Smoothing Out Your Dialogue

by

Louis Martinez

People talk, and in a story, that takes the form of dialogue. There’s little we can do to get around it, especially when multiple characters are involved. And a story with but a single character may still have internal dialogue.

You can certainly write stories without it, but many stories, dare I say most, will probably have a decent amount of dialogue in them. Therefore, we must know how to handle such a delicate craft.

Everyone will develop their own personal dialogue style. This is part of what makes storytelling so special, the uniqueness of each individual tale. But, to help anyone who may be struggling to find what works for them, allow me to share what works for me. It may just nudge you in the direction you’ve been looking for.

However, first thing first. When it comes to conversations, new character equals new paragraph. When someone else starts speaking, it’s time to press Enter. Don’t put two different characters’ words into the same paragraph. This isn’t so much a personal preference as a rule of writing.

Now, when I write dialogue, I try to mix the character’s words into the same paragraph as their actions as much as possible. This helps alleviate overuse of “he said,” “she said.” It also sounds more mature, and less like the books we use to teach children how to talk.

An example of my style in use:

John opened the ominous barrel, greeting his nostrils to the most horrid stench the world had ever known. “Wow. That’s got quite a kick to it?”

The affront to sinuses everywhere reached Jane just as quick, and hit her just as hard. “Uck. What is that?” She tried to wave away the scent, but to no avail. It sunk into her lungs with a desperate, heavy grip.

“I don’t even want to know.”

“Close it.”

The first paragraph reveals the first speaker through his interaction with the word, as the next paragraph does for the second speaker, all the while avoiding “he said” and “she said.” After that, it’s clear who’s talking during their brief exchange that follows by the different paragraphs denoting different speakers, even though names are not mentioned.

Again, this is just how I like to write dialogue. My wonderful teachers introduced me to numerous methods, and this was the one I found the most satisfying and intuitive. Writing dialogue can be tricky, and it’s important to develop a style of your own that flows efficiently and is fun to read.

So, get out there and get typing. Find your style and make it shine. There are lots of stories that need telling, and you can’t finish before you start. It’s up to you to put those words on the page and get those characters talking.

Pop or Soda? Using Dialogue to Create Regional Characters

by

Kathryn Page Camp

 

Writers often create characters who aren’t native to the story setting. Giving these individuals particular dialogue traits makes it easy for readers to identify them during a conversation, but it can also provide hazards for the writer. Then there are those stories where all the characters come from the same region but the region itself has a distinctive dialect.

 

We can create regional characters by using regional speech patterns. Those patterns contain three components: pronunciation, grammar, and word usage. All affect dialect.

 

And each component has its own pitfalls.

 

Pronunciation

 

Some writers (e.g., Mark Twain) portray dialect sounds very well, but most don’t. You’ve probably read at least one book where you had to stop and try to figure out what the character was saying. That takes the reader out of the story, which is a cardinal sin.

 

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott ends her chapter on dialogue this way:

 

One last thing: dialogue that is written in dialect is very tiring to read. If you can do it brilliantly, fine. If other writers read your work and rave about your use of dialect, go for it. But be positive that you do it well, because otherwise it is a lot of work to read short stories or novels that are written in dialect. It makes our necks feel funny. We are, as you know, a tense people, and we have a lot of problems of our own without you adding to them.

 

But even doing it brilliantly is not enough. You also need to do it right.

 

Dialects have their own pronunciation rules, and if you choose to write a dialect as it sounds, you had better be aware of those rules. Take Bostonian English, which is considered “r-less.” According to linguist Natalie Schilling, Bostonians tend to drop final Rs and Rs that come between a vowel and a consonant, but they never drop initial Rs, Rs that follow a consonant, and those that are inserted between vowels. For example:

 

·         THIS: He missed the pa’ty because he blew a tire when driving around a pa’ked ca’ blocking the road.

·         BUT NOT THIS: He missed the pa’ty because he blew a ti’e when d’iving a’ound a pa’ked ca’ blocking the ‘oad.

 

If you ignore those rules, expect an onslaught of complaints from the Boston area.

