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Dialogue

Vespertilio91

Vespertilio91

New Member
Often, when I start a new passage, I find that my dialogue scenes develop into long-winded speeches, yet I can't seem to find a way to solve my problem. Every time I try to cut them down, they seem choppy and irregular, but if I leave them, my story seems boring. Does anyone have any tips to help?
:confused:
 
In real life, people don't usually make long speeches. Their listeners don't put up with it. In addition, long speeches in novels are traditionally used to dump a lot of information on the reader; but in real life, information comes out gradually.

So, find ways to get information out through a process that stretches across multiple scenes, conversations, actions, etc.; and break up your speeches into the give and take of real talk. Good luck.
 
You need to get into your character's heads, and let them do all the talking. It's easy to take over their speech for them, but if you let them talk, things should work out.
 
Valkyrie

The only problem with that for me is that my characters are so different from how I think that I cannot imagine what they would say, just what I want them to. I probably sound really dumb right now, but that's how my brain works.

Good advice though.

p.s. eyez0nme--learn to spell dialogue. The u comes after the g.
 
Annie Proulx says that she drives around Wyoming, visiting taverns and coffee shops, and makes notes on what she overhears, unusual expressions, accents, etc.

So, perhaps as an exercise, you might gather material by overhearing conversations and taking notes. Or even use a tape recorder to record natural dialogue and then analyze it.

I was curious to find what Doestoevsky said about freewill in one of his novels, so I found an on-line version and did a string search on "freewill". Sure enough, there were long speeches embedded in the novel, soliloquy, where a character discourses on freewill.

If you carefully study average speech, you will find very few people who speak at such length. Perhaps you will find such people among scholars or theologians. It just so happens that I naturally speak in such a fashion. If someone takes an interest in some topic which I have really studied, then they may listen to me extemporaneously discourse for 10 or 20 minutes at a time. They may ask a question, or make a comment every 5 or 10 minutes. Or, if they are generally curious about what I think, or simply want to learn, then they will listen for as long as an hour or so, and my extemporaneous talk will actually be a small essay. Such dialogue is not common but it does occur among certain gatherings of people with specialized interests, and some deep foundation.

I guess Ayn Rand had long speeches in her novels as a vehicle to expound her doctrine.

But, consider the situation of people sitting around a fire (or fireplace) listening to a veteran tell a long war story. Or, perhaps, an old story teller is entertaining some children. Such narrative is a naturally occuring aspect of human speech.

Try to study pages of dialogue from various novelists, like Hemingway, who will be very terse, to Proust, who will perhaps have long rambling monologues.

Perhaps you could get a volunteer or two to role play with you, with the tape recorder on, sort of like an oral story board to sketch out what you wish to accomplish. Outline your ideas for what the dialogue will cover or convey.

I wonder which novelists might be considered the best examples of natural dialogue.

Anyway, I am just sort of dashing off some thoughts, brainstorming, in reaction to your post. Hope something here helps.
 
Vespertilio91 said:
Valkyrie

The only problem with that for me is that my characters are so different from how I think that I cannot imagine what they would say, just what I want them to. I probably sound really dumb right now, but that's how my brain works.

Good advice though.

p.s. eyez0nme--learn to spell dialogue. The u comes after the g.
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You need to interview your own characters. I'll show you how later.
 
If you have lengthy dialogues from characters, make sure you are not using them for the purposes of crude exposition.
 
And yet some people can get away with it magnificently. 'Council of Elrond' anyone?

(I know, genius is the exception.)

But I never cease to be amazed by how Tolkien manages to makes a 10,000 word committee meeting so riveting. Just goes to show that rules can be broken, occasionally.
 
Vespertilio91 said:
Thanks, that's some good advice. I need to see how others talk to help me in my writing.
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Yes, but keep in mind that most people's conversations are boring. They haven't been edited for dramatic effect. So listen to the way they talk--their tones, whether or not they stutter, whether they say things bluntly or imply things, whether or not their speech is punctuated by "like"s and "um"s.

One of the things I learned about writing dialogue is that you really don't write it. Once you have a strong enough character, he/she writes the dialogue for you. It took me forever to get to that point, and sometimes I stumble a little, but letting each character speak for himself or herself makes the dialogue more believable.
 
ValkyrieRaven88 said:
Yes, but keep in mind that most people's conversations are boring. They haven't been edited for dramatic effect.
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When around you, who needs to edit for drama? You supply that fully. ^^
 
My advice is to speak for the character. Get into his/her head. Remember that with dialogue, you can break many rules. Sentence fragments. Bad grammar. Slang, yo! People do not speak perfect in their languages, as we are expected to write. Eavesdrop the people around you. How do they talk to one another?

.........................................................

"Hey, Joe."
"Hey, Bill."
"Going fishing tomorrow?"
"Yeah."
"What for?"
"Trout."
"Funny, my wife smells like fish sometimes."
..........................................................

Of course, you could fill in a little more detail than the above example, but don't you think it sounds better than what is below?

..........................................................

"Hey, Joe, did you hear I was taking my yellow, twenty-foot SeaDoo fishing boat I own out tomorrow to Lake Wimiwikipeepee up in the mountains down south, which I haven't been to for years? I'm saying all of this to you in one giant breath, which seems to last forever, don't you think? I think so. Don't you? Here, I'll let you speak now."

"Yeah, Bill, I did hear you were going to Lake Wimiwikipeepee. I hope you catch a lot of fish like that last time. Normal people don't carry on in long conversation about simple subjects like fishing, do they? Because this is starting to sound weird, as if someone is forcefully putting these words onto paper, stuffing them into my head, and making me say them syllable by stupid syllable. By the way, what type of fish are you fishing for? Man, those lures look shiny."

"I thought me and the kids would cruise around for a while, maybe all the way around Lake Wimiwikipeepee a couple of times, and then we'd put on those green and black-stripped trout lures there. You know, for trout."

"Funny, my wife never shuts up. Sometimes she just keeps yaking and yaking and yaking away in longwinded sentences while I force my eyes open to keep on listening to the many unimportant words that come out of her mouth. And sometimes, she smells like fish."

..........................................................

See the difference? Most readers would rather read the first example, because it is closer to reality. Don't be afraid to break rules when it comes to dialogue. Just don't break the wrong ones.
 
sirmyk said:
"Hey, Joe, did you hear I was taking my yellow, twenty-foot SeaDoo fishing boat I own out tomorrow to Lake Wimiwikipeepee up in the mountains down south, which I haven't been to for years? I'm saying all of this to you in one giant breath, which seems to last forever, don't you think? I think so. Don't you? Here, I'll let you speak now."

"Yeah, Bill, I did hear you were going to Lake Wimiwikipeepee. I hope you catch a lot of fish like that last time. Normal people don't carry on in long conversation about simple subjects like fishing, do they? Because this is starting to sound weird, as if someone is forcefully putting these words onto paper, stuffing them into my head, and making me say them syllable by stupid syllable. By the way, what type of fish are you fishing for? Man, those lures look shiny."

"I thought me and the kids would cruise around for a while, maybe all the way around Lake Wimiwikipeepee a couple of times, and then we'd put on those green and black-stripped trout lures there. You know, for trout."

"Funny, my wife never shuts up. Sometimes she just keeps yaking and yaking and yaking away in longwinded sentences while I force my eyes open to keep on listening to the many unimportant words that come out of her mouth. And sometimes, she smells like fish."
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Wow, that version was boring. You could be a textbook writer. You can make even the simplest things seem complicated just like Biology class. ^^
 
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