Too much Dialog?

[uome1]

How much is too much dialog? I am trying to clean up several stories and I am working on something new. (I have a bunch of stories but I have never posted, trying to work up the courage to post). I have noticed that I tend to utilize exessive dialog in the development of some characters. I have attempted to rewrite some passages using naratives instead, but the narratives don't seem to really bring out the emotional aspects that the characters are dealing with.

I think that the narratives tend to make the story characters and plot somewhat cold. However, when I use the dialogs, I'm adding several pages to the stories. Yet the stories seem to move much faster with the dialog, (so it's longer but faster).

I don't want people to see the length of the story and click the back button before begin reading.

Suggestions?

 

[Weird Harold]

How much is too much dialog?

There is no such thing as too much dialogue.

It doesnt sound like you're writing "bad dialogue" which might be a problem, but IMHO, dialogue is always preferable to narration for character developent.

I don't want people to see the length of the story and click the back button before begin reading.

Don't worry on that point: Literotica actually breaks stories into multiple pages based on character count -- somewhere in the 15,000 character range -- and the parapgraph breaks that cause dialogue to add page breaks in your word processor don't change where Lit inserts page breaks.

One Lit page averages about 3,767 words, as counted by M Word's word count function, but it doesn't care if that's 3,000 paragraphs or one parapgraph.

 

[CopyCarver]

How much is too much dialog? I am trying to clean up several stories and I am working on something new. (I have a bunch of stories but I have never posted, trying to work up the courage to post). I have noticed that I tend to utilize exessive dialog in the development of some characters. I have attempted to rewrite some passages using naratives instead, but the narratives don't seem to really bring out the emotional aspects that the characters are dealing with.

I think that the narratives tend to make the story characters and plot somewhat cold. However, when I use the dialogs, I'm adding several pages to the stories. Yet the stories seem to move much faster with the dialog, (so it's longer but faster).

I don't want people to see the length of the story and click the back button before begin reading.

Suggestions?

99 times out of 100, it's better to "show, not tell." Dialogue and action almost invariably make better fiction than description.

Length is much less of an issue than content and pace. Most readers will keep reading just as long as the story continues to interest them.

 

[WhiteWave48]

*****

 

[tanyachrs]

I doubt you've got too much dialogue but it is possible to do. All dialgoue is a script and those are often hard to read, so you want a little more narrative than that.

 

[Weird Harold]

I doubt you've got too much dialogue but it is possible to do. All dialgoue is a script and those are often hard to read, so you want a little more narrative than that.

I disagree. If a story reads like a script and/or the dialogue is hard to follow, that's bad dialogue, not "too much" dialogue.

I wrote a story that is all dialogue -- with the added challenge of not using a single explicit dialogue tag -- and in the two years it was posted at another site, I didn't receive a single comment that it lacked narration or was hard to read. Even the three volunteer editors who worked with me on it didn't comment on the lack of narration -- one even went back to double-check my claim of not having any explicit dialogue tags because she didn't believe there weren't any.

The story isn't posted anywhere online at the moment, because it isn't a very good "story" -- but then it was written as a writing challenge rather than as a "story" and it lacks any real plot or point beyond demonstrating that there is no such thing as too much dialogue. However, if anyone would like to read it, you can PM or e-mail me for a copy.

I don't recommend that narration and exposition be left out of a story except as a writing exercise, but they can be left out as easily as dialogue usually is.

 

[CopyCarver]

I disagree. If a story reads like a script and/or the dialogue is hard to follow, that's bad dialogue, not "too much" dialogue.

I wrote a story that is all dialogue -- with the added challenge of not using a single explicit dialogue tag -- and in the two years it was posted at another site, I didn't receive a single comment that it lacked narration or was hard to read. Even the three volunteer editors who worked with me on it didn't comment on the lack of narration -- one even went back to double-check my claim of not having any explicit dialogue tags because she didn't believe there weren't any.

The story isn't posted anywhere online at the moment, because it isn't a very good "story" -- but then it was written as a writing challenge rather than as a "story" and it lacks any real plot or point beyond demonstrating that there is no such thing as too much dialogue. However, if anyone would like to read it, you can PM or e-mail me for a copy.

I don't recommend that narration and exposition be left out of a story except as a writing exercise, but they can be left out as easily as dialogue usually is.

Yep, there are damned few things that can't be done, as long as they're done well.

 

[Verdad]

An example of a charming little short done completely in dialogue that springs readily to mind is Roger Zelazny's "Collector's Fever." A stylist of his caliber could do pretty much anything with delightful grace, but generally speaking, I do think there can be too much dialogue.

As others have pointed out, that's more likely to mean bad dialogue than too much of it, but semantics aside, dialogue isn't replacement for narration and shouldn't be used as such. I find it a huge turn off when characters obviously speak for readers' benefit.

Verdad

 

[Weird Harold]

...generally speaking, I do think there can be too much dialogue.

