Thread: Dialogue With Multiple People

The novel I am currently working on has reached a point where there are four major characters in the story. All of my main characters are in the same scenes for what I had originally planned as a large portion of the plot.

However, I've found it very difficult to keep up fluid dialogue with four interjecting participants. I've also noticed for the majority of most novels the dialogue is between two characters; three is much rarer to come by. Dialogue with more than three people is very rare indeed.

I was wondering if anyone here has struggled with a similar problem, or could point me towards an author to do this well? Most advice I found from a good ol' Google search only deals with the problem within a individual scene, such as a dinner party.

I was thinking I might have to consistently use tactics such as having two characters regularly walking behind the other two and each diad engaging in their own conversations. Aside from that I may have to re-work so the characters split up earlier and stay apart longer.

Thoughts?

Two things come to mind whenever thinking of conversations involving more than two individuals:

1. Often there's multiple conversations going on. I think of families who manage to eat a meal together or spend any significant amount of time together. Quite often (at least) two different conversations will be ongoing, with participants vying to be heard over the others.

2. If there is a single conversation going on, one person usually dominates the conversation with occasional input from others. For this I think of groups of individuals at a party or other social gathering. One person is the centre stage and the others merely inject comments occasionally.

That's all that comes to mind. Not sure if it will be helpful or not.

One of my scenes involve;
MC ( is new to psi activity)talking verbally to the girl next to him andTalking telepathically to three others.

It was confusing, but it was confusing for the character too. He answers a question telepathically from one person to the one that didn't ask a question, and loses track of what the girl next to him is saying.

I think the best way is the main speaker relating to several peoples input.

He announces or speaks to the group, person 1 asks a question, which mc answers, etc, person 2 offer opinion, and so on. I think most "group" discussions are said to the group, rather then saying something to one person.
MC says to person A, Person B asks a question, MC answers "B"s question.
MC tells the group, Person A comments(to the group), person B asks a question.
Maybe think about how you would write a dialog for an average size classroom discussion. In this case, you might even get unknown people speaking, or several people speaking at the same time.

One of the things that turns a good conversation into a good scene is the things that go on outside of the words being spoken. People don't normally just speak, they do things while they are speaking which adds meaning to the conversation. If someone in a conversation stands up and leans forward, that action has significance to what is being said. The person might yell, or whisper, and the actions mean quite a bit no matter what the words are. What the pov character is feeling, and the movements or other feelings that provides adds to it as well.

Instead of just having people speak, add in gestures and movements. Give some pause to add context from the pov character when something might need some additional details the pov character can supply.

Maybe an example:

"She doesn't like me," John said.

"Yes she does. She told her friend Sally, that she did," Mark replied.

Sam joined in, "Yah, that's what I heard too."

"And you heard it from Sally? Or did you hear it from her boyfriend Todd?" John asked.

"Yah," Mark said, "but that doesn't mean Todd was lying."

"I trust Todd, he wouldn't lie about something like that," Sam said.

Now with some surroundings:

"She doesn't like me," John said. Shaking his head and leaning back in his chair.

"Yes she does. She told her friend Sally, that she did," Mark replied, leaning over the table. This was just like the last time John had liked a girl, Mark will say anything to push him to make a fool out of himself.

Sam joined in, "Yah, that's what I heard too," but he sounded disinterested. Which matched Sam's usually lack of interest in John's feelings.

The last time Mark tried to help John out, Sam went right along with him. "And you heard it from Sally? Or did you hear it from her boyfriend Todd?" John asked already knowing the answer.

Mark slouched back into his chair. "Yah," he mumbled, "but that doesn't mean Todd was lying." this last barely audible.

"I trust Todd, he wouldn't lie about something like that," Sam said, but he looked away when John turned his stare on him.

I intentionally left the initial one bare to emphasize the contrast. Might not be the greatest example, but it shows the idea. Break the dialog up so that it isn't one long string of talking. By interspersing the text with the other things going on in the scene, it allows the reader to take in the dialog slower and in the process have time to know who is speaking. We, by habit, tend to skim over the he/she/name said parts unless we don't know who is speaking. This way we are giving not only more time for the speaker to be identified, but other aspects to what they are doing while the conversation is going on. It is usually more enjoyable since we get to feel we are a part of something more than just the dialog.

I know that's just a sample you've thrown together, but in general I think people need be careful with gratuitous leaning and head-nodding etc. As you said, adding bits of action is a good way to attribute dialog and break it up. But as often as possible, it needs to have something to do with what's actually going on, or it needs to reveal something about the character. Lots of times, I see random things tacked on to break up dialog, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

PS: Oddly enough -- i just came across this in something I'm about to post. I think one of the few things I've written with three people talking. It was a little more challenging, because we don't know two of the people's names:

When they noticed Gary, the man looked down and shuffled his feet. The women gasped and covered her face in embarrassment.

