Too much Dialouge in chapters/paragraphs

>there seems to be a lot of talking,

"a lot" of talking isn't necessarily a bad thing. When you say "a lot" are you really saying there is too much? What about the dialog is making you think that?

What is happening in this dialog? You said, someone asks someone else about a people and there's a reply. Is that the whole of the dialog for chapter one? Let's assume it is. The next question is, what's at stake in this? Does Person A need to know this in order to avoid death? To know how to arm themselves? Just curious about people? What purpose is the dialog serving?

It's rarely about too much, whether of dialog or description or narration. It's more about moving the story along, engaging the reader, and serving the needs and goals of the characters in the scene. If that's being done, you can have nothing but dialog, at least in theory.

 

Sometimes scenes are dialogue heavy. Other times it's narrative heavy. Other times, still, it's more balanced. There's nothing wrong with any one of those. It's not necessarily amount of each ingredient you put in. It's putting in the right amount and using it in a way to achieve what you want with the scene and have it feel natural.

A few things you should be careful of.

1- Talking heads. Be careful about having two characters standing/sitting there spouting dialogue to one another and not be doing anything else. It makes it tougher to make the scene interesting because things are very static. There's less to work with to engaging the reader's imagination. Have the characters be doing something. If that something directly relates to a specific pieces of information you need to get across to the reader, all the better, but it doesn't necessarily have to relate.

For example, it's more natural for information about the warp drive to come out while doing maintenance on the warp drive rather than while baking. Though, the latter can work, too. You just have to be more creative in order to make it come out feeling natural and not like the info is dropped in out of left field.

2 - Watch out for as-you-know-Bob type dialogue. This is where one character asks a short question that they already know the answer to in order to tee up an info dump. OR in some cases, worse, the info dump isn't even prompted with the short question.

For example.

"Hey, Ted, how about those Jeffyeries Tubes?"

"Yeah, how about them Bob. They run a thousand feet in either direction and crisscross through all the decks. A great place to hide if we are ever boarded by Romulans. We could fight a guerrilla war using these if we had to, using them to enter the armory undetected and gather supplies. No one could ever track us through them. We know them best.


These are signs that maybe the writer isn't being thoughtful/creative enough in designing their scene, and/or not getting into the POV character's head and using introspection to get things across in a more natural feeling way.

There are probably more things to be wary of, but these are the two most obvious in my eyes.

 

Go ahead and post your excerpt here, hon.

One thing to remember about dialogue is that it's characters talking with all of the boring stuff removed. So, no ah's and um's and such. If you find you're using a lot of filler sounds in your dialogue, then yes, you've got too much.

 

So, your question was whether there was too much dialogue in your paragraphs. The short answer is no. I think what you were really asking is, was there too much dialogue in your *scene*. Again, not really, but that doesn't mean the dialogue is carrying its weight. My comments below are in italics.


"You're late!" Conlan shouted as the door to the workshop slammed shut as Raein walked past, grabbing his leather apron off the nearby wall peg.

"Sorry, It's Chaos out there. It seems like there are more people here than normal this time to celebrate the harvest festival."

Smiling, Conlan walked over to the forge. "Chaos favors the bold, my boy. We can either make our fortune here or not, now come here and help me move these crates."

Conlan yells at Raein for being late, but nothing comes of that. He doesn't act angry; being late has no consequence. So that bit of dialogue does no work. This is followed by an exchange about excessive crowds (which also has no follow-up) and a bit of economic philosophy. Both of which are tossed aside because we're moving crates. So, what is this bit about? Crowds? Work habits? Crates? The reader is left with dialogue that doesn't have any impact.


Moving the crates of coal and raw metal into the storage room with grunts and curses, Raein could feel the excitement building up as the festival was only a few days away.

Though this isn't dialogue, the same considerations apply. Why are we moving crates? If the action itself is of interest, then the paragraph doesn't devote enough time to the action. But the second sentence is unrelated to the first. But there, we don't share Raein's excitement because we're shown no reason for excitement. In fact, last we heard, Raein characterized it not as exciting but as chaotic.

As he loaded more fuel into the dying forges, the hiss of burning coals as it kissed the cold chunks was somewhat soothing for Raein. Walking behind the forges, he found that the bellows had been removed, shaking his head he grabbed them from the nearby shelving. With each push of his muscular arms, the sound of rushing air sprang life into the coals as the dull orange turned into a vibrant flash of yellow. It was as if the rising sun was here, scaring away the cold and harsh darkness. Still, as it finally went dark again, he watched a single piece of ash dance of a breeze that had crept through an open window before it disappeared. Grabbing yesterday's work off the workbench, he quickly inspected it before watching as Conlan pulled a glowing sword out of the forge, placing it on the anvil.

"Could you tell me more of the Arcean empire?" Raein asked as he put his work in the glowing coals.

