Dialogue

[Terri]

Dialogue is my absolutely favourite thing to write, provided I'm in the house alone and can mumble to myself while I do it! Finding a balance is tricky, but the more you listen to people the easier it gets, and the more natural the flow. I think seat-of-pants writers tend to do better with this kind of device, because they just plough on and then worry about fiddly things like speech tags and actions later.
I also would like to put a word in here, for the structure of dialogue, rather than just words themselves. In a fast-paced argument the sense of urgency is put over by keeping it simple:

He started forward and felt Borsa grip his arm.
“Where are you going?”
“I can take the child, they will not see me –”
“No, but think! They will see the babe vanish before their eyes! And then the mother will be put to the knife instead. You would wish her blood on your hands? Her who you chose in selfish greed, and whose life you have destroyed because of it?”
“But my child –”
“You must not! You have done enough.”

Whereas in a slower-paced piece, mixing up the rhythm works better and removes the need for so many speech tags:

Richard stepped out from behind the tree, directly into Tanner’s path.
“There you are, you ****ing coward!” Tanner spat, dragging in deep breaths.
Richard glanced beyond him. “Where are your buddies?”
“Coming.”
“Tell them to back off, no tricks this time.”
Tanner looked at him, amazed, then barked laughter. “Or you’ll what?”
Richard shrugged. “We’ll just out-run you again, you know we can.” He folded his arms and leaned against the tree.

Great topic, I've enjoyed reading all the posts here

 

[wordwalker]

Oops. OOPS, we missed it.

Dialogue is my absolutely favourite thing to write, provided I'm in the house alone and can mumble to myself while I do it! Finding a balance is tricky, but the more you listen to people the easier it gets, and the more natural the flow.

I think we made it to twenty posts before someone mentioned speaking dialog aloud, but now thank you Terri!

Speaking it aloud may be the best crash course in dialog basics, the fastest way to check something or to undo years of hem-hawing and puffing our way through English papers and business reports. It isn't mastering the principles (which are pretty much all in this thread) and it has its biases, but it's a superb and easy way to settle in or check a thing.

And of course, the long slow process of keeping our ears open around people works even better.

(For the other points: urgency, definitely. Mixing up rhythm, great for avoiding woodenness and it Shows which character talks which way. Removing speech tags, abso-freakin-lutely. Nice!)