Dialogue

[Colleen Thomas]

Dialogue has always been one of my weakest skills as a writer. In my early works I conciously avoided situations where dialogue would have enhanced the story. While I am past the point of jumping through hoops to avoid it, I still hate writing it, but tonight I found myself with a situation I haven't encountered before.

I have a character I don't particularly like and certainly don't identify with. She is neccessary to the story, but everytime I try to speak for her, I end up drawing a blank and writing dialogue that makes her a lot meaner and nastier than I intend. She isn't intended to be a vicious bitch, but just a person who is fairly cold & anti-social.

Has anyone else ever encountered this? character for whom you have an inability to think for well enough to write his/her voice? If so, do you have any reccomendations for dealing with it?

My roomy suggested reading a book with a similar character and basically pilfering bits of dialogue, but I don't want to go that route.

-Colly

 

[millennium_bard]

When I have trouble writing dialogue for a character, I think about someone that I know who is somewhat close in personality to that character and imagine how he or she would reac ro the situation that the character has found him/her self in.
that usually helps a lot.

 

[doormouse]

Colly, dialogue is really important for building the relationships between characters.

I edit more than I write, and am always commenting on poor dialogue. It can kill a brilliant story.

My best advice is to read it aloud. It needs to sound natural, not the 'ohhhh baby, your cock feels soooooo good' crap.

Who in reality would ever say that? Not me.

I truly offended the last person I edited for because I was in tears laughing at the dialogue they used, but it was so lame they would have been bombed straight away.

Lit readers are so harsh on some writers, so when it's dialogue that ruins a good story, I'll point it out, no matter how offensive.

Myself, I'm not a good writer, but I'm a fucking good editor. I know what I like to read, and can find flaws in a story so fast it scares me.

That's why I don't write much anymore.

I'd honestly love to become a professional editor, so if you ever need a story looked at for an opinion, send away. I'm not as harsh as I sound here, but always offer advice which I truly believe will help the writer.

 

[doormouse]

Dialogue has always been one of my weakest skills as a writer. In my early works I conciously avoided situations where dialogue would have enhanced the story. While I am past the point of jumping through hoops to avoid it, I still hate writing it, but tonight I found myself with a situation I haven't encountered before.

I have a character I don't particularly like and certainly don't identify with. She is neccessary to the story, but everytime I try to speak for her, I end up drawing a blank and writing dialogue that makes her a lot meaner and nastier than I intend. She isn't intended to be a vicious bitch, but just a person who is fairly cold & anti-social.

Has anyone else ever encountered this? character for whom you have an inability to think for well enough to write his/her voice? If so, do you have any reccomendations for dealing with it?

My roomy suggested reading a book with a similar character and basically pilfering bits of dialogue, but I don't want to go that route.

-Colly

I truly believe who ever wrote this owes me about a dozen votes LOL

Best How To I've ever read.

------- Character Questions -------

Who are their parents? Did they know their parents? Where are their Mom and Dad from? Did they work, what was their profession? Who was your character closest to? Mom or Dad? Did they have any Aunts or Uncles? Were the Aunts or Uncles living with the family? Close to the family? Did they know their grandparents?

When were they born? Are they immigrants? First generation? Second? Did they have brothers or sisters? What were their names? How many of each? Where did your character lie in the family tree? Youngest sibling? Oldest? Middle child? Which sibling was closest to your character? What did they do together?

Did the family have a pet? What was its name? What kind of animal was it? Did it live in the house? Who took care of it? Did they have more than one pet? Who was closest to it? When did it die? Is it still alive? Who takes care of it now? Did it have any good/bad habits? What was your character's relationship with the family pet?

When your character was a child what was their favorite thing to do? How often did they get to do it? Were they artistic? Mathematical? Curious? Conservative? Shy? Were they scared of anything when they were young? If so, did anyone help them with that?

What is their health like? Do they have any allergies? Are they robust? Athletic? Frail? What are their personal habits like? Are they clean? Tidy? Well-groomed? Or not?

What were their favorite clothes? What did they like to eat? Were their family meals or did everyone eat separately?

Who were their friends? Who was their best friend when they were nine years old? Around the age of nine-ten, they learned something valuable from their parent. What was it and what happened? Where did the family live? Did they live in a house, apartment, ranch, condo? What kind of things did the family have? Cars? TVs? Rich? Poor? Was the family close to any other families?

Where did they go to school? Who was their teacher? their favorite teacher? What did they like to study? Were they a voracious reader? Or did they shy away from it? Why? Did they participate in any school functions? Plays? Teams? Clubs?

Around the age of thirteen-fourteen some event occurred in their lives that made them think about what they might do in life. What was that event? How did it effect them? Who else was there?

