Dynamic Dialogue: Bring Conversation and Life to Your Writing
The Gift of Gab
Dialogue is an important tool that every writer should strive to master. Good dialogue does the following:
- It yanks the reader into the story, rather than keeping him at arm’s length, as a casual observer.
- It gives valuable insight into each character – his socioeconomic and educational background, his mannerisms, his thought processes, his reactions to others, his attitude.
- It provides clues about the time period and setting.
- It helps keep you from getting bogged down in lengthy narration, provided you don’t let your speaker get bogged down in lengthy narration.
Good dialogue is dialogue that is essential to the story or to the readers’ understanding of the character. It always serves a purpose – either it moves the story forward towards its conclusion, or it illustrates an important facet of the speaker’s character. Good dialogue is not idle chit-chat.
Writing Believable Dialogue
Believable or natural dialogue is not the same as “real speech.” Listen to a group of people talking in a restaurant (yes, of course – eavesdrop!). Record them, or attempt to faithfully jot down what’s said. Real, everyday speech is not very interesting to the casual observer, for the most part. It won’t be interesting to your readers, either. How many real conversations have you heard that are devoid of annoying little lack-of-forethought time fillers, like “well,” “you know,” “uh,” “um,” “like,” and so on? A well-placed “uh” or “um” can render dialogue more believable, but use them very sparingly to avoid turning your dialogue into a sleep aid.
Good dialogue should sound natural. One of the best ways to gauge this is to read it aloud, or ask a friend to read it aloud to you. Subvocalize, if you’re very shy. If your tripping over the words, or getting your tongue wrapped around your eyeteeth and can’t see what you’re saying, then it’s not natural.
Try to make dialogue match character. Consider the character’s socioeconomic status and background. A guttersnipe speaks differently than a college professor. Consider “My Fair Lady.” It would be easy to distinguish Henry Higgins from Eliza Doolittle, even if the same person read their lines. As Eliza learns, she is more careful and precise in her speech, even, than Higgins – because she is conscious of and cares about the perceptions of others. To her, it is not a game. He can afford to be casual in his speech, even though it is not truly in his nature to be; she cannot.
Use dropped terminal consonants (doin’, goin’, seein’, wanna, gimme, etc.), contractions (don’t, wouldn’t, didn’t, etc.), profanity and slang if the character would naturally use them. Pretend your mother and your Fifth Grade English teacher will never read your work. You can’t be a real writer and live in fear that someone will be shocked to learn that you know “those words.” Consider using profanity when it’s out of character to give dialogue “shock value.” For example, if the preacher’s wife runs across a dead body in her geranium bed, she’s not likely to say, “Oh, dear, it’s a corpse.” She might actually scream and yell a bad word. It’ll get the reader’s attention if you suddenly have a well-established character act out of character. That said, remember that profanity is the last resort of little minds, and use it sparingly – for deliberate effect.
Show – don’t tell! Make sure your characters understand this rule. Using dialogue to relate past events may tempt you to tell the story in between quotation marks. Don’t let one character simply narrate the whole story. Dialogue should give us insight into each character’s unique traits – it’s your opportunity, regardless of the point of view from which you’ve chosen to write, to give the reader a glimpse of the character’s thoughts and emotions. Use dialogue to show how characters respond to situations and react to one another.
A Few Quick Tips
- Consider the character’s socioeconomic and educational background.
- Give the character a distinctive “pet phrase” or set of commonly-used expressions (e.g., “Valley Girl” speech). Be careful not to exaggerate speech mannerisms to the point of annoying the reader; a little seasoning in the pot works better than dumping in a whole jar of spice.
- Show, don’t tell! Avoid academic or wordy statements, unless they reflect a character trait.
- Use contractions, dropped letters (goin’, doin’, etc.) slang, profanity, accents, etc. with deliberate intent.
- Recognize when characters are likely to relate past events in present tense.
AVOID:
- Unnecessary repetition of a phrase or idea.
- Small talk that doesn’t illustrate character OR move the story forward.
- Having one character address another by name (they know to whom they are talking; it should be clear enough to your reader in context and by other means)
- Wordy, academic, stiff, stilted phrases rolling off your characters’ tongues, unless it’s a character trait.
Notes on Formatting Dialogue
- Dialogue starts and ends with quotation marks: “ and ”
- If one speaker’s lines extend beyond one paragraph, each paragraph of dialogue opens with opening quotation marks (“); the last paragraph ends with closing quotation marks (”).
- Punctuation goes inside the quotation marks: “And so,” explained Liz, “that’s why I killed him.”
