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writercisesOriginal Posting Jan. 19, 2018
Writer's Digest, April 1994, had an article by Nancy Kress on pages eight, 10, 11, with the title, "Say What?" The subtitle explains a little bit more, "To make your dialogue sound natural, make it artificial." Nancy starts out by comparing great beauty in art with nature – guess what, art isn't nearly as natural as nature! And dialogue in writing is one of the places where what we write and what we might hear just don't quite line up. In particular, Nancy points to four key differences.
First, good dialogue is artificially concise. Repetition, interruptions, stuttering, almost funny ums and ohs, it all goes away. Written dialogue is edited. The repetitions, side trips, and all that just disappears. "Edited dialogue is… More informative, concise, and detailed than natural speech." It's the way we wish we sounded, not the way we really sound.
But, not too artificial. It needs to convince the reader. Watch out for too stilted (no contractions, too many multisyllable Latin words, and so forth…). Too informative? As you know, dialogue that explains too much is hard to believe. Too concise. Yes, perfect short statements are good for fortune cookies, but not necessarily for dialogue.
Next, good dialogue is emotional. When people are really talking, a lot of it is nonverbal. Tone of voice, inflections, facial expressions, hand gestures, body language, where you're looking and all of that. In writing dialogue, we don't get all of that. You can include a little bit in your action tags and speech tags. But you may need to jazz up the words! Make sure the emotion comes through the talking. A bit theatrical, but… Good dialogue.
Finally, dialogue needs to be individual. These are characters, and you want what they say to reflect them. Yes, a lot of talk is generic. But try to make your written dialogue "differentiate characters and make them individual." As usual, don't overdo this. Sometimes people do just say, "Which way did they go?" But… Check your dialogue. Can you interchange who said it without any problems? Try for diction, rhythm, individual insights.
"Writing dialogue is a balancing act. Good dialogue is artificially concise – but not too concise. It's artificially informative – but not implausibly so. It's consistently interesting – except for the occasional brief break to discuss mundane topics that establish verisimilitude. It's emotional and individual – but not so much of either that it becomes parody. How do you learn this balancing act? The same way you learn everything else about writing – through reading authors you admire, and through practice, practice, practice."
So there you go. If you want to practice, well, take some dialogue and work with it. You can always take some actual speech and transform it into written dialogue for story. Or perhaps take the same exchange, and rewrite it for different characters, different setting, different situations? We often talk about writing sketches as a way to practice writing – you can do dialogue sketches almost anytime, and anywhere.
Just write.
Writer's Digest, April 1994, had an article by Nancy Kress on pages eight, 10, 11, with the title, "Say What?" The subtitle explains a little bit more, "To make your dialogue sound natural, make it artificial." Nancy starts out by comparing great beauty in art with nature – guess what, art isn't nearly as natural as nature! And dialogue in writing is one of the places where what we write and what we might hear just don't quite line up. In particular, Nancy points to four key differences.
First, good dialogue is artificially concise. Repetition, interruptions, stuttering, almost funny ums and ohs, it all goes away. Written dialogue is edited. The repetitions, side trips, and all that just disappears. "Edited dialogue is… More informative, concise, and detailed than natural speech." It's the way we wish we sounded, not the way we really sound.
But, not too artificial. It needs to convince the reader. Watch out for too stilted (no contractions, too many multisyllable Latin words, and so forth…). Too informative? As you know, dialogue that explains too much is hard to believe. Too concise. Yes, perfect short statements are good for fortune cookies, but not necessarily for dialogue.
Next, good dialogue is emotional. When people are really talking, a lot of it is nonverbal. Tone of voice, inflections, facial expressions, hand gestures, body language, where you're looking and all of that. In writing dialogue, we don't get all of that. You can include a little bit in your action tags and speech tags. But you may need to jazz up the words! Make sure the emotion comes through the talking. A bit theatrical, but… Good dialogue.
Finally, dialogue needs to be individual. These are characters, and you want what they say to reflect them. Yes, a lot of talk is generic. But try to make your written dialogue "differentiate characters and make them individual." As usual, don't overdo this. Sometimes people do just say, "Which way did they go?" But… Check your dialogue. Can you interchange who said it without any problems? Try for diction, rhythm, individual insights.
"Writing dialogue is a balancing act. Good dialogue is artificially concise – but not too concise. It's artificially informative – but not implausibly so. It's consistently interesting – except for the occasional brief break to discuss mundane topics that establish verisimilitude. It's emotional and individual – but not so much of either that it becomes parody. How do you learn this balancing act? The same way you learn everything else about writing – through reading authors you admire, and through practice, practice, practice."
So there you go. If you want to practice, well, take some dialogue and work with it. You can always take some actual speech and transform it into written dialogue for story. Or perhaps take the same exchange, and rewrite it for different characters, different setting, different situations? We often talk about writing sketches as a way to practice writing – you can do dialogue sketches almost anytime, and anywhere.
Just write.