get a kind of voice that feels right. Then I can develop it.

I also find I write early dialog around important scenes--there's a decision to be made, an aftermath to sort out, a disagreement. Those kind of scenes naturally lend themselves to multiple opinions, which means multiple voices. One person argues strongly for, another objects strongly. A third misunderstands. A fourth thinks it's all overblown. Yet another scolds. And so on. Once I get a feel for the voice, it's easer to carry that over into more moderate conversations.

It's descriptions that are difficult for me, maybe because descriptions aren't filled with emotions and opinions. Given that I haven't figured out how to incorporate good descriptions smoothly into my writing, I'm no good for advising how to incorporate good dialog into yours. But I can always fall back on the universal writing advice: just keep thrashing about until you find something that works for you. <g>
 

Scott Ryan

Acolyte
Thank you for all the replies!


"
It still comes out fairly rough and sometimes too on-the-nose

This is so true. I find myself too on the nose with dialogue and saying things like "people don't talk that way!"

Great advice, I appreciate it!
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
One thing I often do for longer conversations is to first just write the words the characters say, kind of like if they were chatting online - smileys and all.
That way, I won't need to focus on anything but what they're saying, and I won't get distracted by having to add in beats and tags and descriptions etc.

Once that's done, I add in everything else.
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
One thing I often do for longer conversations is to first just write the words the characters say, kind of like if they were chatting online - smileys and all.
That way, I won't need to focus on anything but what they're saying, and I won't get distracted by having to add in beats and tags and descriptions etc.

Once that's done, I add in everything else.
This is exactly what we do with our outlines. They are extremely detailed, almost pre-writing, and often contain a great deal of dialogue, written by my much more talented writing partner/plotter/wife. It makes it so much easier for me to draft those sections later on!
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
If you’re a nut, study screenwriting. Dialogue by McKey is likely a good book (I haven’t read it, but McKey is typically good). If you want to learn how to write dialogue, listen to how people speak, and don’t do that, heh heh.

Most unedited “real” conversations are crap.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
If you really want to study dialogue.... try reading transcripts of some really good interviews. A great journalist knows how to push a subject into getting to the point, and the late night comedians know how to bring out the witty fun side of things. At least in a good interview there's a lot less humming and hawing and a lot more impact.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Here are a couple other considerations about dialog.

1. Is it modern? Because if it's back even fifty years, what constitutes convincing dialog has changed. Go back five hundred years and it has changed even more. It's not like there's some universal "right" tone to strike.

2. Is it human? Because elves should speak differently from dwarves, humans, and so on. Fantasy and SF writers have a much wider palette to work from.

So, write your dialog. Let it be wooden, stilted, or otherwise dreadful. Then you can work on that.
 
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