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Savvy Crew
  • Feb 4, 2020
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    Keep'em talking

    Dialogue is a crucial element of genre fiction. Literary fiction may have pages of narration with little or no dialogue, but genre fiction moves faster. Dialogue helps give the feeling that something is happening and pages are turning quickly.

    One reason for that may be that a page of dialogue does read faster than a page of narration. There are simply fewer words. Another reason is that good dialogue will play like a movie in the reader's head. In our society, we are used to watching TV and movies with almost constant dialogue. We want to read books that give us a similar experience.

    There's a great debate about whether today's readers have shorter attention spans or not. However you come out on this debate, most people agree that popular fiction should have dialogue on nearly every page.

    Keep it moving
    Whether it's a couple of Regency ladies sitting for tea, a contemporary family on a road trip or a romantic hero finding the nerve to tell his heroine how he feels-dialogue keeps the story moving forward.

    Great dialogue must--
    • Be real
    • Portray emotion
    • Reveal conflict
    • Advance the plot

    Reality check
    One of the most frequently heard writing "rules" is that dialogue should sound real. This rule must not be taken literally. The sad fact is that most actual conversation becomes snooze-fests when reduced to words on a page. Think about the last conversation in which you took part.

    Perhaps it was over breakfast as you synced the family calendar. You know what I mean.



    "Do you have plans for after school?" Mother asked.
    "Baseball practice, then library," Minerva replied.

    "I'm meeting with Cassie to work on our science
    project," Mary added.

    "Okay, well. Be home or check-in by five thirty,"
    Mother admonished.

    "I hope that doesn't apply to me," Dad chimed in. "I
    have to work late."

    Click to expand...



    Okay, that may not be exactly how it goes. In my family, it would be mom reminding everyone of where they were supposed to be and making arrangements for how to get them there. But this little bit of conversation makes my point. The day-to-day business of life does not make a very interesting read.

    Think of a story as reality on steroids-more entertaining than eavesdropping yet the reader would be hard-pressed to identify the difference. Only we writers know the secret- dialogue captures genuine human emotions while leaving out all the boring bits that get actual humans through typical days.

    Note-all you paranormal writers. When I say "human emotions" I'm not leaving you out. We all know that faeries, vamps, androids, aliens and other creatures of fiction must capture emotions humans can relate to. Think of the classic examples from Star Trek-Data and Spock. Non-humans who are supposed to lack human emotions. Their lack of emotion and logical way of viewing the world comes across in their speech. We relate to them in part because we feel empathy for them as outsiders trying to figure out the human world.

    So, when we say dialogue should be realistic, what we really mean is it should focus human experience through a dramatic lens with wit and diction few mortals can muster on the fly.

    The characters in books actually speak the great come-back lines that most of us think of hours after the conversation has ended. And instead of hating them for outshining us in every way, we love them and want to keep reading their stories because their words touch our hearts.


    Speaking of Heart
    Imagine you're sitting with your best friend who has just learned she is being transferred to an office thousands of mile away. Sure you will have e-mail and phone calls, but you are not going to be sitting down for coffee every Tuesday as you have been doing for the past twelve years.

    There will no doubt be a lot of emotion in this conversation, but how much of it will come through words? I'm picturing two women, trying not to cry, forcing smiles
    and trying to put the best spin on the situation.



    "Yellowknife?" Alyssa swallowed. "Where is that
    exactly?"

    Val shrugged. "It's about five hundred miles north of
    the freaking middle of nowhere. Just south of the North
    pole."

    "Well," Alyssa pretended to look out the window,
    blinking back tears. "I've always wanted to try dog-
    sledding."

    "Great. I'll expect a visit next February." Her
    friend's lips curved in a brave attempt at a smile.
    "Bring extra batteries and a flashlight-it will be
    dark."

    Click to expand...


    That's off the top of my head. You can probably imagine other ways to convey the emotions in this conversation. Even in this little example, we see the words of the conversation don't convey the depth of emotion the women are feeling. The real heart of this scene is in the physical responses and body language.

    Of course, the spoken words may convey emotions, but the author has many other tools for providing the depth of feeling from anger to joy to sadness. The author can use body language, word choice, setting, tone of voice-even the pacing of the scene to help the reader see and feel what the characters are feeling.


    Telling the story
    Besides making it real, the rule I hear most often is "avoid info dumps." Just remember, this does not mean you can't use dialogue to convey information. In fact, dialogue can be a
    great way to reveal backstory. It's all in how the author does it.

    How much information and when to reveal it is one of those judgment calls the author needs to make. As the critter, the question to ask is: does it feel as though the characters would actually discuss this subject, or does it seem like the purpose of the conversation is to pass along info to the reader?

    A heartfelt moment where the heroine tells the hero about some traumatic event in her past does convey needed backstory. But it carries an emotional punch that may go beyond a flashback or internal monologue. Why? Because we get both the heroine's emotions and the hero's reaction.

    As a critter you're looking for that emotional punch. A true info dump won't bring a lump to your throat or a silly grin to your lips.

    What to look for
    Start with the dialogue portion of the checklist.

    1. Dialogue
    • Does each character have a unique voice consistent with his or her character?
    • Is there sufficient action and setting description to avoid talking head syndrome?
    • Does the dialogue seem natural? (Appropriate to the time and place, no info dump, normal use of contractions, conversational word choices, minimal naming of other characters).
    • Is any dialect easy to understand?
    • Are there sufficient dialogue tags to let us know who is speaking without becoming intrusive? Is there a mix of dialogue tags and action.


    To this we can add the things we look for in every scene-conflict, characterization, setting, pacing, voice, readability. All of the balls the author must keep in the air to make the scene work.
     
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