Long dialogues.

[Watcher]

Somehow I am faced with the problem of narrowing down my long dialogues. Although the general rule is to keep dialogues short, somehow the dialogues in my novel seem pretty long. Do I have to turn some of the dialogues into a narrative or should I leave them as they are?

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

There are ways to make dialogues seem shorter without making them shorter. Like for example using a piece of the scenery to describe what the person is feeling during the scene. The other is to read it to find unnecessary information, or presently unnecessary information and wither cut it or move it to another scene.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

The saying goes that dialogues are just like normal conversations, with the boring stuff removed. So, are you cutting out the boring stuff? Is everything your characters saying vital to the plot? Do they have to say it all at once? Can you break up your dialogue with some action? There are many things you can do to keep your dialogue on the shorter side, and still get your message across.

 

[Butterfly]

Look out for fake dialogue:-

Exposition (info dumps as dialogue).

Places where the characters are talking to each other about things they already know.

Anything that is only there for the benefit of the reader and not for the benefit of the story or characters.

I'm sure there are more examples of this...

[These are just suggestions. To answer it more precisely, it might help to answer your question if you post an excerpt in the showcase when you reach 5 posts]

 

[wordwalker]

Look out for fake dialogue:-

Exposition (info dumps as dialogue).

Places where the characters are talking to each other about things they already know.

Anything that is only there for the benefit of the reader and not for the benefit of the story or characters.

My rule of thumb for these is: draw a line between someone saying what he thinks are the facts, and what he predicts is going to happen because of them or what he means to do about it. Almost all the time he should skip past the first (even though it would've been convenient to spell out) and only bother to say the second... if you can keep the first implied anyway.