“Gosh, ” the woman said. “Sorry. We didn't... ”

“Don't mind me, ” Gary said, as he chuckled and saluted off his temple. And he wondered when he'd last heard the word gosh.

The man said, “We're neighbors. We live above you, in Three B. I'm... ”

“We just got married! ” the women interrupted. She looked at her new husband and then down at her ring, as if she needed a reminder that it was really true.

“Well, congratulations!” Gary said, while toasting them with his Coke.

They looked at each other and the man mouthed something. Then the woman said, “Come on down. We have plenty if you're hungry. ”

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Trying to practice what I preach. I think it works OK. I think it would be hard to keep up though, the scene ends shortly after this.

This is an awesome thread. THANKS FOR IT! I needed this exact discussion. Multiple things here pertain to my work...

My story is about a group of friends. There are seven major characters and at times they are all having dinner together, working together, etc. It can be extremely difficult. I often find that one or two will dominate the conversation and it's like the others are not even there. Sometimes that works, and often in real life that is how it is, but it becomes a problem in my writing because none of my characters are really the quiet type. JosephB, you're right on about the overuse of actions such as leaning back in a chair, staring, fiddling with stuff, etc. They are great, but over a 100,000 word novel it becomes extremely easy to abuse them. How many times can I describe the same actions over and over in the midst of dialogue?

It's frustrating, but what has helped me is simply doing tons of rewrites. If I rewrite something enough it gets to a point where I find ways to make it flow and make it feel natural. It's certainly a process though. Powerful narration within the dialogue is what works best for me rather than a lot of small bits of description. One strong line describing something (such as the way someone's eyes catch the light) works better than a thousand "she leaned back and stared"'s etc.

The idea is changing the flow. Continuous dialog has no sense of time outside of the conversation, which is sometimes what you might want. It's the times where you have quite a lot going on that you want to slow things down and give the reader more time to keep track of it all. While my quick example lacked a great deal that was meaningful, the idea was to change the pace and try and give a bit of insight on how actions can show more about what is happening.

Changing flow, pace -- whatever. Big chunks of dialog usually don't work all that well, although I've seen it done to some effect. And if folks need examples, they can always pick up a book and see how it's done.

Originally Posted by JosephB

I know that's just a sample you've thrown together, but in general I think people need be careful with gratuitous leaning and head-nodding etc. As you said, adding bits of action is a good way to attribute dialog and break it up. But as often as possible, it needs to have something to do with what's actually going on, or it needs to reveal something about the character. Lots of times, I see random things tacked on to break up dialog, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.

PS: Oddly enough -- i just came across this in something I'm about to post. I think one of the few things I've written with three people talking. It was a little more challenging, because we don't know two of the people's names:

When they noticed Gary, the man looked down and shuffled his feet. The women gasped and covered her face in embarrassment.

“Gosh, ” the woman said. “Sorry. We didn't... ”

“Don't mind me, ” Gary said, as he chuckled and saluted off his temple. And he wondered when he'd last heard the word gosh.

The man said, “We're neighbors. We live above you, in Three B. I'm... ”

“We just got married! ” the women interrupted. She looked at her new husband and then down at her ring, as if she needed a reminder that it was really true.

“Well, congratulations!” Gary said, while toasting them with his Coke.

They looked at each other and the man mouthed something. Then the woman said, “Come on down. We have plenty if you're hungry. ”

Product placement, already looking for in-movie comercial.

My example of the conversation and telepathy the MC did not do much eating(They are at a large dinner table) as his full attention was on trying keep up with the people talking to him. If I remember the chaotic coversation ended with his mother telling him he needed to eat something.

In this scene I wanted the dialog to overwhelm, side actions would have made it seem less stressful. I think how you write depends on the situation. Although some actions during dialog might add to the stress.
I do agree most people don't sit and stare at each other while talking.

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Trying to practice what I preach. I think it works OK. I think it would be hard to keep up though, the scene ends shortly after this.

Heh. That's a cultural thing where I live -- and where my stories mostly take place. Everything's a Coke.

Ah, the southern concept of applying a brand name to a type of item. Coke for soda, sheetrock for drywall, dixi cup for a paper cup...ect.

I would suggest looking at the original books the series "Sex and the city" was written based on.

This would actually make a pretty fun challenge. 1000 words of conversation between four or five characters. Try to keep the conversation flowing while keeping clear who is doing the speaking and how the listeners are reacting. It'd take a bit of doing to make it work....