Believable dialogue

Where do you find inspiration to write your dialogue? Do you base it on conversations you've engaged in?

No one wrote better dialogue (some say monologues) than George V. Higgins. Read a copy of THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE to see why its true.

Dialog...

Watch a movie, a television show, a play, they are all about the dialog. Usually, if no one is talking, it's boring. Unless of course there are a lot FX going on.

Picture the characters in your mind...do you know who they really are? Are your character based on real people or people you made up? How would you see them acting in each situation? What would the really say to each other, to you, to themselves?

Do you know the background of each of your characters? You should, you created them. Now use the knowledge to have them speak. If the character is shy, then the speech would be soft, maybe even halting.

That should give you a good start.

Welcome to the AH and good luck.

I've been told I write good dialogue, and sometimes yes, I do base it off what people really say. But it's more what people might say in a given situation and of course it depends on the characters you've written.

I try to think about my conversations with people, and how I've heard people talk. You have to smooth it out in writing -- no one wants to read a lot of um, uh, ah, or things like that. There's less stumbling in written dialogue, I think, but that's okay because it's written and you don't want the reader tripping over it.

Some general guides are to use contractions; don't use "SAT words" unless the character actually would; keep it fairly simple; don't be afraid to use fragments, as that's how people really do talk.

Like Zeb says, listen to the dialogue you hear, on screen or in life. Don't necessarily fix on the exact words, although you should pay attention to that as well, but listen to the flow and the rhythm of it.

PennLady said:

Like Zeb says, listen to the dialogue you hear, on screen or in life. Don't necessarily fix on the exact words, although you should pay attention to that as well, but listen to the flow and the rhythm of it.

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Unless you are watching the SciFi channel That dialog would only serve as a bad example.

PennLady said:

I've been told I write good dialogue, and sometimes yes, I do base it off what people really say. But it's more what people might say in a given situation and of course it depends on the characters you've written.

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So I decided to check out PennLady's writing. She is indeed good at dialog. If you want to study how to do it, you could do a lot worse than reading her pretending series. Or, most likely, any of her stuff. I have only read the two Pretending chapters so far, but I plan on reading more.

Zeb and PL pretty much nailed it, but I'll add my two cents anyway.

My approach to dialogue is to envision the characters speaking, including their facial expressions, mannerisms, and gestures. Sometimes I "rehearse" it before writing it, speaking it out loud or even bouncing it off my wife. This lets me get a feel for the character and how they speak.

The type of story, for me, also influences how I write dialogue. Epic fantasy demands more complex and dramatic dialogue, while a story about modern street people requires a lot of slang and awkward conjunctions. The key for believability lies in the context of the story.

Good advice from PennLady...

Okay, I tried deleting this but it won't work. Evidently, while I was writing this, Slyc willie was writing it just a little faster and got his post in seconds before mine. We say the same things.



especially about using contractions. It helps the dialogue flow and it's the way people talk.

When I write, I actually act out the parts. I don't mean physically, but mentally. I see my character as he or she is talking. I visualize their movements, their facial expressions, and I can hear them talking. I think visualizing them as they're speaking helps keep the dialogue moving in a realistic manner.

Be a people watcher and then write how people talk. That makes dialog simple. Keep the character in mind and they will find their own voice.

"My dialogue sucks," he mumbled with disdain while picking his nose thoughtfully. "But I'm learning by doing. That's one of the positive effects of being a smut-pedd.... ehh, erotica writer."

I bought my first reporter's tape recorder (Walkman-size) precisely so I could record and transcribe actual conversations, to capture vocabularies, flavors, rhythms of speech. I also studied dramatic scripts to see how dialog is written by pros. Now I ignore all that and just transcribe the voices in my head.

Problem: Real dialog sounds sloppy. It's gotta be tightened-up for the page.

A readers take on dialog... sort of.

I find that in reading a story the dialog works only if it actually tells part of the story. Dialog for dialogs sake is distracting. So using the practice of trying to decide what the characters would say in a real life situation is usually kind of, well boring. Does someone really need to read the fact that people said, "Hi there" and "Hey" when greeted each other. That sort of dialog is assumed by the reader. Now if the the greeting dialog were more along the lines of "Hi there" and "Fuck off asshole", then maybe that tells that one of the people is not happy with the other.

Even with that, dialog that helps tell the story and not just the mood is much more meaningful and compelling to read. For Example:

"What in the hell do you think you are doing with that man?"

