Saturday, August 21, 2010

Aspiring Advice: Grabbing Dialogue

This weeks advice runs along the lines of . . . well, lines, or dialogue, whichever you prefer. All (or most) stories with characters generally have them speak. What they say is what moves a story along. As a reader, I tend to speed-read narration and slow down when characters speak, for that is where the meat is, where characters build on each other, where plot points are revealed, discussed, and executed. Producing dialogue is a lot of fun, but also a real challenge. Here are some pointers for drafting dialogue that grabs readers.

Avoid the Everyday - When you are out and about, interacting with people, rarely will the conversation go into the unexpected. While necessary in everyday life, ordinary conversation will read . . . well, ordinary!
"Hello, Bill. How are you?"
"I am good, Ned. How are you?"
"I'm good. Getting your mail?"
"Yes I am, Ned. You get yours yet?"
Blah! I can't remember where I heard it, but the average person speaks about 1000 words a day. Unique words, meaning repeated words don't count. Studies have shown that women say more unique words a day than men. This is striking, since there are over 100K words in the English language. Avoid the everyday.

Diverse Yourself - Everyone is a different person. Each has a unique way of expressing themselves, a unique voice. All too often, beginning writers will have a cast of characters who literally speak the same way as the protagonist; same pattern of speech, same vocabulary, same interjections. This weakens character voice and makes the dialogue uninteresting. I did this a great deal when I first started. A way to avoid this is to create a back story for your characters, all of them, and have them speak as if you are standing in their shoes, having lived their experiences. This is hard to juggle, since you are the creator of everyone's voice. The trick is to not have all your characters sound just like you. Your personal voice is great for a main character, but bland if used for all of your characters.

The Unexpected - A great way to instill catchy dialogue is to have your characters say the unexpected, something that you did not anticipate would be addressed by your side characters - for the most part. Instead of saying, "that is a nice hat," you could say, "where did you get that thing?" It all depends on the personalities you create for your characters. Their voice ought to reflect their personality, but it never hurts to have your characters speak spontaneously. It keeps the reader amused and interested.

Accents - Where does your story take place? It never hurts to have characters with accents, regardless of location, though you may not want to get too carried away. Too much accent can turn readers off. "Ave yu an'ee dreenks fur a thersty ol' man?" Tone it down. "Have ya any drinks for an ol' man?" That's better.

Brevity - Have you heard of exposition? How about a monologue? There are times when characters have a lot to say and they dominate an entire page without much narration or description in between. That's fine, so long as the speech isn't redundant or done too much. Writers tend to have everyone say everything that's on their mind, because it's on the writer's mind too, but if the conversations drag too long, the reader may forget what the point of it all is. This is my personal Achilles Heel. Brevity is keeping things short. When you watch movies, lines are generally short. Focus more on unique one-liners and less on speeches, where appropriate.

Dialogue is my favorite part of drafting stories. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Trial and error can refine your speech and make your characters as real as you imagine them to be. Until next week!

Have a question?
Curious about my thoughts on an aspect of writing?
Feel free to ask in the comments section.

I'm David, and I need a shave.

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