…and How to Solve 9 Common Dialogue Problems.
by Anne R. Allen
I’ve been looking over some of my much-rejected early work and discovered my old stories have way too much dialogue. This is something I see in a lot of newbie fiction.
I remember a guy who came into the bookstore where I worked in the mid-1990’s, schlepping a huge carton of copies of his self-published novel. We agreed to give him a read, but I couldn’t get past chapter six. By then I still had no idea what the novel was about. Four guys were sitting in various places talking about relationships and politics. The book was nothing but dialogue. It read like a script that didn’t even have stage directions.
His characters needed to shut up already and get on with the story. If there was one. So did mine.
And yet, in all the standard how-to-write books, we’re urged to write: “More scenes! More dialogue!”
I think that’s because lot of classic books on writing, like Strunk and White came out before the TV era. They’re full of warnings against the author-intrusion and diary-like musings that come from imitating those wordy Victorian novels whose purpose was to fill long winter nights.
We’re Products of the Television Era.
But most contemporary writers—at least most of us who are Boomers or younger—had our first exposure to fiction via movies and TV. Even if you were lucky enough to have parents who read books to you, the tele/screenplay format probably got cemented into your brain by constant exposure.
That means the stories in our heads tend to scroll by like episodes of Gunsmoke or Law and Order, rather than the chapters of A Little Princess or The Jungle Book.
I was an avid reader from the time I was five, but the serial dramas on The Mickey Mouse Club are what got hard-wired into my little brain.
Most contemporary writers don’t need warnings against addressing readers as “O Best Beloved,” or waxing poetic on the subject of Victorian food delicacies or the “great grey-green greasy Limpopo River.”
But we do need to beware of writing novels that read like bloated screenplays.
Dialogue is a Powerful Tool
One of my favorite handbooks on writing is agent Noah Lukeman’s 2003 book The First Five Pages.
Lukeman’s book gave me my first wake-up call about overdone dialogue. He wrote,
“Dialogue is a powerful tool, to be used sparingly…it is to the writer what the veto is to the President…if you overuse it, people will resent you for it.”
Whoa! I’d been bullying my readers without realizing it.
And I’ve noticed in a lot of literary short stories I’ve read recently, there’s often no dialogue at all.
Is Dialogue Going out of Style?
Dialogue isn’t going anywhere. It might be old-hat with the MFA set, but commercial books still require a healthy dose. That’s because dialogue—when written well—is easier to read than internal monologue.
However, we need to be careful our dialogue isn’t overdone.
The newbie’s tendency to create overly chatty characters may be why so many agents caution against opening a novel with dialogue. The problem may not be the opening line itself, but the amount of blabbering that follows.
If your opening pages look like a screenplay, you may have a problem.
If you’re sending your manuscript to agents and editors and getting mostly rejections, or beta readers react to your stories with a resounding “meh,” it might not be a bad idea to do another run-through of the ms., keeping an eye out for problematic dialogue.
Indirect Dialogue is Often the Solution.
One way to avoid the too-much dialogue problem is simply skip it. Write what’s called “indirect dialogue.”
If the conversation can be summarized without losing any necessary information or emotional interaction in your novel, you can use indirect dialogue to speed up the story.
Instead of many pages of dialogue where Mary’s husband Bob and his buddies make less than clever plans to rob a bank, you can just say. “Over a 12-pack of Coors, Bob and his buddies planned their cockamamie bank heist. Mary went upstairs and started packing.”
That way you don’t have to bore your reader. Or Mary.
Isn’t that “telling” rather than “showing”?
In a literal sense, yes, although there’s showing in the wording and Mary’s actions. But this is why “Show-Don’t-Tell” can be very bad advice.
Here are some other problems new writers need to watch out for when writing dialogue. Sometimes they can be solved by skipping the dialogue altogether and using indirect dialogue.
9 Common Dialogue Problems
1) Big Chunks of Dialogue with no Action or Internal Thought
Talking heads are boring. Move the characters around and let them do something or feel something. A novelist doesn’t have actors to do this kind of work for us the way a screenwriter does.
So we need action on the page.
I don’t mean “action” in the action-adventure sense. When a Mary is telling her husband she’s leaving him, your characters don’t have to get up and slay dragons or stab villains hiding behind the arras.
