writesalot

I find myself avoiding dialogue at all costs...and that does not produce very good stories! So my question is how do you write effective or meaningful dialogue? Whenever I add dialogue its usually short and it makes my characters seem plain. Any advice?

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"Ok, you people! Sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we're not back by dawn... call the president."-Jack Burton

"I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. " -French Soldier (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Ilan Bouchard

Absolutely make sure each character is distinctive. If they both speak the same way, the authenticity is lost.
Does one character curse a lot? Does the other always make analogies? Each character needs to be different so people can identify with them; it makes them real.

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Ruthless comments encouraged!

writesalot

mmm...I need to give that a whirl. Thanks for the advice. Practice makes perfect I suppose...

__________________
"Ok, you people! Sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we're not back by dawn... call the president."-Jack Burton

"I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. " -French Soldier (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

writesalot

I know I know...thats why I've been a little discouraged with my writing because I can never seem to make it interesting or even real. Good advice with the tape recorder. I should try that.

__________________
"Ok, you people! Sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we're not back by dawn... call the president."-Jack Burton

"I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. " -French Soldier (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Talia_Brie

Have you ever heard two people talking, who seem to be having different conversations.

Remember when you're writing dialogue that people will not always respond directly to what someone has said. They will talk around them, or sometimes ignore them completely.

Find a story by Hemmingway called (I think) "Hills like white elephants", or something like that. It's two people talking as they wait for a train. The single best example of this concept I have ever come across.

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Ilan Bouchard

Is that the one with the guy who's crying about his son (who died in the war)? And the plump lady or something?
If so, then I agree. 'Twas a good story. If not, then I'm confusing it with another story.

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Ruthless comments encouraged!

TimK

Here are some tips I've found helpful.

• Don't have characters just speak. Have them move their hands and faces. Have them express themselves.
• How a character expresses himself ought to match his personality.
• Even more importantly, make sure that what a character says matches his personality. A spoiled, rich frat-boy will say different things in different ways than a hard-working single mom.
• People don't want to read realistic dialogue; they want to read interesting dialogue. So leave out mundane details; include only details that move the story forward.

-TimK

writesalot

Thanks for the tips and advice everyone!

__________________
"Ok, you people! Sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we're not back by dawn... call the president."-Jack Burton

"I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. " -French Soldier (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Talia_Brie

No, it's a young guy and girl waiting for a train. They're talkign about all sorts of things, but what they're really talking about is that she's pregnant, and they don't want to be.

Never once mention the words, baby, pregnant, carrying, or any other pregnancy related terminology.

It was brilliant.

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Ilan Bouchard

Another book for me to read.

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Ruthless comments encouraged!

Saponification

Listen to people talk and copy their idiosyncracies. People break their language all the time - your characters should as well.

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Metta.

Vincent Gray

I'd like to add that good dialogue is more subtle. Making things subtle can be hard, for sure. Just try not to have your characters explain everything to each other when they'd already understand. Let the reader fill in some gaps themselves, you can use dialogue to raise questions and leave them unanswered for a bit. It should have some subtext, things they say should have more meaning than just the implicit one. Of course it doesn't need to be all subtlety all the time. A character can just say "Fuck you," if that's what they'd say.

As for using dialogue to explain things, I mean stuff like, "Jack, little bro, what are you up to?" Don't try to explain stuff that way through dialogue. Though the speaking character might be calling Jack his little brother because he's condescending or whatever, and in that case it fits and you can use dialogue as exposition. But if they have no reason to call attention to a fact then don't make them because you need to explain something. People also rarely call each other by name when addessing them, your dialogue should reflect this.

Also, though dialogue is people talking, don't have them talk exactly like people do. It should be much more to the point. As in, take out all the "um" and "uh" and "well" and "like" and all the unneccessary pauses. Use them when you want to show that a person doesn't really know what to say or it's important that they trail off, or that they're stalling or embarassed, but don't use them all the time even though that's how people talk. It's harder for the reader to understand.

And if you don't want your characters to sound normal, you can give them weird speech patterns, or certain words like like to use. Maybe have one guy say "ya" instead of "you" and things like that.

Vincent Gray

Hemingway's Hills like White Elephants can be read here:

EDIT: Be careful in using this link if you're not confident in your computer's anti-virus software and firewalls and shit, read the posts below.

http://www.shortstories.computed.net...gwayhills.html

writesalot

Thanks for the link...I was looking everywhere for that story.

__________________
"Ok, you people! Sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we're not back by dawn... call the president."-Jack Burton

"I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. " -French Soldier (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

a15haddad

Ah... that is a very good story.

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"I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state of a small city." -Themistocles

"Conrad transcended all the rules. There have been, perhaps, greater novelists, but I believe that he was incomparably the greatest artist who ever wrote a novel." -H.L. Mencken