Realistic Conversations
Let’s keep talking about what makes good dialogue. As I worked on the last blog, I started to realize that a big theme of making good dialogue is making realistic dialogue. Basically, anything strange, awkward, or unnatural will cause the reader to stumble. We have to make a choice to ignore the fact that the conversation is weird, and just take from it what we can. Don’t do this to your reader.
Most people think that when things are written you need to use a formal writing voice all the time. There are many exceptions to this rule, and one of the biggest is dialogue. Dialogue should sound natural, the way real people talk. Granted, the topics of their conversations might be a little wild, hence the story, but no one wants to read a conversation that they can’t imagine themselves into.
My suggestion: Listen. Listen to real life conversations. Develop an ear for peoples’ styles. Give your characters voice styles too. Listen to what idioms are used. Listen to what sounds natural, and what grabs your attention.
I’ve noticed many idioms that have gone out of use just in the last 10 years. Pay attention to these things. Out of date idioms are corny.
There is one big difference between talking in real life and the talking that happens in a story. In real life, people talk all the time. Most of it is unnecessary. We do it because we’re social being s and we like to interact with others.
I’ve been told that in writing, everything needs to have a purpose. Dialogue should be used to further the plot. I don’t know if I agree. Dialogue is a great opportunity to communicate things to the reader. However, I find it very annoying when this is obvious. Some passages you can just point to and realize that the author only put it in to convey something to the reader; it’s not a conversation that would happen naturally. Be subtle.
In think you make a good point, but keep in mind that truly realistic dialogue, as in the discourse between people in everyday conversations, is stilted, full of extraneous utterances like "ummm" and "uh," and repetitions. Most readers won't have the patience to slog through that sort of thing, so all dialogue in published works tends to be polished, even in nonfiction.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it is definitely possible to make dialogue hammy and contrived, which is something all authors should strive to avoid. In the end, like most things, I think it's about striking a balance between dialogue ripped directly from a conversation on the street, and wannabe Shakespearean diction.