But they do need to do stuff. And we need to know what’s going on in their heads.
Not a lot. Just something to give us movement and emotion.
You also don’t want to try to inject emotion with punctuation. Exclamation points are like jalapeno peppers. A few can enrich your work, but they they can easily overwhelm it.
2) Show-offy Dialogue that Doesn’t Move the Story
Okay, that ten-page scene shows how perfectly you’ve captured the patois of young stockbrokers in their native habitat—but does it actually further the plot?
This was the problem with the self-published book I mentioned in the opener. The dialogue was authentic 1960s surfer-dude-speak, but nothing of importance was said.
This is common with new writers. It was for me. We’ve been listening forever, writing down the speech patterns of our protagonist’s demographic and we want readers to see how perfectly we’ve captured it.
But it turns out readers don’t care. They want us to get on with the story.
3) Too Much Realism
Another reason not to pull out your eavesdropping notebooks and transcribe them word for word is that in real life, people say really boring stuff.
“Hi Bob.”
“‘S’up Mary?”
“Nothing much.”
“Gonna go to the…?”
“Dunno, you?”
“Maybe.”
“Gonna, um…?”
“Prolly.”
This is why we read fiction. It skips the boring bits of real life.
A fiction writer should aim to put “just the good parts” on the page, and that includes leaving out the normal pleasantries that people go through in real conversations.
4) Not Enough Realism
Dialogue has to hit a happy medium where it seems authentic.
This is why you should never let one of those Grammarly-type robots loose on your novel.
The third grade dropout will speak as correctly as the lawyer or the librarian. So will the recent immigrant from Uzbekistan and the hairdresser from Queens. They’ll all sound exactly the same, and nobody will make any grammatical mistakes or use any kind of regional colloquialism.
There’s a word for grammatically perfect fiction: unbelievable.
You also have a problem when you let your characters say exactly what they’re thinking.
In real life, people seldom say exactly what they think. If your characters are revealing their souls in dialogue, it needs to be in a therapy session or major heart-to-heart with a significant other.
As Nathan Bransford said on his blog back in 2010. “Good dialogue is comprised of attempts at articulation. There’s a whole lot that is kept back, because we humans only rarely really truly put our true feelings out there.”
5) Reader-Feeder Dialogue: As-you-know-Bob-ism
This is when your characters tell each other stuff they already know in order to fill in backstory for the benefit of the reader—aka “as-you-know-Bob” dialogue.
“As you know, Bob, we are in the lair of the Evil Queen who took our sister Mary hostage after the battle of Curmudgeon and we have been seeking her for twelve long months…”
The writers of those CSI episodes often resort to as-you-know-Bob-ism to explain the science to the audience. It gets a little comical when two highly trained scientists are explaining to each other the basics of rigor mortis or how to detect cyanide poisoning.
This is another instance where “show-don’t-tell” is not your friend. Just tell us. Don’t put it in dialogue.
6) No Dialogue Tags
If readers lose track of who’s talking and have to go back and puzzle it out, you lose them.
“I hate you.”
“I hate you more.”
“It wasn’t my fault”
“Are you going to blame Georgie again?”
“You don’t even like Oreos. I hate you.”
We’re totally lost. So we figure we need dialogue tags. But beware…
7) Cryptic Dialogue Tags
It is true that “he said” or “she said” tags are mostly invisible to the reader, while “he spat” or “she screamed” draw attention to themselves—often not in a good way.
But that doesn’t mean he said/she said tags are the best way to attribute dialogue. Those tags can be boring. They also can withhold essential information.
“I hate you,” he said.
“I hate you more,” she said.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he said.
“Are you going to blame Georgie again?” she said.
“You don’t even like Oreos,” he said. “I hate you.”
Now we know the genders of the people talking, but not much else.
8) Improbable Dialogue Tags
Some writers try for more colorful tags like this:
“I hate you,” Josh spat.
“I hate you more,” Stephanie chortled.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Josh snarled.
“Are you going to blame Georgie again?” Stephanie hissed.
“You don’t even like Oreos,” Josh bellowed. “I hate you.”
This gives us some audio and physical cues, but not many. Plus there’s the added problem that people can’t actually spit, chortle, snarl, or hiss those words.
