Grunts!

[Icingsugar]

Huh? Mmm? Ahem?

Duh! Eeep! Aaargh! Nnngh!

Ah... Uuh... Um... Eeh...

Ok, now what is this? This, my friends, is me trying to coming to terms with all those little sounds that people make when they talk, that are not in the Merriam-Webster, if you know what I mean.

I love dialouge. I love writing conversations, and I sometimes go to extremes to make those sound so close to the real thing as possible.

People talk like shit. They use half sentences, even half words: "Wha..uuh...yeah...whatever."
They stop, they get cut of, they forget what they were saying, they talk too fast, they talk too slow, some even talk in one word sentences:
"I. Don't. Want. To. Sleep. With. You. Get it, asshole?"

They also grunt. Say thing like "Uuh..." and "Ah..." and "Eh..." and clears their throats, and so on. I want to portray all that, mid-sentence if I can.

I mean, in the middle of a sentence, you don't always want to cut in with a The Cake Bloke cleared his throat when you can just throw in some, well, onomatopoetica (or however that is spelled) instead.

"You are all...ahem...wankers." he said.

My personal favourite is "Um". I use it way too much when I write lines.

But since there isn't any definite literary reference when it comes to this that I have found, I'm not sure that they come through the way I think they do all the time. It sounds right in my head, and gives the dialouges some naturalism in my ears. But do they in others' ears too?

How do you deal with those little linguistic mis-fires in a dialouge? Do you, like me, litter your writing with them, do you try to describe them, or does your characters simply speak perfect, structured English all the time?


(edited because I spell like my dad)

 

[whispering_surrender]

How do you deal with those little linguistic mis-fires in a dialouge? Do you, like me, litter your writing with them, do you try to describe them, or does your characters simply speak berfect, structured English all the time?

In erotica, I just avoid using dialogue too much, since I stink at it. *shrug* In my other work, I just do what looks right to me, and when in doubt, say it out loud to myself to see if it seems realistic. I talk to myself a lot when I'm writing, and it drives the dog mad. *grin*

Whisper

 

[raphy]

I wouldn't necessarily say that my characters speak perfect, well structured English, but they don't say 'um' or 'eh' very often. I write my dialogue in a very movie-centric manner, and you don't see that sort of thing in movies, unless the scriptwriter's specifically put it in for the actors to say.

p.s. As an aside, I absolutely love writing dialogue. I think I grew up watching too many movies, and writing hard-hitting dialogue is one of the biggest pleasures in writing for me. When I'm going back over my piece and rereading it to make sure it all sounds right, I'll speak the dialogue from the characters, as if it actually was on film.

 

[Icingsugar]

I wouldn't necessarily say that my characters speak perfect, well structured English, but they don't say 'um' or 'eh' very often. I write my dialogue in a very movie-centric manner, and you don't see that sort of thing in movies, unless the scriptwriter's specifically put it in for the actors to say.

True, and for a case study, here is more "um" and "eh" than you can shake a stick at.

I might have exagerrated in the first post. I only use it for effect, as in "Um...Dave? Dave? Like...um...the bomb is...y'know...ticking again." And only people who talk like that gets to talk like that, for the contrast, and sake of their character.

 

[Guest]

This has been interesting to think on, especially due to the way Cake Gent put the issue.

I really never used such expletives before posting to Lit. But in posts they serve as much a use as smilies, so I started writing um's and erm's and haha's.

However, I use them rarely in my writing. I thought about why just now, and I think it has to do with what I read, which of course has to do with how I write. I don't come across those little non-words in my reading, so I don't think of them when I write.

However, I read Shakespeare often enough that I love his types of erm's and um's, e.g., s'blood (for godsblood), sirrah, yea, ay, nay, ho, lo, fie, forsooth.

anon, Perdita

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

One thing that I try to remember is that *realistic*
dialogue is not like *real* dialogue. When the most
educated and articulate persons are actually talking, they
use expressions which -- when actually written down --
make them appear to be tongue-tied fools. So I use the
occasional "hmm" and "c'mon." But only occasional.
From an actual story:
"He [the department chairman] made helpful noises."
"Kirp, kirp, kirrrrp?"
"A little more helpful than that."

 

[Guest]

When the most educated and articulate persons are actually talking, they use expressions which -- when actually written down -- make them appear to be tongue-tied fools.

Please don't generalize. I rarely sound like a toungue-tied fool in conversation, nor do any of my friends and colleagues.

Perdita

 

[Icingsugar]

Please don't generalize. I rarely sound like a toungue-tied fool in conversation, nor do any of my friends and colleagues.

Perdita

Surely not. But if you actually use a sentence like "I rarely sound like a toungue-tied fool in conversation, nor do any of my friends and colleagues." in a regular, relaxedconversation and manage to make it sound natural, you are an oral preformer for the legends.

Or is is just me and mycircle of friends that are babbling fools?

 

[Guest]

Cake fool, I do sound like that when I speak. I can be very informal but even then I try to use English well. No apologies though.