 

So how can a writer indicate a character’s regional origins without risking the hazards of bad dialect usage? Try this:

 

Hearing a familiar Southern drawl, I froze. Had Candice returned from vacation already?

 

From now on, we can identify Candice as the speaker by throwing in an occasional “y’all” without attempting to replicate the rest of her speech patterns—at least if she is from Georgia. People from Kentucky have less of a drawl and are more likely to say “you all” than “y’all.” (See https://www.quora.com/How-can-you-tell-apart-the-different-Southern-accents and the Kentucky results from the Harvard Dialect Survey, mentioned below.)

 

Grammar

 

Pronunciation and grammar are the ends of a sliding scale. Is using “git” for “get” primarily pronunciation or primarily grammar? I’d argue that it can be easily identified as either, putting it in the middle of the scale.

 

Most people don’t consider the use of pa’ty as a grammatical issue, so it fits on the pronunciation end. Then there are those practices that come down clearly on the grammar side. Take a-prefixing in Appalachian English, which is the practice of adding “a” before an “ing” verb (and dropping the “g” at the end)—think “a-goin’ a-fishin’.” As with Bostonian r-lessness, however, a-prefixing also has rules. An a-prefix can be attached to “ing” verbs but not to gerunds, adjectives, or objects of prepositions, even if those words also end with “ing.” (See http://theweek.com/articles/461642/grammar-rules-behind-3-commonly-disparaged-dialects.)

 

So if you are going to use either pronunciation or grammar to create a regional character, make sure you know the rules.  

 

Word Usage

 

When we talk about dialect, we usually mean pronunciation and sometimes grammar, but word usage is also important. Do you say “pop” or “soda?” If your character grew up in Michigan and calls it “soda,” be prepared for another onslaught of complaints from all those Michiganders who know better.

 

Using data from the Harvard Dialect Survey, the graphic at the head of this post shows word differences between people from Illinois or Michigan (on the left side) and people from Pennsylvania (on the right side). I didn’t include Indiana because those of us who live in the northern part of the state talk more like people from Illinois or Michigan rather than people from the rest of Indiana.*

 

It’s usually easy to get our own region’s dialogue right because we know it when we hear it, but other regions can be filled with booby-traps. So where can a writer go to keep from making regional errors?

 

Here are a few resources.

·         Use this link from the Harvard Dialect Survey to discover usages in the various states. https://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/states.html. Just click on the state you want for a breakdown.

·         This link is for the Atlas of North American English: http://www.atlas.mouton-content.com/

·         And here is a link to the Dictionary of American Regional English: http://dare.wisc.edu/.

 

Finally, and just for fun, take the Harvard Dialect Survey to see how well your speech reflects your roots. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html?_r=0

__________

 

* Southern Illinois might align more with southern Indiana, but the Illinois figures are heavily influenced by the Chicago results.

__________

 

Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed attorney and full-time writer. Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection for April 2014. The second edition of Kathryn’s first book, In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion, was released on September 30, 2015. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.



 

Making Your Characters Say the Right Things: Tips on Writing Effective Dialogue

by

Dr. Anastasia Trekles

 

You may have heard lots of advice on the subject of dialogue-writing. Indeed, you may have sought out all of that advice because it’s just so darn tricky sometimes to capture your characters’ voices in text. After all, it’s tough to capture the subtleties of language through the written word alone, so as writers, we often compensate by throwing in little tidbits to help the reader see the nuances of tone, inflection, and diction along with the words the characters say. There are lots of ways to do this well, and some ways to . . . well, overdo it. Let’s look at three basic tips you might try to practice.

 

1.      We don’t always speak grammatically.

 

Have you ever noticed the way people actually talk to each other? Our sentences run on and on, and sometimes they simply don’t end at all. We string phrases together in odd ways, and unless you’re the Queen Mum, you have probably thrown in some outright grammatically incorrect colloquialisms when talking to your friends from time to time. This is normal in today’s American English-speaking, Facebook-using, 140-character Tweeting society (and it holds true in lots of other languages, too).

 

However, many times when we write, we feel we must adhere to standard grammatical conventions, even in dialogue. This isn’t wrong, of course, but, your characters definitely don’t need to sound like the Queen Mum, and in fact, you can build a lot of characterization into the way they speak.

