Do you enjoy writing dialog? I think most writers do. I know a couple of writers who used to write books and then switched to writing screenplays because they enjoyed writing dialog so much. They had trouble getting inside their character's heads.It's a challenge, regardless of what point of view you're writing from, to convey the feelings and thoughts of your characters. Just let them talk it out, right? Their word choices will do the job. Maybe a gesture or two, some choreographed action here and there, a few grins, an eye-roll, a nod and a headshake. Right? Is that all there is to it?
Sadly, no. There's much more. It takes a dance of words to get it right. It's not just a few people gathered round tossing words at each other like a game of ping pong. The best dialog can still lack depth of character.
I'm judging a writing contest right now, and I read a couple of entries that were just dynamite. Very original ideas, distinctive voices, interesting and diverse characters. But both had some problems, and their problems were polar opposite.
One had this fantastic opening with lots of action and a strong female character tough as iron. The dialog was great as far as the words go. The motivation behind them? Not so much. Why did she say this? Why did she do that? If the author knows, he or she isn't telling.
As for the other entry, it too had an interesting storyline. There was a viewpoint character who was all over the place as far as personality goes, but still some good dialogue here. The problem was too much internalization in between bouts of conversation with lots of feelings emoted ad nauseum. The pace crawled. And there were a few long speeches filled with information, which were basically info dumps disguised as dialog.
Both manuscripts can be saved if their authors choose to fix what needs fixing.
Do your dialog scenes have what it takes to get the job done? It's sharing time, my writerly friends. Post in comments up to 250 words from a scene with dialog that will make readers care about your character. The point is to use action and internalizations mixed with your dialog to reveal who your character is. Write something new, or pick a page from your WIP, your choice. I'll post something, too. Happy writing!
12 comments:
This is from my current steampunk WIP, Mystic Taxi:
"Shut up." The first cop circled him slowly. "Who said you could talk, Spawnster?"
Henry winced at the nickname given to half-breeds like him. They'd all lived among the humans as human children until puberty, when telltale signs of their demon side started showing up. No one was more surprised than the Hellspawn themselves. The world hadn't been the same since.
"Curfew breakers get tossed in the clink." The cop jerked his chin at Mac. "Get the squirter from back of the steamer."
"Ah, Ned, that's goin' a bit far, ain't it?"
"Bullets won't hardly stop him," Ned said, circling around to stand in front of Henry again. "But I know what doesn't heal so fast." Mac handed Ned what looked like a rifle with a tank the size of a small fire extinguisher attached to the stock.
Sweat beaded on Henry's forehead.
"You recognize this, do ya?" Ned grinned, showing a silver tooth that glinted in the light cast by a gas lamp on the sidewalk. "It's a brine gun. You never know when you're gonna meet up with a trouble-making Spawnster."
Henry shifted uneasily on his feet. "I didn't make trouble—"
"I told you to shut up!" Ned lifted the gun and aimed it at Henry's face.
Henry sucked in a breath. Salt water. Not lethal to Hellspawn, but it burned like acid. He'd seen the scars worn by friends who'd been sprayed with the stuff. Never having had the pleasure himself, he sure as hell didn't want it now.
The meet from my WIP
“This room is off limits to the attendees.” She slid from the bench and stood. The top of her head came to his nose.
He held up his cell phone. “Just looking for a quiet place to make a call.”
One eye brow, darker than her honey blonde hair, raised and she tipped her head. “So you came into a room with someone playing a piano.”
Grinning, he ducked his head, then raised it. He held out his empty hand. “Holt Reynolds.”
Her gaze darted from his hand to his face. Finally, she slipped her palm against his. Short, clean nails weren’t hidden behind nail polish. She had working hands.
“I know who you are.”
For having working hands she sure seemed a bit high and mighty. “You do? And how’s that? You don’t look like the rodeo type to me.”
She pulled her hand from his. Leaving him to wonder at the time she’d left it resting in his palm.
“I’m the volunteer in charge of the art that was auctioned off tonight.” She sat back down on the piano bench, playing with the keys. “It’s my job to write up the bios on the artists donating their work.”
Still tapping out a soft, soothing song she glanced up at him. “How does a bareback rider put that much emotion into a pencil drawing?”
So that was it. She didn’t figure a cowboy could have deep feelings. “Kinda the same way you put emotion into your piano playing.”
Nice, Paty. This is from the hero's POV, so I get that he's a sensitive artist type, which contrasts with his being a cowboy. Nice. I also pick up something from her. She's kind of snooty, not too approachable. Definitely judgmental. Two very interesting characters. Thanks for sharing!
Fun post, Karen. ;) I love dialogue. This is from my wip:
“How’d you get in here?” she asked when he stopped two feet from her on the blue mats that matched her eyes.
“Janitor.”
“Did you come to arrest me or are you just having trouble sleeping, Maxwell?”
He wasn’t about to tell her didn’t sleep, not much anyway. And the look in her eye warned him her little work-out session hadn’t done much to cool-out her temper. “Should I arrest you?”
She glanced past him to the windows, then looked at his face again. “Who’s playing good cop tonight?”
“No one. I’m here alone.”
One elegant brow lifted. “Inspector Clouseau know you’re going renegade?”