So, a bit of activity around the forge, then this question completely out of the blue. Because the question doesn't come from within Raien--he was thinking about forges and smithing, not empires--the question doesn't mean much to us either.

"I only know what I've learned from my time with the imperial army," Said Conlan, "Which then isn't too much. We've fought them a few times, and they are fearsome warriors who hold onto the notion of honor and prefer a glorious death in battle. They are a strange bunch of people, but they did cause us some issues." He put what he was working on into a nearby water bucket. The red hot metal let out a searing hiss and sputter as it made contact with the water and cooled off. "Now, have you finished with the wheel braces for Kaithian's wagon?"

Some issues? What issues? It can be ok to raise a question for the reader to create a bit of tension, but the reader expects the question to be answered. This one isn't, so again the dialogue is basically thrown away. It needs to mean something, either to the plot or to the characters.

Raein nodded, "I've put them out back for when he brings the wagon in."

Hours passed as they prepared nails, pliers, and crowbars before Kaithian finally came round the corner on his bouncing cart. His long flowing blonde hair framed his square face and deep emerald-colored eyes.

Hours pass, so what is above is all there is for this scene. But what's the scene about? In what way did the dialogue reveal something about the two characters? In what way did it advance the plot?

"Conlan, Raein!" he shouted out to them, giving a quick wave. Pulling on the reins to make the horses stop by the more massive warehouse doors.

"Kaithian, you finally made it. This cart is terrible," Raein said in disgust as he walked around the cart. " I don't understand why you bought this?"

Kaithian's eyes narrowed before easing their glare; he came and put an arm around Raein's shoulder. "It's simple. Business, imagine all the possibilities that can come from running a cart."

Raein shrugged off his friends, joking embrace and glared at him.

"Your habits of jumping into things without thinking anything through always baffles me. Now give us the payment so we can fix this horrible thing." holding out a hand, Raein waited for Kaithian to hand over a coin purse.



Begrudgingly Kaithian handed over his coin pouch; the clinking of coins echoed between them in their silence.

"Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me. I have a beautiful young lady waiting for me to share lunch with," said Kaithian as he pushed past Conlan and Raein.

They watched him walk from the alley, before grabbing the crowbars and ripping out the old nails.

"Are... Are you guys expecting someone!" Raein and Conlan looked up as Kaithian came back down the alley almost at a run.

Sighing and putting his head into his hands, he said, "What have you done now?"

"Nothing, as I've said before." Two guards had rounded the corner and made their way towards the group.



The clinking of chain mail echoed through the alley, as the guards came to a halt before the group. The midday sun bounced off their helms, giving off an eerie glare.

"Master Conlan, it's good to see you again," said the soldier who carried a satchel over his shoulder.

"Oh, Artemis." Conlan smiled, "Well, I'll be. Look at you all grown up; it has been a while."

Artemis smiled, taking off the helm and put it under his arm.

"It has been a while; I wish our reunion would have been under better circumstances." He sighed, "We have just received word of trouble in the north, and I think it's going to worsen before it gets any better. The emperor has ordered all the capable blacksmiths to start making weapons."

Artemis pulled out a rolled-up piece of parchment and held it out for Conlan.



Grabbing the outstretched parchment, Conlan tore the seal off, rolled it out, and read it in stunned silence.



'Blacksmiths of the empire. Your country needs your service to protect our troops and borders. We were hoping you could make a hundred swords within the month, and after that until this fighting has stopped.



Kurt Von Hargin, Minister of Military affairs'



He let out a sigh before looking at the two men in front of him.

"I agree if only this reunion had better circumstances. Thank you for dropping this off." Artemis nodded solemnly and put his helm back on before nudging his friend and walked away.

The section above seems to be the key to the scene. Conlan gets drafted. The dialog is sort of not needed. Either let the guard tell Conlan he's drafted, or have him hand over the document silently and let Conlan read it (to us). As it stands, it's redundant.

More importantly, though, we get no reaction either from Conlan or from Raein. No shock, no outrage, no resigned acceptance, fear, no anything at all. So in some ways, there's need for more rather than less dialog.

Raein watched the guards round the corner before looking to Conlan.

"So, what was that about?" he inquired curiously, Conlan handed it over to him. "Well, this is an interesting predicament. It'll mean we'll be busy from now on."h

Conlan nodded, "Yes, it is. Now Kaithian, if you've finished being here, we have work to get done if you want this any time soon."

Kaithian held up his hands, "Oh... Uh, yes, I'll be leaving now, again, that is."

Raein and Conlan shook their heads as Kaithian walked away, and they turned back to his cart, trying to figure out if they had enough time in the rest of the day to get it finished.


In summary, I don't see too much dialogue here.

 

>English teacher for 10 or 20 dollars an hour
Yeesh. I know nothing negative was meant here, but one who can teach one of the world's most difficult languages really ought to get paid better than that!

S J Lee's advice is solid. Write. Show it to others to get feedback. Learn to use feedback. That's pretty much the core of every writing course out there!