9) Overloaded Dialogue Tags.
So is the solution to add action to the tag?
“I hate you,” Josh said, throwing the empty Oreo bag at Stephanie and watching it sail over her head onto the floor by the garbage can.
“I hate you more,” Stephanie said, opening the kitchen cupboard and getting her box of Valentine chocolates, which she dumped on the table in front of Josh.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Josh said, sniffling as he looked at the Russell Stovers, a bite taken out of every one.
“Are you going to blame Georgie again?” Stephanie said, remembering the time Josh blamed his little sister Georgie for drinking the chocolate milk he spilled.
“You don’t even like Oreos,” Josh said, picking up the Oreo bag from the linoleum floor and opening the garbage can to throw it in, where he found all his Oreos, covered in coffee grounds. “I hate you.”
It doesn’t quite work, does it?
Sometimes NO Dialogue Tag is the Answer
I turns out what we often need is…NO dialogue tags. Use action to give the attribution without actually saying it.
“I hate you.” Josh threw the empty Oreo bag at Stephanie. It sailed over her head and landed on the floor by the trash can.
“I hate you more.” Stephanie opened the kitchen cupboard and took out her box of Valentine chocolates. She dumped the contents on the kitchen table in front of Josh.
“It wasn’t my fault.” Josh sniffled as he looked at the Russell Stovers, a bite taken out of every one.
“Are you going to blame Georgie again?” Stephanie remembered the time Josh blamed his sister Georgie for drinking the chocolate milk he spilled.
“You don’t even like Oreos.” Josh picked up the Oreo bag and opened the garbage can to throw it in. There were all his Oreos, covered in coffee grounds. “I hate you!”
Now we’ve got something going on within the dialogue.
But Indirect Dialogue May be Better Still.
Especially if those missing Oreos are only peripheral to the story.
“Stephanie and Josh had a stupid argument when Josh took a bite out of every one of Stephanie’s Valentine chocolates and tried to blame Georgie. Then Stephanie paid Josh back by tossing his favorite double-stuffed Oreos into the garbage. They sat in the kitchen sniping at each other all afternoon.”
Keep the Story—and the Reader—First In Your Mind
We learn to write fictional dialogue from listening to real people and reading well-written books. Studying both is required to become a good writer.
Having empathy with your reader is required too. Remember your primary job is to tell the story. This week, uber blogger Kristen Lamb had some wise things to say on the subject of pleasing your reader. Sometimes indirect dialogue is what you need to keep them turning the pages.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) February 4, 2018.
What about you, scriveners? Do think your characters might talk too much? Too little? Do you have problems with writing dialogue? Or is dialogue the part of fiction that comes most naturally? (It does for me.) As a reader, are you taken out of the story when the author falls into some of these problem patterns?
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Good post! I come from the world of comedy writing, and dialogue is my thing. However, it needs to have a purpose, and I think you have stated that well. Dialogue *must* move the story forward. It must reveal something we need to know. Thanks once more for a super post.
Melodie–I came to writing from the theater, so I’m a dialogue person too. The first things I wrote were scripts. So when I started writing fiction, I thought that as long as the dialogue was witty and had fun one-liners, it was great. I forgot about the telling a story part. 🙂
Anne. Thank you for this informative article. My background is also theater so dialogue comes easy for me. This article reminded me that my current manuscript is dialogue heavy and needs reworking.
Lora–Don’t throw anything away. You might have yourself the beginnings of a play or a story in dialogue. I know of at least one story contest for an “all-dialogue” story.
Good advice, Anne. I will save that draft before editing it down. I never saw a story contest for an “all-dialogue” story. Will keep an eye out for it.
Great stuff, as usual. And to answer your question, this particular scrivener tends toward overusing internal monologue at the cost of dialogue, often due to (stupidly) creating situations involving an isolated protagonist. When the author strips away everyone in the room, leaving only the hero, there doesn’t tend to be an overuse of dialogue — their tend to be other problems.
C. S. Literary fiction writers sometimes tend to err on the other side, which is probably your problem. I’ve read short stories in the New Yorker that have no dialogue at all. I think it can work in a short story, but it usually can’t be sustained in a novel.
Anne—You’ve hit on a universal dilemma: Too much, not enough, or just right? The solution is up to the writer and comes from a mix of experience, taste and judgment.
