Dialogue

Dialogue is an important part of your prose, it is one of the elements that helps to create character. But one common mistake that many beginner (and sometimes not so beginner) writers make when reporting dialogue is to write too correctly.

If you listen to people speaking, each person has their own idiolect (way of speaking) and this is not always just a case of their accent. Some people use long, complex and meandering phrases, others speak in few words. Some people hesitate a lot when they speak, or never finish a sentence. Others may use a more comprehensive vocabulary or repeat themselves often.

A lot of writers enjoy people-watching, we are interested in the way people behave. But have you done some people-listening lately? The next time you spend time in a cafe, or waiting for train, or even at a bus stop, try just listening to people as they chatter around you. Try to make out the different ways of speaking of each of the participants. If you can do so discretely, you may even want to make a note or two on particularly interesting aspects of their speech. Maybe one takes charge of the conversation and doesn't leave much room for the other interlocutor. Or perhaps one speaks in clichés. Often you will find that it's what someone doesn't say that's the most intriguing. Do women speak differently than men? Do the young speak differently than the old? I think you're getting the idea.

Now, when it comes to your own writing, it is important to make the characters come alive through their dialogue. As with all aspects of your prose, dialogue should be there for a reason. You should try to give the impression of natural dialogue without confusing the writing with too many ums, and ahs. One or two will give your reader enough information to be able to get the point if your character is hesitant or shy.

Your character does not need to speak in correct English. Too many beginner stories are spoiled by having characters speak as they would write, but we don't do that in real life. So listen as carefully as you watch to learn how people speak to each other.

Let's look at an example:

'Hello, Marie,' said Sally.
'Hello, Sally,' said Marie.
'Did you go to meet Harold at the train station?'
'Harold was not at the train station on time.'
'When did Harold get there then, Sally?'
'Apparently, he arrived almost an hour later than he was supposed to. So I had already gone when he arrived.'

Can you tell anything about the characters from the way they speak? From just this snippet, could you tell who was speaking if it wasn't for the speech tags (i.e. said Sally)? Can you see how the two characters speak too correctly? Of course, maybe you intend them to. It is possible to have one or more characters who speak this way, but it should be a deliberate choice, and, preferably, not the way every character speaks.

Try for some variation, however small (rhythm, sentence length, pauses, ums, colloquialisms, contractions, etc.), then you are more likely to create dynamic dialogue. Done well, your readers will be able to identify each speaker from their dialogue alone. But don't go over the top, unless you are going for comic effect, or it is justified by the situation.

I'd suggest that this is a very uninteresting passage of dialogue, and I don't just mean because of the subject. Still, let's see if there is anything we can do, without changing the meaning or the important information (what important information, I hear you say, well, let's pretend), to make it a bit more exciting.

'Hi.'
'Oh. Hello, Sally,' said Marie.
'So, did you get there on time?'
'Huh?'
'To meet Harold. Did you get there on time?'
'Um. Well, he wasn't there.'
'You're joking!'
'Well, at least, not, um, not when I was.'
'What d'you mean?'
'Well, turns out he was about an hour late. So we, um, kind of missed each other.'

OK, so this isn't the most inspiring of conversations, but hopefully, you can see that the dialogue is already a lot more interesting. It is more like people might really speak. Maybe, you've noticed that Marie is a little less sure when speaking than Sally.

So, if your character is quiet and shy, she might speak very little and she may use hesitations. However, if your character is strong and loud, then he might talk a lot, using long sentences. A young person might speak almost in monosyllables, whilst an older one might speak with old-fashioned terms.

So, take a look at your dialogue and try to see what you can do to make it sound more like your characters(s). This will help bring your characters alive on the page and your writing a little more exciting.