Perdita

 

[Wills]

I confess I really struggle with this aspect of writing dialogue. Maybe it is just inexperience.

I love writing dialogue, I read it out loud as I writing it. But I struggle with the pauses, I know if I were speaking it, there would be more gaps. Sentences don't just flow in the way that you put them on page, in life we do pause as we speak, but I don't want to fill that with Ehms and Ahs. I feel that I over punctuate to compensate (,'s) and give breaks in the dialogue.

I was reading a piece over the weekend, they will know who, where the dialogue came in short stacato bursts. Sentences rarely contained more than a half dozen words. Worked fine, even beautifully, suited the piece and the style.

My dialogue cannot take that form, the story style would not support it, so I get into these long dialogues that seem to run for ever, neat and concise as they go, but still lacking the pauses that would be there if they were being spoken. So how do you deal with that without resorting to E.... and A.....'s

Sorry about the rant.

Will's

 

[Colleen Thomas]

My speech patterns are very archaic. I enunciate clearly and almost never use the small fillers most peole do when speaking. I think those little umms and ahh's usually happen when the mind out runs the tongue and you have to think back or when your mouth gets ahead of your mind and you have to fill the silence as your brain catches up. I almost always have my pauses before I speak and think out what I wish to say before I open my mouth.

I use the fillers, slang and contractions of words that aren't gramatically correct but happen in speech all the time (gonna being the one I probably abuse the most). I always feel my diaogue is stilted, but using fillers does lend it a more realistic feel. That said writing the way people actually speak would get old fast. Conversations are as much body language and inflection as they are words. When you write you cannot use either easily and thus it reads better to have characters speak clearly.

-Colly

 

[Quasimodem]

When writing, I try to be disciplined, and describe all the little interstitial actions and insert all important narration into each scene, but unfailingly, I get onto a roll with the dialogue, and get swept away.

Usually I have to go back, and condense the essentials into a shorter scene, and/or insert action, narration, even dialogue tags, later. I guess that comes from learning to write in an oral medium.

As far as Ice's observation, he is absolutely correct!

My rule is that I try to follow proper grammar in my writing, but between the quotation marks, anything goes! As long as it builds the character. The trouble with reproducing noises, is that you can never be certain your audience understands what your character is saying.

Sometimes the best way to do this, is through repetition in the tags.

"Uh-uh!" he declined.

"Harump!" George cast a baleful eye upon his nephew.

"I will . . . er . . . get back to you," Bob temporized.

Generally speaking, you try to avoid repetition of words, but sometimes, having a character use a word or phrase repetitiously, can demonstrate character.

"I mean, like if I say something, and then, like, you say something, and if they both are, like, similar, that means that we maybe are, like, compatible. I think that's like, cool!"

The two best examples of this, are from Paddy Chayefsky's "Marty" where Marty and his friend Algie are forever asking:

"What do you want to do, Marty?"

"I don't know, what do you want to do, Algie?"

"I don't know, what do you want to do, Marty?"

(Which works well in a screenplay, but would rapidly become irritating, in a novel.)


Another example was in Arnold Schulman's screenplay of "Love With a Proper Stranger."

A young Tom Bosley plays Natalie Wood's hapless boyfriend as such a klutz, that he is forever dropping, bumping into, or spilling something, plus, he has an unfortunate tendency to leave sentences unfinished, with the phrase ". . . uh, you know. . . ."

When she finally meets his family, they all share the same tendency to ". . . uh, you know. . . ." and it is Natalie Wood's character who has suddenly become the clumsy one.

Verbal mannerisms and bits of business work better on stage or in screenplays but if you can work them into short fiction, or novels, they can go a long way toward exposing a character through "showing" rather than "telling."

 

[dr_mabeuse]

It's like Uther says: realistic dialogue is not the same as real dialogue.

If you don't believe it, just look at some transcribed verbatim speech like a court transcript and you'll see all the false starts, the sentence fragments, the self-interruptions and sudden changes of direction. And like Collen noted, without the body language and changes in delivery and intonation, transcribed speech often makes little sense when read. Plus, it gets worse the more emotional people get.

I don't use any non-verbals in my dialogue beyond maybe an "Ah," or an "....er..." on occasion. Unless they're making love.

Realistic dialogue can be tough.

---dr.M.

 

[Guest]

My speech patterns are very archaic. I enunciate clearly and almost never use the small fillers most peole do when speaking.

Thank you, Colly. I was beginning to feel a bit odd. There are certainly pauses when I speak but they are silent while I think not only of what I want to say but how.

I actually try to write as little dialogue as possible, I prefer what comes across otherwise. Your comment about body language is spot on. Describing gestures and facial expressions is what I prefer. I could never write a play obviously.

Perdita

 

[Icingsugar]

"..." is probably my most used dialouge tool when I think about it. It is there to mark hesitation, breaks, and also emphasis now and them. But mainly it's is a tempo thing.

"Look... I am... Shit, I don't know how to say this, just...just bear with me, alright?"

"...Mr President? Are you..."