Who did they date in highschool? Who was their favorite person? Who did they stay away from? Why? What was their life like in highschool?

Did they go to college? What did they study? Did they get to travel abroad? What was their first job out of college? Was it in their chose profession? Who did they work for? Did they like them? Did they get any opportunities? Responsibility?

If the character is older, you will need to answer more questions.

Did they get married? Who did they marry? How did they meet? What is their family like - the In-laws?

Did they have children? What were the children's names? Are the children still alive? How did having a family effect who they were? Did they change jobs?

How did their career progress? Did they move up? Down? Stagnant?

Is their spouse still alive? What is their job/profession?

Are they still married? Divorced? If divorced, did they/would they get re-married? If so, then to whom?

------- Finish the above questions first, then answer the following:

What is their point-of-view? What is their view of the world? Are they optimistic? pessimistic? Does the world belong to them? Or does it treat them badly?

Who is/was their mentor? Who is the person in their life who teaches/taught them the most about life? About their profession? About being a person? About being themselves?

What are their professional relationships? In their career/work, whom do they get along with? How do they treat those who work with them? Is there someone's whose work that theirs compliments? Is their someone whose work that theirs is at conflict with?

What is their attitude? Are they dark? Carefree? Sarcastic? Straight-shooter? Hate the world? Love it? What do they expect out of their job? their relationship? their life?

What is their Belief System? Do they think that hard work will get them what they want? Do they believe the Universe is a random series of events? Or is it pre-ordained?

What is their Emotional Change? During the story, your character will learn something new that will change them. How do they change? How do they begin? Are they sad at the beginning and happy at the end? Or what?

What is their Dramatic Need? What do they want to get? Is it money, fame, wealth, power, love? Riches? The death of another? Saving someone dear? What is it?

---------------------------------------

Now that you've finished writing your Character Biography, you will know your character very well. So well, in fact, that if you breathe deeply and meditate on them for a moment, you can see them.

Meditation: turn the lights down low, sit quietly in a comfortable chair, breath slowly and deeply and close your eyes. You see a path leading through a park. Follow it. You come to a river. The river flows gently and lazily downstream. The path leads along the shore of the river. There's a bench overlooking the park and the river. Please sit down and relax, taking in the scenery - the trees, the flowers. Smell the air. You can smell plants, the flowers, the river and a bit of ocean from somewhere nearby. A person approaches down the path. It's your character. They sit down on the bench with you. Just be with them for a moment. Let them sit there and do what they will.

After meditation: Turn the lights back up and get out a paper and pen. Write down your experience. What did your character do? How did they sit? Did they ask you anything? Did they tell you anything? Does the experience have any significance for your story?

-----------------------------------------------------

The questions and the meditation are methods for getting your mind out of the way and letting the character step out of you. Once you've done these exercises, you will have a very good understanding of this person who lives in your mind. You will know what they will say, how they will say it and what they will do. Some of the items you have come up with may be items you need to include in your story. They might be very significant and interesting.

Have fun with this. The characters are inside, waiting to meet you.



If this doesn't help you, nothing will. Get to know your character and how you want him/her to interact with others. It's harder with multiple characters, but know each, and the conversations will flow.

 

[Alex De Kok]

The 'How-To' Doormouse quotes was written by JUDO, a very good writer herself although quiet of late. You'll find the original here.

Alex

 

[doormouse]

The 'How-To' Doormouse quotes was written by JUDO, a very good writer herself although quiet of late. You'll find the original here.

Alex

Thanks Hon!!!!


I copied and pasted it for my own use, but have recommended it endlessly because it's so good.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I don't really get that problem because most of my characters are eccentric and i'm fairly used to play format which is ALL dialogue.

However, I do know anti-social. My advice on the character is replace your bitchy statements with bitter statements. Also, cold characters can be expressed by making them more directly honest or by adding various shrugs. Also, don't write any long dialogue for them. An anti-social character will usually never monologue or share. If you want an example of anti-social, my main character in Death of the Party should do.


Oh, another thing, vicious bitch will seek an argument, whereas a cold and anti-social will seek escape from discussion. By shortening your exchanges or by having the anti-social insult and leave, you'll probably pull of the affect better.

Look forward to reading it when it's done.

 

[wishfulthinking]

When it comes to dialogue, less is more I seem to find. I'm not much of a dialogue person myself, and when I edit, I always find myself removing words rather than adding them.

But you roomie's idea of research is pretty good [although not the pilfering part! ] It gives you a chance to see what works and what doesn't.

I guess a cold-anti social cow would probably try to end conversations with closed-ended comments, or sit there with a bored look on their face while trying to appear cool. Maybe convey expressions rather than words?

