Maid and the Butler

[TheokinsJ]

Dialogue is something I struggle with more than anything in writing, and it's not that I can't write good dialogue, it's just I don't plan what the characters say, and usually it ends up becoming a 'maid and butler' conversation. For those of you who don't know, 'maid and butler' conversations involve characters talking about what they already know, and things that don't need to be said.
Example;

maid: "Hello sir, did you hear that the master has gone away on business to New York?"
butler: "Yes I did know that, have you seen the mistress is getting awfully fond of the gardener?"
maid: "Yes I have, she is growing too friendly with him, the master gets back in a few weeks you know"
and it goes on and on...

So basically that's a really vague example, whereby both characters talk about things they already know and it feels really fake. I'm trying to overcome this by giving their dialogue meaning, but I find it really difficult to try and direct where a conversation is heading, because mainly my conversations are just a character asking another character questions like "what happened?" and "what news from the North?" and all that stuff, and them replying with equally vague and uninteresting responses. Anyone else have trouble with their dialogue? Any suggestions on how to avoid the repetition and fake conversations and giving them direction?

 

[wordwalker]

I know what you mean, and your summary's right on. It was a notorious cliche in medieval plays.

Actually this is two issues: what dialog shouldn't do too much of (how to do Exposition better) and what it should do. For the first:

My basic rule is to have people not mention what a fact is, and talk about the thing one step beyond it that's what they'll do about it. In its simplest form, I might actually mention "the master has gone away" by still using a maid, but instead of chatting I'd show her on a spurt of cleaning she can do while he's out of the way, and drop the fact itself into it in passing.

That is, if I wanted this kind of low-key way of mentioning it. It could be the best way, or it might be better to use a flashier example: important business visitors that are put off until the master comes back, or sinister vagrants that worry them more without the master around-- just a throwaway moment like that can make the point more vividly.

Or it could be a passing mention like with the servants, but placed during an unrelated but interesting scene. As a guy's gearing up to propose to his girl, we get in the mention that X is different because the master's away.

--Or the scenes aren't unrelated. If that guy's making his move because of that absence, the scene's even stronger. (Though if this one scene is also the first we learn of the Missing Master, rather than giving us a little time to wonder what that'll lead to, it may seem too convenient.) So if people have reason to be asking for news, there's nothing wrong with them doing it, as long as you mix in other methods too.

A lot of this is finding cause and effect, and using them efficiently. You don't have to blandly state a fact, you can show any of its effects or some of its causes and lead from there to the fact... especially because a fact only belongs in a story because of its cause/effect. It's there because its effects will change the plot, or it's showing what background already affected the plot, or it's a side-effect of something else and mentioned to add depth to that thing. Knowing what relations are making a thing important helps pick how to show it; if that missing master is soon going to mean the house gets robbed, Nervous Servants may be a better pick than business callers.

Or, if you aren't as clear why a fact's changing the story or shows what already changed it, maybe it doesn't need to be there at all.

As to what dialog should be about, that's a bigger question. But I think a lot of these points apply: find what has just affected them and is on their minds, or what they have to be doing (and hope it's natural for them) to cause the next things. And think how much they'll stand around talking about that past or future (sometimes people do, but keep it under control) and how much they'll trim the talk and just say "We do this next."

--Frequently followed by "No, I say we do this," and then you've got whole pages of dialog material if you want...

 

[Penpilot]

Part of getting information across is mixing it with the POV character's viewpoint. Another part is having something interesting happening internally or externally in the current scene. And obviously having the information flowing out fit with the flow of the conversation.

For example, let's take your maid and butler dialogue and work it a little, adding a few more narrative elements. The same information is passed to the reader, but hopefully it's put in a more interesting context and presented in a less stilted way.

The Maid threw herself into the Master's bed. The smell of him lingered.

The Butler stepped into the bedroom and said, "What are you doing? Someone will see."

"Relax, the Master away in New York. Business and all that sort of thing," said the Maid as she stretched and smelled the pillow.

"But the Mistress is still about."

"Yes, but she's out in the yard, ogling the gardener as he works the shaft of his hoe."

The Butler laughed as he took one of the Master's old Rolexes from a drawer, pocketed it, and said, "You know, she brought him out some lemon aid and was massaging his sweaty shoulders last I saw."

"When the Master's away for weeks and a day, the Mistress will play and play and play." The Maid writhed in the bed and noticed the camera on the night stand. Perhaps when the Master returns she can show him her loyalty by capturing a few disloyalties taking place in the yard.

Dialogue has a lot to do with context. If you need to get info X, Y, and Z out, find an interesting context where the characters would have to either talk about X, Y, and Z or the POV character would have to think about X, Y, and Z. IMHO the best way to get out info is a combination of the two, Dialogue and Narrative.

 

[Saigonnus]

I was going to suggest something similar to penpilot above, he ninja'd me. Getting the information out doesn't necessarily involve an a to b to c conversation, you can create a situation that explains it well enough.