Ruth–It takes experience to write good dialogue, definitely. I think that’s why newbies tend to have overly chatty characters, or ones that clam up and muse. We just have to read a lot and keep the story front and center.
Great examples. I’ve read stories where the characters talked themselves to death. It gets boring after a while. (And the same can be said of some stories I’ve read with very little dialogue.)
Alex–You’re right. too much dialogue or too little can bore your reader, and the reader is the person who matters here. We need to keep them in mind.
I’d like to think I don’t make any mistakes when I write dialogue but we all do. As a reader, I hate when there’s dialogue going on and you can’t tell who is talking and have to keep backtracking.
Susan–That’s one of the reasons I still take my work to a critique group. Critiquers or beta readers can tell you when the balance between dialogue and other text is off. Backtracking because you don’t know who’s talking is so annoying.
Especially if the dialogue doesn’t read like there are two distinct characters conversing…
Excellent post. Totally agree with everything. And that’s because I’ve made all the mistakes and learned how to do things the right way…eventually. And I also recommend “The First Five Pages,” by Noah Lukeman to anyone who is trying to get published. It’s probably the best book I’ve ever read because it puts everything into the right perspective. It’s important to know these things after the first draft is written, so that you (collectively) can go back and revise during edits.
Ryan–Thanks for coming over from Facebook. 🙂 I’m glad to know you’re a fan of Lukeman’s book too. It taught me so much. Unfortunately, I keep “lending” my copy to people who need it and then I don’t get it back. So I may be without a copy right now, and it’s worth a revisit now and then.
Thanks for reminding me to reread Lukeman’s book “The First Five Pages.”
This is great teaching, Anne. Thanks so much. And I love your oxymoron,”a resounding meh”!
It’s important for us to not be a slave to ‘show, don’t tell’, as you brought out. There’s a time for everything, and sometimes your gut just ‘tells’ (or maybe it shows???) you when to be rebellious and tell instead of show. .
I recently got a Bookbub (or maybe it was Book Gorilla) freebie of a bunch of old mysteries, some of them excellent, and I don’t mean only the stories, but the writing too. I’ve noticed a couple of things about well done dialogue (of course we see these in excellent comtemporary works, too):
1. The action during the dialogue needs to be realistic. Some of these stories do this seamlessly. I’ve read some modern books that I think go overboard, and I feel as though the writer is working too hard to put into practice the advice about using action during dialogue to avoid tags. It’s great if it’s a) realistic and b) used judiciously. When it’s overdone it’s distracting, as you brought out.
2. When reporting the scene instead of using dialogue as in (spoiled brats) Stephanie and Josh’s scene above, it’s fantastic when it’s true to the voice of the POV character, or one of the other speakers if that’s appropriate. Some authors are fantastic at doing this, and it adds authenticity. It also often adds a humorous touch.
I’m sorry this is so long, but now I have a question. The last paragraph of #3 confuses me a bit. “A fiction writer should aim to put “just the good parts” on the page, and that includes all the normal pleasantries that people go through in real conversations.” Wouldn’t the normal pleasantries be some of the too-realistic, ho-hum parts to leave out?
Tricia–Thanks for taking the time to write a great comment. I wish I’d seen that Classic Mysteries freebie! Some days I don’t have time and just delete my book bargain newsletters. I adore classic mysteries and I would have loved that.
That sentence in #3 WAS confusing. I’ve fixed it now. The problem of last-minute editing. I thought the post was too long and started slashing words all over the place. I’ve restored “leaving out” in front of “all the normal pleasantries.”
Wonderful post, Anne! Thanks! The overloaded dialogue has been what I’ve been encountering in my edit collaborations. By the time I get to the end of the ‘dance’, I can’t remember what was said or what the conversation is about!
When I write dialogue, I tend to ask if I’ve ever heard anyone talk like what I just wrote — or if what the characters have just expressed does anything to substantial or move along the story. No one speaks without moving, we blink, wink, raise eyebrows, bite our lips, look at 50 things around us, and generally fidget the whole time we speak. When someone dies in our novel, we do all kinds of things to have their last words be memorable. I always loved that scene where we see lips and hear one word: “rosebud”.
