Speaking of Dialogue
Sammie L. Justesen
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Published by NorLightsPress at Smashwords
Copyright (C) 2009 by Sammie L. Justesen
Discover other titles by Sammie L. Justesen at Smashwords.com
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Dedication
For Dee, my best friend and eternal companion.
For the writers who've shared their hopes and dreams with me.
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Chapter One - Let Your Characters Speak for Themselves
Chapter Two - The Mechanics of Dialogue
Chapter Three - Creative Listening
Chapter Four - Dialect, Accents, and Language
Chapter Five - Children’s Dialogue
Chapter Six - Tags, Adverbs, and Participles
Chapter Seven - Dynamic Elements
Chapter Eight - Tension, Conflict, and Suspense
Chapter Nine - Jump Start Your Story With Dialogue
Chapter Ten - More About Screenplays
Chapter Eleven - The Finishing Touches
Chapter Twelve - Fatal Flaws
Chapter Thirteen - Nonfiction Dialogue
Bibliography and Suggested Reading
Rumor has it, over a million manuscripts are circulating among agents and editors at any given time. I've read my share of these projects, and I know the competition is fierce.
When I wade through a pile of paper submissions or two dozen email queries, my goal is to reach the bottom with my sanity intact. My eye is always drawn to the stumbling blocks every writer encounters.
As a novelist and nonfiction author, I've made these same mistakes. I know the agony of having my hopes and dreams wrapped in a ream of paper. I feel a pang of regret each time I hit the delete key or toss a manuscript into the shredder.
Speaking of Dialogue is my attempt to assist authors with part of the writing craft that touches every aspect of a story. Well-crafted dialogue has saved more than one manuscript from the slush pile and more than one screenplay from the trash bin.
Whether you create novels, children's books, screenplays, or short stories, dialogue will animate your characters and make them come alive on the page. Well-written dialogue does more than entertain: it advances your plot, fleshes out your characters, and adds background to the story.
Even experienced writers are challenged by dialogue. Theoretically, the task should be easy, since we spend much of our time speaking or listening to others. But try recording a conversation, then typing it as dialogue. The resulting exchange will be lifeless and packed with cliches.
As you read this book, you'll recognize the critical difference between real-life conversations and good dialogue. I've tried to present the essence of dialogue, minus frills and long quotes.
You'll read what dialogue can do and what it shouldn't do. You'll learn when to add, when to cut, and how to edit. At the end of each chapter you'll find exercises to hone your skills.
Whether you're a seasoned writer or a novice learning new skills, Speaking of Dialogue will show you how to make dialogue work.
So read on, and enjoy!
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Chapter One
Let Your Characters Speak for Themselves
When I begin reading a sample chapter and find a fascinating character right up front, I want to shout with joy. When the dialogue lives up to everything the query letter promised, I can hardly wait to turn the pages.
Finding your characters' voices is one of the most exciting things about writing a novel or screenplay. People who've been inside your head, gesturing, shouting, and laughing suddenly come alive on the page. Your job is to capture those voices so readers can share the vision.
This chapter presents an overview of how dialogue--one of the most versatile tools in the writer's toolbox--will bring your characters to life and enrich the stories you create.
Nothing is more fun than writing a scene where the dialogue suddenly takes off. Characters seem to speak on their own. Your fingers fly over the keyboard as you record conversations. The plot moves forward, characters reveal themselves, and you're writing in the groove.
Maybe your heroine finally tells her obnoxious boss where to place his missing files.
Or a father interacts with his grown son for the first time in years, saying the magic words, "Son, I'm proud of you." A serial killer responds to voices inside his head while he stalks his next victim. A policeman tells a father his daughter was killed by a drunk driver. A sixteen year old lies to his parents about where he spent the night. These scenes are fraught with powerful emotions, expressed through characters' words and body language.
What Dialogue Can Accomplish
Dialogue on a page attracts the eye. When used in the right proportions, it hooks your readers' attention and draws them into the story.
Good dialogue is action, and each line should keep readers coming back for more.
With well-constructed dialogue we get to skip the boring small talk and enjoy conversations loaded with conflict and drama. Even the pauses between sentences are meaningful if you let characters reveal their thoughts and feelings through their actions.
Dialogue propels your story and creates tension. When your writing stalls and you can't decide where to go next, try rewriting the entire scene in dialogue, letting your characters take over. This simple exercise will help you determine what's most important--and you may decide to replace the original narrative with dialogue.
When you want to convey information without drama, a few lines of narrative usually work best. But dialogue is the key if you want to show conflict, tension, details of a developing relationship, or changes in a character's thinking.
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Dialogue lets characters speak for themselves. How people speak and what they say is a vital part of characterization. You can tell readers about the actors in your story--or you can let readers discover things for themselves, as we do in real life.
Keeping this in mind, give each character in your novel or screenplay a personal voice. Consider mannerisms, cadence of speech, level of education, and how well he expresses emotion. Here's an example of effective dialect:
"Ain't none of us been fightin. We're peaceful folks," Caleb said.
Sheriff Hogge studied him for a second. "Is that so? Did ya'll go into town yesterday?"
"No, sir. We was right here at home all day."
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Compare that homespun dialogue to this sanitized version:
"We haven't been fighting. We are peaceful folks," Caleb said.
Sheriff Hogge studied him for a second. "Is that so?" Did you go into town yesterday?"
"No sir. We stayed at home all day."