He tried not to smile, but couldn’t help it. One side of his mouth curled. “No, he doesn’t. He’d tear into me if he did.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then why are you?”
“’Cause I’m not done with you yet.”
Her eyes never left his as she lifted her hand to mop up the sweat on her forehead. “I already told you I’m not answering any more questions without my lawyer.”
“I’m not here officially, Hailey.”
When she opened her mouth to protest, he added, “I saw the surveillance tapes. Trust me when I say, you need a friend right now. And I may be all you’ve got.”
I like all your examples. It's such fun reading friend's words. And I love well written dialogue.
This is from the book that was recently passed over (I refuse to use the R word. Besides, hopefully, I'll figure out a way to find it a good home down the line.) It's the heroine and hero during their first meet:
"I never intended to scare you," he said.
You're scaring me right now, she thought, but mumbled, "I just wanted to see the waterfall."
"There was a suicide here a few years ago. When I saw you standing out there and you didn't respond, I thought, well, you know what I thought."
He was talking about Ginny. Who else? Leaning forward a little, she said, "Did you know the woman?"
He narrowed his eyes again. "I didn't say it was a woman."
"But it was, wasn't it?"
He nodded briefly, his expression unfathomable. "I knew her. Her husband and I were fishing buddies. I was a deputy then, the first one here after…"
His voice trailed off as a spasm of pain crossed his face. Mia felt tears sting the back of her nose at this sign of tenderness for Ginny, but then she had second thoughts. If this man had been the first official on the scene after Ginny supposedly jumped then he might be part of it. Part of her murder. Part of a cover-up.
If there was a murder. If there was a cover-up.
"Did you know her?" he asked, obviously responding to that gaffe about gender. She started to admit Ginny was her half sister. She heard herself say instead, "Of course not."
Great dialog, Eli! I think this is a point in your story where you really need to know what's happened first to understand what's going on. But she's obviously a tough girl, I do get that. 8^)
Ooh, Alice, that's awesome! So smooth and seamless. I was totally caught up in these two characters and didn't need to know what came before in this particular context you chose to post. I got it! And it makes me want to read more. 8^) Whatever manuscript this came from deserves a home.
On she rattled at full throttle, like a barker at a carnival intent on throwing as many words together as possible to confuse her victim. “...Second Tread said they’ve found a brake handle thing-a-ma-bob for your bicycle. And I want to know who’s the anonymous match pledger.”
He knew her game. They played it together often.
“I haven’t a clue.” He whipped his head in her direction. “How do you know that information? I just found out myself minutes ago?”
“Woman’s intuition. But keep your ears open.” She rolled her chair next to his, tossed the messages onto his desk, and added a quick smirk. The three foot radius between their desks had narrowed to the width of a flea’s tongue again.
She leaned so close he could smell the breath mint and hear it click against her teeth. “The riverbed is as dry as a bone this morning. Does the Army Corp of Engineers think the salmon have walked to the sea all these years?”
“I doubt it.” He stacked his messages.
“In all my fif...In all the years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen such a barren sight. They’ve taken away the town’s bread and butter, didn’t even leave us a crumb. We need to add this to our prayers after your sermon on Sunday.”
Daniel rubbed a sore shin. “I don’t believe the Lord is limited to eleven o’clock on Sundays.”
Alice is right (as usual!). It's fun reading what others in our group write. This piece of dialogue is from my early 2009 release that I'm going to start editing next week. The hero is different than ones I've written before, and it was fun getting inside his head.
"Good morning. How are you feeling?"
Zach scrubbed a hand over the scraggly stubble of beard on his chin. His mouth felt like twelve drunken roadies had crawled through it. The ache in his back had spread to a kink in his neck. And this gorgeous woman wanted to know how he felt. "Great. Ready to take on the world."
Skepticism lifted one of Lauren's delicately feathered brows. "Good. Then you'll appreciate breakfast."
Zach's stomach roiled as Lauren lifted the cover on the breakfast tray. She prattled about how healthy bulgur was as Zach wondered how he was going to make it back to the bathroom before throwing up.
Good, strong coffee was all he could handle before his assistant, Micki, brought him a burger and fries at 2:00 p.m.
"What time is it?"
Lauren paused and smiled. "Not quite one o'clock."
Good. Still enough time to get his burger fix before the band arrived for rehearsal. If he could only slip away from Lauren for awhile.
"Think I'll walk over to the rehearsal hall for a bit." Zach took a swig of the orange juice. Mmm. Not too bad.
"I'll go with you." Lauren kept her smile firmly in place.
"Nooo--need to do that. I just want a bit of exercise."
"Excuse me?" Lauren's delicate eyebrow lifted in disbelief again. "Your usual idea of exercise is lifting a coffee cup."
"A guy can change."
"I'll go with you. We can talk about publicity over breakfast."
Zach blinked once. Twice. Pasted a grin on his face. "Sure."
Good job, Lori. Very vivid!
Zach sounds like quite a character. I can totally see this guy.
Fun reading everyone's examples. Some great characters come out of my friends' heads!
Several mentions in the various exerpts of eyebrow raising -- I found that interesting.
Alice, I didn't know about the pass over on your book. All the Yahoo mail hasn't reached me of late. I'm sorry, hon. Hard to believe even you occasionally get rejections too -- you're such a dynamo writer.
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