As others have pointed out, that's more likely to mean bad dialogue than too much of it, but semantics aside, dialogue isn't replacement for narration and shouldn't be used as such. I find it a huge turn off when characters obviously speak for readers' benefit.

Characters who obviously speak or the readers' benefit are more a symptom of bad writing than bad dialogue, let alone "too much" dialogue.

Narration and/or exposition can be replaced with dialogue; if it's done even reasonably well, the average reader will never even notice the information came from dialogue rather than narration. Two or three short lines of well-written dialogue can often replace several paragraphs of boring exposition and description.

There are times when Dialogue is NOT the best method of imparting information or making a point -- If that weren't true, every story would be nothing but dialogue -- but that comes under the heading of "bad dialogue" or "inappropriate dialogue."

That "well-written" qualification is really the whole point. If dialogue is is stilted, over-tagged with "tom swifties," "preachy," poorly punctuated, or any of the other things that characterize "bad dialogue," then the story is probably better off without the dialogue. However, dialogue that is even moderately well well-written can do so much to improve a story and is generally so under-used that cutting any dialogue from a story should be discouraged.

 

[Verdad]

WeirdHarold, I don't disagree with anything you said. Perhaps my experiences have been different that yours in that I've witnessed as much over-use of dialogue as under-use, and that made me think it was a point worth bringing up.

Best,

Verdad

 

[Weird Harold]

WeirdHarold, I don't disagree with anything you said. Perhaps my experiences have been different that yours in that I've witnessed as much over-use of dialogue as under-use, and that made me think it was a point worth bringing up.

I suspect that what you're seeing as far as "overuse" being as common as "underuse" is caused by bad dialogue being much more noticeable than good dialogue.


One thing I discovered from the comments I received on the "all dialogue" story I mentioned above is that "good" dialogue effectively disappears -- actually, good writing disappears -- behind the story. At least nobody ever commented on the amount dialogue or the lack of dialogue tags and the few people I actually asked about the "all dialogue, no tags" aspect of the story didn't believe there were no tags or narration.

From an editorial standpoint, I can't recall how many times I've recommend "fix the dialogue thus and so" and "consider using dialogue here" but I can count on one hand the number of times I've recommended replacing dialogue with narration or exposition. The very rare times i've recommended dialogue be deleted were usually cases where a character was expounding the character's philosophy for the second or third time -- i.e. the content of the dialogue was redundant.

Writing dialogue is both the easiest and hardest part of writing. Easy because you only have to report what the character says verbatim. Hard because it requires the author to invent believable words and put them in the character's mouth.

The "right" amount of dialogue for any given story is a stylistic choice and there are exceptions to the general rule, "more dialogue is better." But they are "exceptions that prove the rule."

uome1's original assertion, "I have noticed that I tend to utilize exessive dialog in the development of some characters," along with his observation that changing to narration doesn't flow as well as the dialogue does is an indication that he writes "good" dialogue. His main concern is more about the length of the story as measured in "pages" than it is about the dialogue itself.

In that context -- where narration doesn't flow as well as dialogue -- the answer, "there is no such thing as too much dialogue" is the correct, if simplistic, answer.

Perhaps a more complete answer to the related question "how much dialogue should I use" would be "use exactly the amount of dialogue the STORY requires and not one word more or less" -- which is basically the answer to, "how long should a story be" and many other questions about writing; Let the story determine what is necessary.

 

[Verdad]

WeirdHarold, I hope you understand I still don't disagree with you. I also didn't mean to be overly pedantic, as I recognize that saying "the right amount of dialogue is that which is right" constitutes a tautology, and no matter how true, doesn't offer much advice.

I guess the difference is in that I took the original poster's qualification of his dialogue use as "excessive" at face value, and commented accordingly--yes, it is possible that his own instinct about it being excessive is right--although I should have added that he shouldn't worry if it's based solely on the final number of pages.

Perhaps I should clarify why I called it "too much" rather than simply "bad." Sometimes bits of dialogue can be deceitfully seamlessly written, and yet present a burden for the story. Maintaining too tight focus all the time makes distinguishing between important and less important impossible and soon becomes exhausting for the reader, and too much dialogue can mean just that--an unrelentingly tight focus.

Of course, you could still say that this too falls under "bad" or "inappropriate" and you'd be perfectly right, but that's what I primarily had in mind with "too much."

I also mentioned it because one's strongest points can also be one's worst weaknesses. A writer with a knack for dialogue can get intoxicated with this wonderful power to make the characters speak and let it run away with him at the expense of everything else, pretty much like a writer who feels shaky with dialogues will try to cut every corner possible not to include them. As a general 'rule' though, variety is what generates best results, and that was pretty much my entire point.

Peace,

Verdad

 

[Weird Harold]

Perhaps I should clarify why I called it "too much" rather than simply "bad." Sometimes bits of dialogue can be deceitfully seamlessly written, and yet present a burden for the story. Maintaining too tight focus all the time makes distinguishing between important and less important impossible and soon becomes exhausting for the reader, and too much dialogue can mean just that--an unrelentingly tight focus.