I grew up on some TV, but mostly movies, and finally decided in my 30s that the books l loved to get lost in were those of Michael Crichton, where it seemed like I barely had to construct visuals, and the dialogue was just enough to propel me into the next scene…
My early stories were full of searing dialogue meant to capture the reader’s imagination, except that they didn’t know who the characters were yet. Ohhhhh but I sure did! hah!
Maria D’Marco
substantiate — not substantial! someone get that keyboard away from her!
Maria–As an editor, I’m sure you run into this stuff all the time. A lot of newbies say “I just picture the characters and write down what they say.” That’s fine for a rough draft, but can make for some very tedious reading.
You bring up a great point about authentic dialogue. Great question: do real people actually talk like that?
That’s especially true when we try to write the way people from a certain region or country speak but we don’t actually *know* any people from there. Then we tend to rely on stereotypes and portrayals we’ve seen on TV and movies. That can make some really bad dialogue. It’s always good to run it by a beta reader from that place for authenticity and sensitivity.
I’d add another type of dialogue to avoid: the high-brow data dump. I’ve run across several books where big chunks of dialogue came straight from textbooks, travel guides, or Wikipedia entries. It may be a way to show subject knowledge, but offering big lumps of data-filled speech grinds the action to a halt and makes characters sound like they are giving academic lectures.
Carmen–Good addition! I haven’t run into that recently, but I remember reading stuff like that when I used to read a lot of international thrillers. I guess it’s a version of “As you know, Bob” info-dumping. Even if Bob–and the reader–don’t know, it’s boring and hard to follow. I agree.
This post proved VERY timely for my story. It jarred me out of a block in my writing. A block created because there was too much dialogue. This post made me realize I needed to just summarize what was happening/going to happen and get past that “boring part” and move on. So thank you for this!!!
Susan–Thanks for letting me know this helped! Best of luck with the story.
Soo good, Anne, the perfect taxonomy. Now, off you go and come back with description and action/fight scenes, then we’ll be all set!
I have certainly had difficulty with tagging because in epic fantasy you have the groups of heroes arguing or calling out in battle, etc. And I definitely leaned in to the spit-snarl-gasp-talking side, just because I needed to tag each statement, and I didn’t want the character-name to get lonely just sitting there by itself. But yeah, annoying.
On the opposite end, I spend a ton of time on internal monologue, with a character languishing in jail for example and berating himself at length for his many failures. Pretentious. But when there’s nobody else actually-factually there and stuff to be told… what, talks to himself? First world problems.
Will–Fight scenes are like sex scenes–how much needs to happen on the page depends on what your audience expects. I suspect high fantasy readers expect a lot of both these days, given what G. R. R. M. provides.
But you can always skip a few battle scenes by doing what playwrights have always done… have a bloodied survivor or two arrive back at the castle and give a report of the battle. And I’m a big fan of keeping the sex scenes behind closed doors.
Internal monologue is a different problem. In So Much for Buckingham, when my character was languishing in the nick, he had long conversations with the ghost of Richard III. But you can only get away with something like that once. 🙂
I had a professional writer/friend critique my current manuscript (a romance w/suspense) which includes about 3 love/sex scenes (my first attempt, by the way). He told me they were the most interesting part of the book and would like more in the book. I had to remind him that I am not writing erotica.
Lora–Haha. Yeah, they can ruin a book if you have too many. Unless you *want* to write erotica.
Excellent advice. Thanks. I once did a workshop at a writing conference where the presenter asked us to take a section of dialogue from our own work and change it to a one word snappy exchange between the characters. An eye-opening experience and a technique I’ve used more than once.
Darlene–What a great exercise! Brilliant. I’ll try that one myself. Thanks for the helpful tip!
Darlene…A great exercise. Going to try it.
My dialogue writing early on was pretty much like those horrendous examples that you gave in the post. Took me quite a few years to get it down to the point where the tags are used sparingly and judiciously, and the adjectives for some of the tags are used pretty much the same way as well.
I think the real challenge these days it to 1} write the dialogue sans tags and 2} write just enough descriptive prose prior to in order to show the proper emotion of what’s being said. All at the same time.
G.B. You’re right that it’s a balancing act. Getting the dialogue and descriptive prose just right can make you crazy. But what’s right for one reader may not be enough for another. Minimalist prose is very “in” right now, but some readers prefer a little more.