Good luck

 

[neonlyte]

Doormouse
That is excellent advice (the character builder).

I've found myself needing to do the same exercise to write convincingly.

Don't have any trouble with dialogue, actually enjoy writing it, but you do need to know precisely who the character is first.

Another device I use is to build a data chart for the main characters, when they were born, their comparative ages when events in the story take place, when children were born, parents died, just building a comprehensive background to their history.

I've found it useful particularly if a character is explaining about their past, it is relatively easy to use the internet and lace the story with an actual event that happened in the past, it adds realism - if used sparingly.

To give an example, I have a character whose mother dies, it is an important part of the story.
The mother lives in a remote community, she dies in a severe winter in 1982 when temperatures dropped to -40C. This actually happened in 1982, it took a few minutes to find the information on the internet.

This current story is a fictional interpretation of a real-life event, dates are crucial in building the story around the actual event.

Colly
I wouldn't worry too much about making your character 'harder' than you intend, fiction needs to exagerate, to a degree, to make the point clear. Try using descriptive moderators to take some the hardness out of her voice, for example her posture not conveying the harshness of her words, ot her eyes signalling a different message. Just a thought.

 

[Liar]

I love dialouge. The faster and wittier the better. I never seem to have any problem writing the words for anyone, hero, side kick, antagonist or boring bystander...same thing. Stuff to say is never any real problem.

Now, narration, there's another turkey, milieu and scene descriptions or even worse, action description. I'll write your dialouge, Colly, if you write the stuff in between for me.

#L

ps. JUDO's article is really great for anyone stuck in between the lines. Essential reading.

 

[Black Tulip]

Colly,

I agree with the others about not using too much dialogue for your anti-social character.

Dialogue is interaction and she'll not be interested in that. Keep her sentences short and self-centered. Callous about others, because there is no empathy there. Indifferent would be a better word I think.

Good luck.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Thanks all for the input

 

[cloudy]

No advice from me, Colly, but I've been told my dialogue is usually pretty good. I'd be glad to help if you need it.

 

[rgraham666]

The input's not done yet, Colleen.

I have yet to get too much bad feedback on my dialogue so I will assume I do OK.

There is a little or a lot of me in all my characters. Thus I don't have to imagine too hard how the character will talk or act in a situation.

My biggest problem is that sometimes the character reflects a facet of my personality that I would rather not manifest. I have two stories currently hung up because I can't stand the main character. And that character is a part of me that I don't like.

I believe all of us have all those traits were trying to express. Through reinforcement, some traits are more often expressed than others.

So my advice is to listen to yourself. You may not like it, but the character you're looking for is part of you. You're going to have to summon them forth and talk to them.

 

[gauchecritic]

I have a character I don't particularly like and certainly don't identify with. She is neccessary to the story, but everytime I try to speak for her, I end up drawing a blank and writing dialogue that makes her a lot meaner and nastier than I intend. She isn't intended to be a vicious bitch, but just a person who is fairly cold & anti-social.
-Colly

I think your problem lies in the fact that you don't like her, hence the ease with which you make her mean and nasty.

Find something about her that you can like and a reason for her to appear cold and anti-social.

My boss at work is seen as cold and anti-social. She has a forced laugh, her pathetic attempts to be amusing are just miserable, she sits in her office for the most part and is fat and completely at odds with being jolly.

She would be difficult to write lines for because she is just dull.

Consider this: She suffers with both acute and chronic back pain, she was brought up a strict Scottish Catholic (socially awkward), she is constantly dieting to lose weight and under intense pressure from her bosses with regard to recent policy changes.

Knowing this it would be easier to write her lines because you now know more about why she appears to be cold and anti-social.

You don't have to tell your readers this but it will give you a better line on how and why she appears as she does.

I suppose in a way it's like the "How To..." but that seems just boring and unnecessarily complicated to me.

Gauche

 

[carsonshepherd]

Dialogue isn't a problem for me anymore. When I was younger and struggling to learn even the most basic writing skills, I was told by someone that every one of my characters talked the same way, and they all sounded like me. Ouch, but it helped.

The character builder seems a bit unnecessary to me as well, but it's along the lines of what I do. I just put myself completely into the scene, away from the keyboard; and I listen to what the characters say. It seems silly but it works, and it especially works when I'm in the shower.

My last story was very difficult for me, voice wise, because not only was my main character a female but she was also shy and a little prudish (completely unlike me!) I had to really concentrate, and get a few people to help me edit, to get her dialogue and reactions right. Judging by my votes and feedback, and more importantly how I felt about the story, I think I did okay in the finished product.

Colleen I've read a few of your stories and I didn't notice anything stilted or "off" about your dialogue. My suggestion would be to let a few people read your dialogue scenes.