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The first segment of dialogue reveals more about Caleb than the second version, yet it wasn't difficult to write. Caleb and the sheriff are more interesting when they speak for themselves instead of sounding like you, the writer.
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Dialogue helps you show instead of tell. "Show, don't tell" is a basic premise of the writing craft. People may not believe what they're told, but they do tend to believe what they hear and see. Well-crafted dialogue lets your readers discover things for themselves. In this example, the writer tells too much:
"Well, tell me what you think, Shawn. Do you have doubts about what you just read in the Bible?" Brother Hancey often used such a strategy, answering a question with a question, forcing the boys to exercise their own minds and thought processes.
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Notice how the writer interrupted the dialogue with a heavy-handed description of Brother Hancey's style. The scene works better when the author reveals Brother Hancey's teaching methods by showing how the students reacted:
"Well, tell me what you think, Shawn? Do you have doubts about what you just read in the Bible?"
"I don't know. Maybe." Shawn stared at a crack in the floorboards, wishing he could hide from the teacher's eyes.
Brother Hancey was unrelenting. "Do you think Jesus could really turn water into wine?"
"This is Sunday School. You're not supposed to ask questions like that," Shawn said.
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Through dialogue, we can explore a character's feelings by letting him speak emotional words. We express anger, fear, doubt, happiness, and every other human emotion in words. Conversely, dialogue might also convey lack of feeling or show characters who can't verbalize their thoughts.
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Dialogue provides information. Every story needs to present background material, but you needn't burden the unsuspecting reader with blocks of text that explain each character's history. Dialogue can help you avoid describing a character's life and family; it's a crafty way to sneak information into the story without boring your readers. However, you shouldn't have people state the obvious, as in this example:
"Your brother, Fred, is a doctor, and I think you should ask him about your stomach pains," Rachel said.
"Yes, but you know Fred and I haven't spoken for ten years because we didn't pay back the money we owe him," Tom said.
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This contrived dialogue exists only to let the writer add background information--a subterfuge that irritates readers and makes your characters sound like total idiots. Here's a more direct approach:
"Why don't you call Fred about those stomach pains?" Rachel asked.
"Are you kidding? He'd hang up on me," Tom said. "Besides, I can't come up with the ten thousand we owe him."
"So what? Tell him you may have stomach cancer and you need his help. I think it's time you two stopped acting like kids. Like every other doctor, he's got plenty of money."
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The things people do while speaking can also reveal a wealth of information. Think of the people around you and how they communicate. Do you know someone who can't speak without waving both hands? Someone who chews on toothpicks or unlit cigars?
Skilled writers often use dialogue to reveal a character's attitude, physical attributes, and personal habits. To accomplish this, you might have characters describe one another, or skillfully weave descriptions into the conversation, as John Grisham does in his novel A Painted House:
"You got a boy named Hank?" Stick asked.
"Maybe," Mr. Spruill said.
"Don't play games with me," Stick growled with sudden anger. "I ask you a question, you give me a straight answer. We got a jail over in Jonesboro with lots of room. I can take the whole family in for questioning. You understand?"
"I'm Hank Spruill!" came a thunderous voice. Hank strutted through the huddle and stood within striking distance of Stick, who was much smaller but managed to maintain his cockiness.
Stick was hot on the trail and quite proud of himself. With his tongue he moved the blade of grass to the other corner of his mouth, then looked up at Hank again.
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This exchange tells us many things about Stick and Mr. Spruill, even though Grisham didn't write a detailed physical description. Can't you visualize the deputy sheriff chewing on a blade of grass while he confronts a young punk?
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Use dialogue to foreshadow events. Foreshadowing, a technique for planting information about future events, is especially important for mystery and suspense novels. When the story reaches a climax, readers must believe events are meant to happen exactly as they unfold.
A good novel or screenplay contains clues most readers miss the first time around. The movie The Sixth Sense provides classic examples of foreshadowing. The director cleverly inserted hints and clues most viewers didn't catch during the initial viewing.
Readers enjoy foreshadowing done with class and subtlety, because finding clues is fun and makes us feel clever. Careful use of this technique can add depth and interest to your writing. On the first page of her book White Oleander, Janet Fitch uses a character's words to foreshadow a later tragedy:
We could not sleep in the hot dry nights, my mother and I. I woke up at midnight to find her bed empty. I climbed to the roof and easily spotted her blond hair like a white flame in the light of the three-quarter moon.
"Oleander time," she said. "Lovers who kill each other now will blame it on the wind."
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And that's exactly what happens later in the story.
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Character driven stories: Dialogue is especially important in stories that are driven more by characters than by plot. A story is character driven when the main character's personality, motivation, conflicts, strengths, and weaknesses create the action or plot. By contrast, a plot-driven story might center around a natural disaster or other scenes where the characters are secondary to external events. Plot driven dialogue tends to consist of phrases like, "Watch out!" or "Get him!"
The movie Changing Lanes is a striking example of a character driven story. Two cars collide on an expressway and their drivers, seemingly opposite personalities, engage in a brutal cycle of revenge. Characterization is so strong in this film that the plot unfolds in a seemingly unstoppable manner. By the film's end, we realize the social and economic differences between the two men can't disguise the dark, angry nature they share. The dialogue is often terse and angry, much like the characters. Certainly, it reflects each character's motivation and internal conflicts.
Many novels, both new and classic, are character driven. A notable example is Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens's beloved story, A Christmas Carol. Where would this story be without the cantankerous Scrooge? As Dickens describes him:
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.