I would argue that what you were doing wasn’t telling it was summarizing. And I propose that a good rule thumb is to show your readers what’s germane to your story and summarize everything else.
I had a terrible habit of telling my readers the same thing in dialogue and action until a helpful friend/editor helped me break that habit.
Leanne–That’s exactly what I’d do–I’d tell readers what was going on and then “illustrate” it with dialogue. We have to have more faith in our readers. 🙂
Absolutely, Anne : )
This is so helpful. Thanks for delineating just how much is too much dialog! I’m confused about one thing, though. It seems telling equates to no dialog and showing means included dialog. Unless I ead it wrong. How do we show, not tell, with single characters? I know you said “show don’t tell” is bad advice, but I like showing and not telling. Or thought I did. I actually am not a fan of dialog, but try to apply some in a story-advancing way.
I mean, “Mary felt ugly,” to me, is telling and not how I’d go about it. “Mary stared at the mirror with a frown, tugging at her too-short blouse and sighing, up close, at her brows. She fluffed her hair some, then thoroughly mussed it entirely. A blush rose up her shoulders and neck, as she pivoted toward the exit.” to me, is showing the same thing. Without dialog.
I do feel dialog is necessary, if it moves the story. Introducing new characters with dialect or sullen absence of reply and other shy gestures during conversation, especially at the beginning of a scene, rivets them to the reader’s mind, fills them out with souls whose breath shows in winter or whose cigarette glows in the darkness or whose word choice hints at manipulation. It also can rivet the reader to the ground in the scene, so when the MC leaves the scene, the reader practically walks down the road with him.
But other times we rush out the door with a mouthful of pbj and mumble a farewell of some kind and those remaining in the room roll the eyes or stare. No dialog needed. Yet it is showing…I think?
Katharine–Show Don’t Tell doesn’t mean dialogue or no dialogue. You can show with either one., or tell with either one. “As you know Bob” dialogue is telling.
I don’t say Show Don’t Tell is always bad advice, but it can be for newbies. You’ll understand a lot better if you read the post I wrote on the subject It’s highlighted in red and if you click on it, that will open a new window with that post.
In the example above, there really is showing, because of the use of “cockamamie” and the fact that Mary goes upstairs to pack. That’s why I said, “As I said, “In a literal sense, yes [it’s telling], although there’s showing in the wording and Mary’s actions.
But beginners might think it’s telling rather than showing. It’s not.
Perfect. Everything that’s ever got on my nerves about dialogue in self- or indie pubbed books. I’ve seen all these…. the most common one being all the characters speaking in perfectly grammatical sentences, giving exactly the right amount of information to the reader to push the plot on.
I think you ‘feel’ it; for example, when A reveals to B something that has already been played out in a scene with C, you would automatically choose not to explain it all again via dialogue to the reader, wouldn’t you? One of my biggest hates is crime fiction/police procedural in which the whole unravelling of the plot is done via conversation…. arrrgh!
Terry–Those books that have been run through a grammar-correcting program instead of edited by a real person are unreadable, aren’t they? Everybody sounds exactly the same.
I think you’ve hit on why I don’t read police procedurals anymore. There’s no more “aha” moment from Hercule Poirot, or Miss Marple pondering how much the murder suspect reminds her of old Mrs. Moriarty. It’s all like a script of CSI and nobody’s using the little grey cells. 🙂
Really, so some people use programmes instead of their own eyes to edit???? I’m appalled!!! (Forgive my excessive punctuation use, ha ha!)
I read so many books in which the characters have no individual nuances of speech; often new writers try the ‘let’s make it more interesting’ style of alternating chapter POVs, but all the characters are still the same person!
Re the police procedurals, I often come across a plot that looks as if it might be interesting, but as soon as I see the words ‘the 3rd in the DI Whatever series’ in a blurb, I’m out of there.
Oh dear… you just made me realize this is exactly my problem!
My characters felt stilted for the first 50 pages or so, but once I got going, they tend to just talk and talk for ten pages in every single scene. At first I was thrilled, now I’m slightly alarmed at just how much they talk. Crap. I’ve got a LOT of editing to do.