"Dammit mom. I'm eighteen years old and I'll date who ever I want."

Even without the rest of the story wrapped around this bit of dialog, this exchange seems to tell about a woman scolding her daughter for being with a man she shouldn't be with. It's possible the man is an outlaw, or he could be much older than her, or maybe both. Even without a description of the man, the reader gets the point. You also know that the daughter dated the man and she probably had sex with him. All this from two small bits of dialog. Don't feel like you have to fill in all of the blanks for the reader either. Let the dialog imply what is happening. The reader will fill in the rest using other parts of the story and their own past experiences.

My take on creating believable dialog is to first make it tell part of the story. Then make sure it tells the part of the story is a believable way. In other words don't have one person say something benign and the other person drop an unrelated bomb shell, unless that bombshell is part of the story such as "I'm pregnant". In real life people don't communicate in an incongruent manner, so watch out for that.

Then the last step would be to make sure the sentences read the way someone would speak, which is different than the written word. This is where it helps to talk through the dialog yourself and write it as it would be spoken. Even if you write perfect dialog, if it doesn't tell part of the story there is no reason to read it.

Talk to yourself. In the car on the way to work is a good place.Thanks to hands free cellphones you wont even look like a complete lunatic.

It gets your mind into a more practiced mindset where you can more easily imagine duel conversations.

It becomes a matter of practice. It's like public speaking. the more often you do it the more at ease you become. If you want to write dialog well then write more and more of it till you can hear when what you're trying to say doesn't sound right to your ear.

Best advice I can give, it's what I do and it works for me.

MST

Another readers view...

I find a story with no dialog tedious. For me...even bad dialog is better than no dialog. You need dialog to find out about the characters. What they say defines them. Narrative is okay for descriptions, but dialog tells you what kind of person, hopefully, you are reading about. How someone says something, not what they say, is the key.

PennLady said:

I try to think about my conversations with people, and how I've heard people talk. You have to smooth it out in writing -- no one wants to read a lot of um, uh, ah, or things like that. There's less stumbling in written dialogue, I think, but that's okay because it's written and you don't want the reader tripping over it.

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I'll throw in some of those tics when I want to indicate that a character is nervous and stumbling. Another thing, another thing I sometimes use is repetition. But even there, I probably use it less than RL conversation would have.

Some general guides are to use contractions; don't use "SAT words" unless the character actually would; keep it fairly simple; don't be afraid to use fragments, as that's how people really do talk.

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Also, consider who they're speaking to at the time. Things like degree of formality tell you a lot about how people relate. e.g. I'm working on a piece with one character who speaks "proper" English to co-workers, but African-American vernacular to friends and family; for her, switching to AAVE is an expression of trust.

I always have the same approach to dialogue. I think of the characters in their basic terms (meek, strong, shy, naive, confident, ect...) I think of what they're personality is like. Then I think, "what's the goal of this scene?"

How can I get from point A to point B?

Then I just imagine it like it's a tv show on HBO or something. So when a character says something, I try to think what the other character would reasonably say in response. A shy character and a tough character would have completely different responses.

And I also fill up the scene with actions the characters do, such as their facial expressions, or tone of voice. Otherwise it's going to be a block of dialogue.

All fantastic suggestions

The importance of dialogue came to me when I was watching the latest Netflix series "Marco Polo." Visually stunning series, with lots of what ought to be enticing. But the dialogue is atrocious and it ruined the entire thing for me. So that made me nervously revisit the dialogue I've written.

Some people like my dialogue. My last year's winning Winter Holiday story is a good example of my written dialogue.

http://www.literotica.com/s/christmas-truce

But I know it isn't accurate. I tend to use fewer contractions and pauses than real speaking voices. My dialogue is more formal than actual versions of two people talking.

The reason? My dialogue is intended to be read on a screen, not read aloud.

My intention is to give the reader the impression of real conversations, not a transcript of what characters would say in real life.

wws_wws said:

Where do you find inspiration to write your dialogue? Do you base it on conversations you've engaged in?

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Dialogue is both the easiest and hardest part of writing fiction:

It's easy because all you have to do is transcribe what you hear your characters saying.

It's hard because you have to be able to hear what your characters are saying.

It also helps if you know when to turn off the recorder and summarize a conversation or diatribe.

