tips or advise about dialoque (conversations) - Writers Forum

huxley · 06-02-2006, 02:00 PM

i wanted to know if people had tips or advise on dialoque ,conversations

what are your observation on it .

need help writing dialoque, i observed that one character is the dominite speaker. or some times its conflict between to two,

any other tip or advise to help . thanks

Anne Lacey · 06-02-2006, 02:05 PM

Well, first of all, people don't talk in long sentences. Keep them short. People also don't monologue. Don't let your characters. People interrupt, leave off the ends of their sentences, drift away in mid-speech... You have to add it all in to make your dialog sound real. Hope that helps. I know you'll get great advice here.

Non Serviam · 06-02-2006, 04:05 PM

"So how do people talk?" he asked.
"Like this. In fragments, I mean," she replied.
"Don't people go, um, ah, er a lot? And interrupt each other?"
"In real life, yes. In stories that doesn't work so well."
"So in stories, people don't talk like they do in real life?" he said.
"No. Dialogue in stories always has to move the story, show character, elaborate on a theme, or have some other definite purpose."
"Anything in particular to avoid?" he expostulated.
"Yup. Avoid what we're doing now," she interjected. "Said-bookism always rings false. Just use 'he said' or 'she said', or 'replied', or 'asked' for most dialogue tags. And a lot of the time you don't even need those."
"And what about adverbs?" he asked inquisitorially.
"Whether you're writing dialogue or not, adverbs almost always blow goats," she said assertively.
"What about dialects?"
"Whut, aer yew arsking if'n it's okay tae mak' wi'th'silly spellings fer accents 'n' sich?"
"Hmm. Sounds like the answer is no," he said.
"Not unless you're really good, and even then, it needs quite a light touch."
"Okay, thanks!" he said, and walked away.

SilkFX · 06-02-2006, 04:48 PM

^^Brilliant!

high_flyer · 06-02-2006, 05:37 PM

Excellent!

cbrmale · 06-02-2006, 09:02 PM

A good post, but there is more to dialogue than the example above. You need to develop and use a 'voice' for some of your key characters. Is the character precise in their use of English (always says yes, going to and so on) or does the character abbreviate key words like 'yeah' 'gonna' and so on? Does the character swear. If so, what sort of swearing? Does the character use specific intonations (what you doin' way out here you stupid bastard?). In this case, the character has dropped the 'are', the 'g' and she swears in exasperation. This particular character usually drops her 'g' when talking and this fits in well with her personality.

If you don't have some individual voices (making sure they aren't way over the top), your characters will sound bland, unexciting and homogenous.

The most important point with dialogue is read it back out loud. What looks okay, and reads okay in your head, may sound different when you listen to it for yourself. So read it out loud and change your dialogue as required.

Slugfly · 06-03-2006, 01:02 AM

Dialogue shouldn't be exactly as it is in real life. It has to have the illusion of reality but if it was exactly as it was in real life it would be painful to read.

I think the best thing to do would be to read some good writers and see how they handle dialogue. Non Serviam hit the nail on the head but it'd still be good to cross reference with other writers.

I think long speeches and monologues can work out (not a 200 word speech, but certainly a few lines long). Also, I think that in a long conversation (this is opinion) it's quite ugly to have a bunch of quotes line after line. It's better to have longer lines and interupt the dialogue yourself with narrative or description once in a while.

Also, I think it's okay to have (as NonServ said) quotes without any tags at all to indicate who's speaking. You have to be careful though because it's easy for the reader to lose track of whose speaking if you do this too often.

Kamisama · 06-03-2006, 04:35 AM

The best way to do this is to understand what was presented on this board. Afterwards, read some books: they are the ones with the dialogue. Find a way to voice characters with an individual personality. I'm not against the expostulated thing, but such a word could be related with an intellectual character. Give the book and characters a theme. Don't make everything seem the same and boring.