Let me ask, do you think it’s at all worthwhile to keep writing out all these conversations in the first draft? That way when I edit, I’ll still know what was said, even if the reader can be given a short summary (“the “cockamamie” line you used, for example). It may take up a lot of time, but I also find I get to know my characters best when they’re talking to each other. Or do I just need to break the habit now?
As ever, thank you for the post, rescuing me from making all the newbie mistakes I tend to make!
Irvin–Writing out a few conversations that may be irrelevant later can be a great exercise, like writing a character profile for each of your main characters.
But if you find yourself doing it more than a few times, try summarizing what you want the conversation to say FIRST. Then go back and see if you need to expand it to direct conversation when you’re editing. I hope that helps.
You took me back with the Mickey Mouse Club reference. Isn’t it amazing how torn, ripped, and abused jeans have been popular ever since Spin and Marty?
Steve–I didn’t remember that Spin and Marty started the ripped jeans craze! Tim Considine, who played Spin, was my first celebrity crush. I wonder what happened to him?
I also was addicted to Corky and White Shadow. Haha. Most people probably don’t have a clue what we’re talking about. 🙂
Great advice and I love your examples, especially the cookie/candy battle. Entertaining and it got your point across, as all good writing should. I recently threw a book in the trash, actually in the trash at the airport, because it was so frustrating. It was almost all dialogue. It was hard to remember where the characters were, or who they were, or what they were up to. It was published by one of the big guys so I expected more, and was willing to wait for it, until I started a 16 hour travel day. I was not willing to have those boring people yammer at me while I endured that. Sadly, the book I picked up at the airport isn’t a whole lot better. Ah well…
Christine–Thanks for pointing out that it’s not just self-published books that have the problem. I’ve seen the over-blabbering problem in Big 5 books too.
It’s so essential to have a good book when you travel. I always try to start a novel before I leave, so I’m into it by the time I start traveling. But then you run the risk of finishing the book before you arrive at your destination.
This is a really helpful post, Anne, especially since I’m in the middle of writing my book. I love dialogue and it’s easier for me to write than other things in a novel. But your examples of too little and too much and just right were perfect. They really showed the differences between the different types of dialogue. When I start editing this book I’m going to keep them at the forefront of my brain so I don’t over or under-do.
Patricia–As a former actor, I’m a big fan of dialogue, and it’s much easier for me. So it took me a long time to learn this stuff. But indirect dialogue can really save the day when you need to speed up a story. That’s why it really helps with editing.
Thank you so much, Anne. What a great post. I have certainly been guilty of every single thing mentioned. That’s how we learn. Thank goodness for editors! <3
Colleen–I learned a lot of this stuff from editors, too!
Hi Anne, terrific post! A truly comprehensive discussion of “to dialogue or not to dialogue.” Like you, my background is theatre. I’d spent a young lifetime memorizing and performing dialogue by the time I created my BBC radio drama “Milford-Haven USA,” where, of course, dialogue was the required milieu. But when it came time to adapt my drama into novels, I had a lot to learn about Narrative Voice — including the avoidance of “As-you-know-Bob.” As you pointed out, balance is important, and worth the effort to achieve a text blended of active dialogue, passive dialogue, description, and even internal dialogue, which I sometimes use in my novels. Love these discussions! Thanks again for the great post.
Mara–As a TV star as well as a successful radio playwright, you’ve had a whole lot of theater experience! That must have been a crash course in novel writing–the reverse of the usual–converting plays into novels. You’d have to make decisions about indirect or direct dialogue on every page.
And there are other types of dialogue I didn’t mention, so thanks for bringing them up.,The “internal” kind where the conversation takes place in the character’s head can be a very useful device. If used sparingly. Some new writers can rely on that too much and don’t have enough happening on the page. As you say, it’s all about learning the right balance.
Right! Balance . . . engagement . . . and flow. I think for me a primary goal is delivering an experience to my readers, one that doesn’t leave them lost or confused, one that pulls them forward into engaging interaction, and one that inspires deeper reflection during the pauses. Hard work of the best kind, because it makes us grow as writers, and thus as people. And that’s what your excellent blog does! Thanks again.
Mara–It is so important to keep the reader in mind. Some writers love to do fun quirky things, but push them to the point the reader is simply confused, not dazzled by the writer’s clever antics. Thanks for your kind words!