Writing dialogue is a lot like writing erotica. On the one hand, obviously artificial constructions are bound to be off-putting. On the other hand, absolutely authentic dialogue just doesn't sound "right" when seen on the printed page. What we're looking for is a sort of stylized reality, which obeys its own rules.

I learned this the first time I tried to write a play. I tried to make the dialogue remorselessly authentic in dialect and pacing, but another playwright pointed out that it wasn't working because it wasn't what the audience expected to hear. The re-write improved the play, but it also convinced me that I was out of my depth, and that I couldn't do what came to him so naturally, even with a lot of work.

I think that the more good dialogue you read, the better you'll get at reproducing it.

Know when to use it and when not to

Another important part of dialog is knowing when to use it and when not to. IMHO, you should use dialog when it is important to hear what the characters are saying but not when their words are not important to the story.

An example would be two friends talking. If you wanted to convey a long friendly conversation about trains that ended with a proposition to have sex on a train, you might say something like:

Jill and I sat and chatted as the sun crept down toward the horizon. We both enjoyed train rides and were discussing the various merits of different lines.

"Have you ever had sex on a train?" Jill asked suddenly, looking at me sheepishly.

"No," I sat up and looked into her eyes. "Have you?"

"Not yet. I want to."

"Me too." I felt my stomach tightening. What was she thinking?

"Want to take a train ride tonight?"

GoldenCojones said:

Unless you are watching the SciFi channel That dialog would only serve as a bad example.

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Yes, sorry, should have specified. Viewer beware on SciFi movies, many of which are made by the Asylum studios (and which are great fun if you like that kind of thing).

GoldenCojones said:

So I decided to check out PennLady's writing. She is indeed good at dialog. If you want to study how to do it, you could do a lot worse than reading her pretending series. Or, most likely, any of her stuff. I have only read the two Pretending chapters so far, but I plan on reading more.

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Thank you.

I'd like to think my dialogue has gotten better, as Pretending is an earlier story. I think I did pretty well with my Rhythm & the Blue Line story.

I wish I knew more about how I write it, or how I decide when to use dialogue versus expository writing. I know I have a kind of instinctive approach. I'll go along and think, I've been writing [this] for a while so maybe I should go to [that] to break things up.

I also agree with FantasyXY, in that the dialogue should advance the story or characters somehow. I find dialogue is a good way to show relationships between characters, or to expand upon them. It's one thing to say that Jane didn't get along with her sister, but if you can show that in a short, terse conversation, I think it has more impact for the reader. It also shows how the characters handle things, react to things, etc.

I pretty much began my writing career as a radio dramatist. Radio dramas are almost wall-to-wall dialogue – with a few sound effects and a bit of music thrown in as required. I then spent a few years ‘tidying’ the dialogue in film and TV scripts. Surprisingly, a lot of script writers write great visual action but not such great dialogue.

I think there are four main tricks to writing convincing dialogue:

First, use dialogue to bring a character to life or to move the story along. But don’t use dialogue to dump information. It will invariably sound false and clunky.

Second, remember that, in real life, people seldom follow the script. In particular, people seldom answer questions with neat and tidy answers. For example:

‘When are you coming home?’ Mary asked.

‘Right now, I have a lot going on,’ George said. ‘A lot. Know what I mean?’

Third, as a general rule, keep it short. People seldom make speeches when they are having a conversation. For example:

‘You don’t like it?’

‘It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that … I don’t know … I was expecting something more pink, I guess.’

Fourth, when using dialogue tags, keep it simple. You rarely need anything other than ‘he said’, ‘she said’, ‘he asked,’ ‘she replied’.

And maybe a fifth: be careful with dialects and accents. A little goes a long way; and too much can just make it difficult for the reader to read.

A major point of written dialogue, though, is that you shouldn't replicate actual speech. If you think otherwise, record a couple of people speaking for a few minutes and then listen to it. It will be nearly unintelligible, repetitive, and incomplete. It's like sets and costumes in a play. If you go up on stage, you'll see that what is actually there isn't how you see it from the audience. You need to find a median between reality and stilted.

(Also, if the dialogue doesn't convey some form of information--if only on the character--you should strongly consider pitching it.) Everything in the story should inform some element of the story.

sr71plt said:

(Also, if the dialogue doesn't convey some form of information--if only on the character--you should strongly consider pitching it.) Everything in the story should inform some element of the story.

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I agree with your supplementary point 100 percent. If it ain't pushing the ship forward, it shouldn't be there.