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...Well, what's to say? Whenever a character talks, that's called Dialogue. And since many characters talk many times in many novels, the amount of it can pile up like crazy. The problem is, it's not always easy to write good dialogue. And the problem is, when you do, it really rings on the ear. Even kids can tell the difference between the more formalized dialogue we often see in books and the real speech we hear every day. Ask your kids if anyone actually talks like Winnie-the-Pooh, or Ramona Quimby. They will laugh and say, No. Ask them if anyone talks like Harry Potter and you're apt to get a different answer, because J. K. Rowling writes dialogue well. And here's the thing: if even kids can tell the difference between "real" speech and artificial, then you haven't got a hope in hell of fooling an adult audience. Either you need to to learn to write dialogue well, or accept that people will turn your story down because you can't. I'm not sure how competent I am to teach anybody to write it well; I can only give you some suggestions. The first suggestion is to write a lot of stream-of-consciousness. SoC is a technique in which the writer simply scribbles down whatever is on their mind about a particular subject or caused by a particular subject—rabies, for instance, or oral sex, or America's oil dependency and the smartest ways to address it. Ideally, you'll do it word-for-word; instead of editing yourself, you'll simply jot down your thoughts as you have them, regardless of their quality or even their grammar. (e. e. cummings, for instance, was a poet who excelled at transmitting his meaning even though he didn't good write sentences.) Just let yourself think, and then record those thoughts. Free-talking into a tape recorder could work too—especially in today's environment of hands-free cellphone kits. Nowadays, it's perfectly all right to walk around in public talking to yourself! Another suggestion is to write first-person narration, for much the same reasons. Anyone who's read Catcher in the Rye remembers how the quality and tone of Holden Caulfield's voice set him apart from the crowd; anyone who hasn't read Catcher in the Rye should go to their local library and do so immediately. It is the textbook for first-person narration, and maybe for dialogue as well. You may not like what Holden says (in fact, if you're older than about 16, you'll probably dislike it), but you will be enthralled by the way he says it. If you're interested in doing some reading, my suggestion is theater. Shakespeare might be a little esoteric, but there's a lot of dynamite modern material: A Raisin in the Sun, Inherit The Wind, Death of a Salesman, Master Harold... and the boys. (And notice that all of them except the last are standards of theater repertoire.) The reason theater will teach you dialogue is that theater dialogue has to be perfect. It has to just leap off the page and light a fire under the mind of its reader... a person who is, probably, going to perform that dialogue onstage at some point soon. Obviously, the playwright wants the damn thing performed well, so he or she is going to do the best they can to stack the deck in their favor... and that includes brilliant dialogue. Playwrights did it first and best, so it doesn't hurt to turn to them for understanding. And if you're really feeling ambitious, you might want to try transcribing some real dialogue. If you did the tape-record-your-own-ramblings idea, you now have an excellent source to draw upon. If not, go on YouTube and look up some "video loggers" (or "vloggers" as they're sometimes called) like iJustine, QuietRiot, lonelygirl15, etc, and transcribe them—again, word for word. Yes, including the "uhhh"s and the "OMG OMG OMG"s and the "ya but"s. Alternately, try an episode of Friends, or any of the rambling monologues provided by British transvestite comedian extraordinaire Eddie Izzard. (I personally recommend either the "Covered in Bees" monologue, the encore on computers, or, well, just about anything.) Pablo Francisco is another good one, but only for very good transcribers because he uses a huge amount of sound effects. (The man should go into Hollywood.) Really, just about any stand-up comedian will do. Or transcribe some of the behind-the-scenes commentary on your favorite DVD (though try and make sure that there's more than one person doing the commentaring). Write down word-for-word—no, sound-for-sound—what you hear. See, the key about dialogue is that you have to be able to hear it in your head. You have to be able to internalize modern speech patterns and spew them out on command. Most of us don't realize what comes out of our mouths because, well, it comes out of our mouths—we been doin it for so many years that we arn't conscious of it any longer. To be a good writer of dialogue, you must become conscious of it. And that involves studying it. Hopefully some of the suggestions I've given you will help you do so. I'm probably biased, but I think dialogue may be the single most pertinent yardstick of a writer's ability or talent. This is because writing is about observing the world around us—who's in it, and why; how it works, and why&mdashland, most pertinently, observing the things that most people miss, take for granted, or just plain-out ignore. How We Talk is definitely one of those topics. Good dialogue can save pedestrian prose (J. K. Rowling, anyone?); conversely, bad dialogue can sink anything. And there's a lot less wiggle room in dialogue; you can say, "Oh, I'm trying to do prose in a very different style" (Tolkien anyone?) but not, "Oh, I'm trying to have very different dialogue." No, you're not. It doesn't matter how cool your imagination is, the simple fact is that people just don't talk that way. No, not even in your world. People wouldn't talk that way. And if you try to make them talk that way anyway, well, that's the end of the road for you. So maybe dialogue isn't about skill or talent, it's simply about meeting a minimum standard. If you can write dialogue correctly, you're competent to write. Or is that biased? Is dialogue-skill just parcelled out unevenly at birth, as Stephen King believes?—either you can or you can't, and nobody can do anything to change it. God, I hope not. But who knows. I sure don't. I can only tell you that, if you can change it, you should try to. Good dialogue covers a multitude of sins. And that's all I got to say about that. |