"The genetic make up of the species sent in orbital space 200 years ago could have changed due to allopatric speciation." she expostulated.
"Yeah. I didn't catch any of that." he said.
"Since the bugs were away from earth and other bugs of the same type for a long time, their DNA probably changed." she said.
"Oh." he replied.

Kind of brings it up a notch instead of using 'she said'.

Rob · 06-03-2006, 06:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamisama

"The genetic make up of the species sent in orbital space 200 years ago could have changed due to allopatric speciation." she expostulated.
"Yeah. I didn't catch any of that." he said.
"Since the bugs were away from earth and other bugs of the same type for a long time, their DNA probably changed." she said.
"Oh." he replied.

Kind of brings it up a notch instead of using 'she said'.

I would disagree that it brings it up a notch. I wouldn't recommend expostulated. Also, you need to punctuate your dialogue correctly.

Cheers,
Omni

Mike C · 06-03-2006, 06:31 AM

Expostulate brings it down by about 3 dozen notches. Please, don't ever do that again.

Dookie · 06-03-2006, 06:34 AM

You said just to use he and she said. No way man that sucks. What comes after the dialogue can add tone and context to the speech. I'd say you sometimes need a bit more than he and she said, in fact I try to avoid that at all times because it's so simple and boring.

Non Serviam · 06-03-2006, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dookie

You said just to use he and she said. No way man that sucks. What comes after the dialogue can add tone and context to the speech. I'd say you sometimes need a bit more than he and she said, in fact I try to avoid that at all times because it's so simple and boring.

Some words are transparent. You can use them again and again, and they won't stand out - for example, most conjunctions and prepositions and pronouns. The names of your protagonist and antagonist will also become transparent once they've been used a few times.

In dialogue, the transparent words are "said", "asked", and "replied".

If you use "exclaimed" or "interjected" or, Heaven help you, "expostulated", then you're using opaque words. This means that you're calling attention to the way that the words are said.

Now, there are reasons why you might want to do that. Maybe your character is inarticulate and the words used are less important than the manner of speaking.

("Yuh," he grunted.)

But, if you use opaque words for dialogue, then you need to be aware that you're detracting attention away from what the character is saying, towards the way s/he's saying it. This has the overall effect of reducing the impact of your dialogue.

Rob · 06-03-2006, 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dookie

You said just to use he and she said. No way man that sucks. What comes after the dialogue can add tone and context to the speech. I'd say you sometimes need a bit more than he and she said, in fact I try to avoid that at all times because it's so simple and boring.

Use speech tags only where necessary to make it clear who is speaking. Often, he said and she said will do the job just fine, and they become almost invisible to the reader. Using other speech tags, particularly fancy words such as expostulated, stops the reader, when in fact the dialogue should flow in the way a conversation flows. If you do need to use other words, then use them, but do so sparingly. Don't make the beginner's mistake of looking for interesting alternatives to he said and she said for each speech tag, because it's unnecessary and distracts the reader. If you need to add tone and context, you should aim to do so within the dialogue as much as possible. Let the dialogue do the talking.

Cheers,
Omni

Kamisama · 06-03-2006, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Non Serviam

("Yuh," he grunted.)

This would have been better than, "'oh.' he said."
It would give the character an attiude and perhaps more reality.
If the character was an ass, that might have been a good substitute.

Or perhaps...

"O RLY?"
Then again, that would have been frowned upon, unless made for a specific audience. One always has to consider the audience.

Dookie · 06-03-2006, 06:49 AM

I did say though, as you also said here:

Now, there are reasons why you might want to do that. Maybe your character is inarticulate and the words used are less important than the manner of speaking.

...that words that come after the dialogue are sometimes required to add to the story and character. For example, to explain what I mean, I would never have my villain speak and then say "he said" or "she said" afterwards. Oh no, no. I'd use words like "growled, barked, spat, whispered dangerously."

These all add something to the character, each of them gives you an image and idea of what that character is like. It's important to the story. The readers wouldn't understand the character if he said and she saids were used.