 

Consider these two lines:

 

·         “I’m going to the store. I need to get out of here for a while.”

·         “I’m going to the store . . . got to get out of this place.”

 

They both convey the same essential idea. But the second item arguably has more punch just based on word choice and the use of ellipsis to hold the phrases together. Often in writing dialogue, an ellipsis can emphasize speech that is trailing off, indicating the person may be “daydreaming,” feeling out of sorts, sad, or searching for the right words in a difficult situation. Other helpful punctuation you might not use that often includes the em-dash and the semicolon, such as:

 

·         “They didn’t state the reason – at least, not to me.”

·         “I miss my kids so much; they were my whole life.”

 

Note that while these tools are available, don't feel like you have to use them all the time. Too many dashes, ellipses, and semicolons can make for a difficult read.

 

2.      You don’t always have to announce the speaker.

 

As mentioned in last week’s blog post, dialogue tags aren’t always necessary. Many writers feel obliged to ensure we know who is speaking, each time they say something, but typically, as long as we have context, you don’t have to tell the reader over and over again. For example, when you have only two speakers in an exchange, once the order of their speaking is established, there’s no point in continuing to say that he said this and she said that. Instead, you can get straight to it, and the reader is unlikely to be confused.

 

            David and Martha looked at each other as David put Martha’s hand in his.

            “Look, I’m really sorry,” he told her, trying hard to maintain eye contact.

            “Well, you really hurt my feelings. Why would you do that?”

            “I just . . .  I wasn’t thinking. Can you forgive me?”

            “I don’t know – let me think about it for a while.” She snagged her hand back and rested it into her lap.

 

Note the avoidance of adverbs in this exchange as well. Sometimes we use them to help emphasize how a speaker says something (i.e., “he said passionately”). This is all well and good but again, there is such a thing as too much.

 

3.      Pay attention to diction – but don’t go off the deep end.

 

Word choice, slang usage, and dialect can help place your characters within a historical or geographic context. However, a character’s use of diction doesn’t have to be relegated to whether he or she says “ain’t” or “isn’t,” and in fact, you can make a character’s voice very difficult (or even offensive) to read if you try too hard. Something as simple as using shorter sentences or simpler vocabulary for a more direct, rude, or less educated speaker might be just as effective as trying to convey an accent or heap on the slang.

 

Consider To Kill a Mockingbird. American Southern diction is found in much of the dialogue, such as this early statement from Jem:

 

"Shoot no wonder, then," said Jem, jerking his thumb at me. "Scout yonder's been readin' ever since she was born, and she ain't even started to school yet. You look right puny for goin' on seven."

 

For those of us not used to this speaking style, it can be difficult to fully understand in one read. On the other hand, we also get an instant and vibrant picture of young Jem based on his words alone. You don’t even have to have read the book to get something more than just what was said from that one line of dialogue. So, in this case, Harper Lee’s use of diction is very effective. Yours can be, too; just be mindful that your word choice is not so alien to the reader that they need a slang dictionary to understand your work.

 

There are many other ways to refine your dialogue, of course, and there is no perfect science to it. As long as the moods and personalities of your characters shine through when they speak, you can play with language and structure as much as you like. Practice. Have fun with it. In fact, the best advice that anyone ever gave me was very simple: read it out loud to yourself. If you can hear your characters leaping out of the page, and they don’t sound like they’re in a bad B-movie, then you’re on the right track.

__________

Dr. Anastasia Trekles is a clinical professor of education and English at Purdue University Northwest. Somewhere amongst the various academic works she has published, she also has a few works of fiction available, including her recently released novel, Core, available at http://www.zelda23publishing.com.



Who Said That?

by

Kathryn Page Camp

 

www.kathrynpagecamp.com

 

 

Dialogue can be tricky. First, there is the problem of how much or how little to use, which may depend on genre. An action novel usually has less dialogue than a love story. But in neither case should the conversation be true-to-life. The reader doesn’t want to hear the small talk that occurs around the breakfast table—unless that small talk betrays the protagonist’s anxiety or has some other link to the story. The same is true for the uhs and ahs of normal conversation—leave them out unless they show the speaker’s hesitancy to answer a key question.