Of course, you could still say that this too falls under "bad" or "inappropriate" and you'd be perfectly right, but that's what I primarily had in mind with "too much."

I think we are both saying pretty much the same thing but approaching it from different directions. For the most part, I've been talking about dialogue without consideration of the content of the dialogue.

Your point about dialogue's "Maintaining too tight focus" is a good point, but it applies to narration and exposition as well as it does to dialogue.

Dialogue can also be used to set the mood, "expand the focus" of a story, set a scene, reveal something about a character, or combine several functions at once. All of those things can be done with narration and/or exposition to greater or lesser extent. It's primarily the content of the text that determines it's effect, although there are several writing "tricks" to emphasize or de-emphasize portions of your work that work with any content.

I also mentioned it because one's strongest points can also be one's worst weaknesses. A writer with a knack for dialogue can get intoxicated with this wonderful power to make the characters speak and let it run away with him at the expense of everything else, pretty much like a writer who feels shaky with dialogues will try to cut every corner possible not to include them. As a general 'rule' though, variety is what generates best results, and that was pretty much my entire point.

The problem with this kind of "how much is too much" or "how long is too long" question is that every story has a unique balance of dialogue, narration, and exposition that is "right" for that story and that author -- there is simply no quantitative answer without evaluating how each element is used on a case-by-case basis to determine what is working and what isn't working.

I will admit to a personal preference for more dialogue rather than less because I just happen to be someone who writes dialogue well and understand how dialogue enhances a story beyond the "wow, my characters can speak" level. But, except as a writing exercise, I don't let my personal preference for dialogue blind me to the many other aspects of writing to the exclusion of dialogue.

I can only add that from a critical/analytical perspective -- or just from an avid reader's perspective -- I'm far more likely to say, "there's too much narration" or "there is too much exposition" or "enough with the florid descriptions" than I am to say "so shut your characters up already."

In other words, I generally find "too much narration" and "too much exposition" but "too much dialogue" is about as common as hen's teeth, in my experience. Various other problems with dialogue are fairly common, but the percentage of a story inside quotes as a problem is almost never the sole problem with dialogue.

Of course, anything can be overdone, or done so badly so it appears to be overdone, but Dialogue is much harder to do to excess than almost any other facet of writing.

 

[Verdad]

Yes. I see your points well now, too. If you're defining "too much" simply as a matter of percentage, with disregard for content, there can be no quantitative answer.

Intuition tells me you're right about the commonness of misuse too--stories that read like scripts (though that too is a combined result of content and percentage, of course) appear to be more rare than those suffering from all other kinds of problems. Possibly I've just met a bit more than my fair share of these hen's teeth, and so my sensitivity to the issue sharpened.

There's always one's direct experience too--I'm not saying I'm particularly talented for dialogue (I'm incomparably better as a critic than as a writer anyhow), but I know I can be tempted to stretch it where I wouldn't do the same with any other technique.

Even with the question of focus, you're right that it's not just a matter of using dialogue vs. using narration/exposition. It's rather a matter of deeper decisions about where to set a full scene and where to just gloss over something--where to, indeed, "tell"--and deciding whether to use dialogue comes only secondary to that. The only additional pitfall of uncritical preference for dialogue is that it can make turning any lateral bit of information into a full-blown scene appear more attractive, which can be particularly problematic in short fiction.

This is of course all highly hypothetical and in no way concerns either yours or the original poster's work, neither of which I'm familiar with, but it seemed like something worth adding to the discussion.

But if I may ask… You got me kind of intrigued with these "tricks" you mentioned, since I couldn't readily guess what you had in mind. If you'd care to expound a little, I'd be very interested in hearing.

Best,

Verdad

 

[Weird Harold]

But if I may ask… You got me kind of intrigued with these "tricks" you mentioned, since I couldn't readily guess what you had in mind. If you'd care to expound a little, I'd be very interested in hearing.

The easiest one to explain has to do with paragraphs and how they affect reading comprehension:

---
Most of what is remembered is from the first sentence of a paragraph.

The second most of what is remembered is from the last sentence of a paragraph.

The points least remembered are from the middle sentences of a paragraph; the greater the number of sentences -- i.e. the longer the paragraph -- the less the middle of a paragraph is retained.
---

That information comes from an Effective Writing course I took over thirty years ago; I've found it to be as accurate when it comes to writing fiction as it is for the technical writing the course was aimed at.

If you want to emphasize a point, make it the first sentence of a paragraph, or make it a one-sentence paragraph. Conversely if you want de-emphasize something -- to slide a clue or foreshadowing past the reader, for example -- then bury it in the middle of a long paragraph.

(If you really want the reader to "gloss-over" a point, bury it in the middle of a long paragraph and use passive voice.)


Coincidently, this also explains why dialogue tends to focus the attention -- dialogue tends to be short, often one sentence, paragraphs which minimize the "gloss-over" effect for information in the middle of paragraphs.

 

[Verdad]

Thanks for clarifying!

Verdad