Mary Rosenblum has published three SF novels, four mysteries, and more than 60 short stories in multiple genres as well as nonfiction. She also teaches writing, and has for many years. Her fourth novel, Horizon, will be released from Tor Books in 2006.

 

 

Putting Dialogue to Work

By Mary Rosenblum

 

            Most novice writers have trouble with dialogue.  The words seem so reasonable, but they tend to read ‘flat’ on the page.   Dialogue is actually a complex interchange that goes beyond mere words, and for some help with those technical basics, read Creating Realistic Dialogue  in Writing Craft: Character Development.  Once you have begun to master the technique of effective dialogue, you can begin to use it as a very powerful tool in your fiction or personal narrative. 

 

Not Just for Conversation Anymore

            Initially, novice writers add dialogue without much thought.  Character A says something, Character B replies and on we go.  Conversation is the only effect.  But that is merely the beginning.  With a bit of thought and attention, dialogue can increase the power and impact of a scene and allow you, the author, to avoid telling the reader information.  Dialogue can serve three purposes.  It can show the reader the landscape, convey character emotion, and shovel information to the reader without a single bit of telling on the author’s part.   In effect, it can be used as a type of ‘shorthand’, avoiding the risk of bogging down a scene with excessive description or intruding on the story to dump information in the author’s voice, jolting the readers out of their engagement with the story. 

 

Doing Two Things at Once

            If you think about it, in real life, we see and hear simultaneously.  That is the effect you need to create with your dialogue.  One of the least effective scenes you can write is the ‘talking heads’ scene where two people simply talk nonstop without a single glimpse of the setting.  The effect is that of listening with your eyes closed…not something we do very often. 

            Action tags allow you to insert beats of visuals and avoid overusing ‘said’ or substituting one of the less successful ‘saidisms’ such as announced, proclaimed, replied, or any of those words you probably learned in grade school.  If we see the character in action, we automatically assume the previous line of dialogue was spoken by this person, and the character’s action can show us the  scene. 

            “I promise, I’ll be back.”  Garth grabbed the reins and swung onto his horse’s back.  “In a week at the most.” 

            “You’d better be.”  Serius glowered from beneath his thick brows.  “I will  hold  you to it. I will break my oath of silence and tell you this much:  If you fail us, the Queen will die.  Thus speaks the oracle.”

            “You worry too much, old man. Your ghosts are old and toothless.”   Garth raised his long bow in a blithe salute, then kicked the horse into a canter  down the forest trail. 

            Here, we readers see quite a bit as we hear Garth’s promise.  We see the horse as he swings onto its back.  We see Seriuus with his thick brows and glower.  We see a forest trail, so of course that implies forest, with trees, underbrush, sky overhead…all of that.    Our bit of dialogue has refreshed the scenery in the readers’ mind’s eye. 

 

Tinting With Emotion

          Dialogue and its action tags allow us to show readers our character’s emotions without needing to step in and tell everyone how our characters are feeling.   In our previous example, we instantly know that Serius is upset or angry.  Why?  He glowers.  His facial expression gives away his mood, even though he may not be our Point of View character and so we cannot share his feelings. 

            Garth, on the other hand, is far from upset or angry.  He clearly is not impressed by Serius’s warning and as he raises that bow in a blithe salute, his blithe gesture confirms that he is unmoved by Serius’s concerns here.  We have a clear sense of the emotional state of each of these characters, all conveyed in this single, brief exchange of dialogue.

 

Dialogue as Info Dump

            Dialogue’s third use is to convey information to the reader quickly and efficiently.  We are constantly feeding information to the reader and we use many tools to accomplish that in fiction.  Ideally, your readers will find every clue for themselves, just as we learn things in real life.  No voice breaks into our day to tell us, That new employee is really a plant, sent to spy on the new product by a rival company.   We may begin to suspect our new employee when we find him rifling through wastebaskets while everyone is at lunch, or sneaking into computer files, but nobody tells us this.  You want to let your readers discover clues and information the same way, by seeing events and realizing what they mean.  

            Of course, a fellow employee might tell us that he saw the newcomer breaking into those files and rifling through wastebaskets.  It takes that person only a couple of minutes to share his suspicions with us while it might take us days or weeks before we realized what our newcomer was up to.  You can use the same shortcut with dialogue.  Let’s take a look at our Garth and Serius example.  Here, we learn from Serius that if Garth fails his mission – whatever it is – the Queen will die.  An oracle has predicted it and Serius had sworn not to mention it.  Clearly, Garth pays little attention to this forecast, but we readers might know better, depending on what has come before this in the book.   We now know that the Queen is in serious danger if Garth fails.  It might have taken us an entire scene of carefully planted clues to come to the same conclusion.  We might also guess from this that Serius will later pay for his oath-breaking.   We have learned a lot of information from that single pair of dialogue lines.

 

Sharpen the Dialogue Tool

            Do beware of ‘as we all know’ dialogue.  This is when two characters tell each other information each one already knows.  Obviously they would not do this in real life!

            “Well, Mom, we’re driving down Main Street on our way to the supermarket.”

            “Yes, Angela.”  Her mother smiled at her.  “And we’re going to buy a gallon of milk and some nice fresh bread.”

            Clearly this is not realistic  conversation even though it gives us the information we might need – where they are going and why.  Your job as author is to create a situation that allows characters to realistically give the reader information. 

            “Mom, why can’t you drop me at Kelly’s house?”  Angela crossed her arms and pouted.  “I mean we’re on Main and she’s only over on Oak.”

            “Because I have to get to the supermarket and pick up the milk and bread you forgot to buy before your father gets home and throws a fit.”  Her mother’s lips tightened.  “And I do not have time to run you all over town to hang out with your friends.  Especially when you can’t even do the one simple chore you were assigned.”

            Here we have the same information; Main Street, market, bread, and milk.  But now our characters have a reason to mention them.  Mom is angry because Angela forgot to buy milk and thus she is not going to take her to her friend’s house.  Now they have a reason to mention Main, supermarket, bread, and milk. 

            Work on perfecting your dialogue and then use it intentionally to add to the impact of your story or narrative.  Intentionally create dialogue moments where character interactions can offer necessary information to the reader, reveal character emotions, or refresh the reader’s image of the setting.  Dialogue is one of the most potent tools in your writer’s toolkit.  Keep its uses in mind, next story or narrative you write.