 

But this blog post isn’t about those issues. Instead, it will concentrate on the question that troubles most writers much of the time: How do I make sure my readers know who is talking without interrupting the story’s flow?

 

Most writers default to using dialogue tags. Some writers are horrified at the very idea. Oh no, never! In their view, dialogue tags were created by the devil. But if you read their own works, you’ll be surprised at the number of dialogue tags that creep in. Still, since dialogue tags should be the last resort, I’ll address them at the end.

 

Action

 

Action can be a good way to show who is speaking, although that should never be its sole purpose. When used correctly, action has the added benefit of providing information about the speaker or the setting. Consider these two examples:

 

Bob slammed his fist on the table. “He’s a liar.” (Showing that Bob is angry as well as attributing the statement to him.)

 

“I can’t lend you any money.” Mavis flung her mink stole across a Chippendale chair, barely missing the Ming vase on the stand next to it. “I’ll be going to the poor house soon, myself.” (Showing that Mavis lives a life contrary to her words.)—Okay, that one is probably over the top, but you get the picture.

 

The action must fit, however. Characters can only drink so many cups of coffee during a five-minute conversation, and even one may be too many. I’m guilty of this, but at least I know it. Some writers seem to think that any action is fine as long as the speaker is doing it. For example:

 

Tom buttered his toast. “I got fired from my job yesterday.”

 

If the only reason an action is inserted is to identify the speaker, it will sound that way. Find another way to show who is speaking.

 

Using Names

 

The use of names in dialogue can identify the speaker by process of elimination. If John and Mary meet on the street, which character is talking here?

 

“How did the meeting go, John?”

 

Obviously, Mary must be speaking. But this technique can be misused, too. In real life, we seldom say another person’s name when talking directly to them. Once she had John’s attention, Mary would simply ask, “How did the meeting go?” So don’t use the name of the person being addressed unless it sounds natural.

 

Two-People Conversations

 

If you have only two people in a conversation, you may not need attributions once you have identified the first speaker. Consider this:

 

Mary took Dan’s coat and hung it in the closet. “How was your day?”

 

“Boring, as usual. I wish I could quit, but we need the money.”

 

“Well, dinner should cheer you up. I made your favorite meal.”

 

“Spaghetti?”

 

“Yes.”

 

This conversation is as boring as Dan’s job, but at least the reader can follow it. If it went on for any longer, however, we would need an occasional attribution to remind readers who is speaking. Action works well for attribution here because it also adds more life to the scene. (In this particular example, you might also want to ask whether you need it at all, but it gets my point across.)

 

Unique Voices

Sometimes you can tell who is speaking just by how they speak or what they say. Teenagers talk differently than their parents, so in a three-way conversation you may only need to include attributions for the parents. Or if Karl has recently emigrated from Germany, we know that he is the one talking when we hear this:

 

“I can the question not answer.”

 

No attribution is necessary.

 

Dialogue Tags

 

Although writers should avoid dialogue tags when we can, sometimes we do need them. Even so, they shouldn’t be too obvious. “Karen articulated,” “David exclaimed,” and “she cautioned” all make the reader stumble over the story. With rare exceptions, stick to “said” and “asked,” which tend to disappear on the page. (Unless you are looking for them because you are counting up the number of times they are used by a writer who disparages dialogue tags.)

 

The rare exception I recognize is where a particular dialogue tag is the most effective way of conveying a message, such as using “she whispered” to show that the character doesn’t want to be heard. Even so, it is better to have your character simply gasp than to have her gasp out her words. And if your character is lying, let the reader figure it out from the context rather than saying “she lied.”

 

Experiment with different ways to attribute dialogue to your characters. But if nothing else feels natural, there is nothing wrong with “said” and “asked.” Even the best writers use those words at time.

 

Just count them up.

__________

Kathryn Page Camp is a licensed attorney and full-time writer. Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words Legal was a Kirkus’ Indie Books of the Month Selection for April 2014. The second edition of Kathryn’s first book, In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion, was released on September 30, 2015. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.