"No, I'm not fucking ok! Damn that woman! Damn her to Wisconsin and back!"

"Woman? The...masseuse? The Jamaican lady?"

"She did...something. I should had kept my little vice president in my pants. Dammit!"

 

[Guest]

my little vice president

LWOL (laughing way out loud) - Perdita

 

[gauchecritic]

As (akin with the fucking cake guy) an ex actor, when reading dialogue to be said aloud (acting) character portrayal is rarely detailed on the page, that is left to the actors. (Directors are also known to stick their oar in occasionally, bastards)

In RL when talking or listening to people we self edit. That is, we don't pay attention to ums and ers when listening to someone and we don't hear ourselves doing it. Unless it is every other word. In a similar way to when you listen to someone who uses 'expletives' every other word. If we know that is how they speak then we simply edit it out when listening in order to make sense.

When writing dialogue I write plain English without breaks or ums and ers except for specific effects.

When reading dialogue including ums and ers, whether to enhance characterisation or whatever, for me it is like trying to read accents.

Tell me at the beginning they have a soft southern drawl and that's how I will read it. Tell me they lisp and I will personally substitute th for s in the appropriate place (it's amazing to me how many authors fail to use this properly when attempting the effect)

Any way, reading it or writing it is not the same as portraying it, and for me it just makes it more difficult to read.

Gauche

 

[Guest]

I began a PM to Gauche thinking it might seem odd that I publically call him brilliant twice in one day. Then I thought, crap - why not, it's what I think.

Gauche, I am very impressed by your comments re. self-editing, obviously I am not an ex-actor. I hate more than a couple um's and erm's when I read, I couldn't stand reading Cake Gent's example above. The annoyance and distraction was obvious but not the why. You've made that clear. Thanks, and bravo.

Perdita

 

[gauchecritic]

Just thought of something else

Writing invented words ie grunts or gutturals is very very specific to accent.

For example 'um' 'erm' and 'mm' can all be exactly the same sound depending on your own accent.

I pronounce the U in um in the Northern way (or european) oo to the OED. Um when spoken by southerners, sounds like erm to me.

Gauche

 

[Svenskaflicka]

*starts to say something, gets distracted by Gauche's AV, ROFL's, LOL's, gets a grip, and goes on with speaking*

I try to make my characters talk like normal people. They don't say "um" or "er", but they throw in a little "eeeh" or "hmmm" or "ewww!" or "hmmm-mmm?" once in a while.

Also, I'm in love with the three dots.

"Do you want me to... leave?" she said. "Or do you want to... try it again?"

 

[Guest]

Re: Just thought of something else

I pronounce the U in um in the Northern way (or european) oo to the OED. Um when spoken by southerners, sounds like erm to me.

More interesting yet. I don't think I say um in person, but in the states it's neither oo nor erm, just umm. There's no um in Spanish that I've heard, I think we say 'aye' for lots of things, or ah.

I learned from my brother who lived in both Tokyo and Vienna that "ah so" is common to both places, though I always only associated it with Japan.

Thinking of all sorts of guttural possibilities makes me want to have sex (with a recording machine) all over the world. Obviously (or not) I'd do the UK first as I could understand all the real words best.

Perdita

 

[Lovepotion69]

I use mainly...
um
ehum
ehm
uh?
duh!
huh?
mmmm....
eh


I've been writing lots of dialogue lately, and it just automatically works with a few um's and eh's here and there.

 

[Icingsugar]

As (akin with the fucking cake guy) an ex actor, when reading dialogue to be said aloud (acting) character portrayal is rarely detailed on the page, that is left to the actors. (Directors are also known to stick their oar in occasionally, bastards)

I think you just made me realise something here. The Ums and whatnot are used for effect and characterisation, but I think the main reason I do this, especially when I do it a bit too much, is because of my acting background.

Raph mentioned that he reads his dialogs after he has written them. I read them before I write them. I have a set of conversation in my head, acted out by me, the actor, playing all the parts. And as such, I interpret the words in the sentences with tempo, "grunts" and emotions throught the filter of the different characters. Characters who do talk with their specific tempo and "grunt pollution".

So all this, especially the tempo and (hopefully) occational comical timing is a part of the way I try to tell the story. Even the narration is written with timing effects in it sometimes, as if read by a storyteller. And although I suspect that I do overdo it ever so often (that is why I started this thread in the first place), I can't see how I will be able to stop my acting ass.

Any suggestions?

 

[Icingsugar]

Re: Re: Just thought of something else

Thinking of all sorts of guttural possibilities makes me want to have sex (with a recording machine) all over the world. Obviously (or not) I'd do the UK first as I could understand all the real words best.

"Dita World Tour '04. Live album out due Christmas."?



Oh, good points you two about dialects and accents. In Last Call (novel in progress) I have a Frenchman and a Tunisian "doing the Um". None of them actually say "Um". They use other expressions.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I've heard whole conversations consisting of nothing but "hrruuhh!" in different tones.

Clubhopping is fun.