- When one speaker is quoting another, the quotation is enclosed in single quotation marks: ‘ and ’ For example: “I told him Liz said ‘Eat more oatmeal.’”
What is Art?
Tony writes:
Digital makes sense for the photojournalist, where mobility and simplicity are key, and it's useful for taking those casual snapshots of besotted friends down at the neighborhood local.
But for "making photographs"? For making art? No.
It's like "painting" a picture using your computer. It's kind of fun to do and what you have when you're done may be superficially terrific, but unless you've actually applied brush to canvas you're no artist. You are merely a technician with a good eye.
What Tony is really getting at, I suspect, is something that all seasoned creative professionals expect of newcomers to the field - that they pay their dues. That they respect and appreciate the hard work that goes into creating something - whether it's a work of art, or literature, or music. But his examples don't really hold up to scrutiny. On the one hand, he says:
In many instances, the darkroom was where the real art was made. The negative was your raw material -- I worked in formats from 35 mm to 8x10, depending on the subject matter and the equipment at hand -- but what you did with it once it was in the enlarger determined whether or not you walked out of there with a "photograph" or merely a "snapshot." What to crop, what to retain? Burning in here, dodging a bit there. Damn. How did that lint get on the negative? Feeling the stop bath sear your cuticles. Choosing the right paper stock.
But he goes on to insult those who've embraced modern technology in the form of digital photography:
It's like "painting" a picture using your computer. It's kind of fun to do and what you have when you're done may be superficially terrific, but unless you've actually applied brush to canvas you're no artist. You are merely a technician with a good eye.
He seems to forget that the knowledge of how to crop, burn, dodge, mix and time chemical baths could also be seen as the work of a "technician with a good eye." Art has always involved the "technology" and tools of its time. Even the caveman had to figure out how to create pigments that would stick to stone walls.
So what is "art"? Is that the question? Or does the real question touch on those uglier things, like "what art is worthy to be called art?" "What is good art?"
As a writer, I have to laugh.
The author of the article may be dead wrong, but lots of photographers and artists read the article and it sparked numerous comments and discussions. I worried, reading some of them, that it might spark a few death threats. We all know what that did for Salman Rushdie's career, though. So, in writers' terms, it must be a great article. The worst condemnation for a writer - and quite probably for any artist - is to be dismissed as uninteresting and roundly ignored.
Now, as for "art," let me just throw a few ideas out there. If a plain, white porcelain urinal can be named "the most influential modern art work of all time" ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4059997.stm), I suggest that some people just need to get over themselves and be a little more open-minded when it comes to judging what constitutes art and what does not. Art, in my opinion, is between the artist with his or her intentions - and the beholder, with his or her perception of the art. Some will like it - some will love it - others will think it's trash. So what? If we all thought alike, there would be no place for art in the world, anyway.
I'm more of a writer than a photographer (though I've been doing reasonably in stock photography, lately). Someone mentioned to me that they write "classic mainstream fiction," and my first thought was, "That's just pompous. 'Classic' is for readers and critics to decide, and only time will prove them right."
Art is a form of expression. You think it's art? It's art. A viewer thinks it's art, even if "art" wasn't on your mind at all when you created it? It's art. Its lasting value is what's really at issue, and whether it has value is up to you, while you live - and then to the artistic community and the art lovers out there.
The caveman probably didn't have some lofty concept of "art" when he created cave paintings. He also didn't have a written language, so this was his "journal" and a lasting record of his accomplishments. He took pride in bringing down the buffalo, and wanted others to remember his feat. That we consider it "art" is a lovely thing - a recognition of mental and expressive talents that went far beyond the ability to bring down meat on the hoof. But meat is important for survival, too - just as art is.
The "birthplace" of art is in the soul, I think. It's in what makes us human - a need to express what's in our minds, hearts, and souls. A need to create something new, maybe to leave a mark that says, "I was here."
Most animals don't create art. That leads to a bit of arrogance in humans, unfortunately. Elephants seem to enjoy painting, so maybe the creation of art is not unique to humans. If humans gave animals the idea of painting, and have "trained" them, to some extent, is it art? I don't know, but I'd sooner have one of these paintings ( http://www.elephantart.com/catalog/thailand.php) hanging on my wall, than Duchamps "Fountain" gracing my foyer:
But, is it art? Many critics claim that art is strictly a human experience--that emotion, intelligence and self-awareness are necessary to legitimately express oneself artistically.
After watching Cholla and Wise work, it's obvious that the horse displays his intelligence and training to create beautiful pieces of art. Every human artist learns technique from some sort of teaching, and his or her environment stimulates the creative process, not unlike Cholla's experience. Maybe humans have put up a barrier as far as what other species are capable of expressing. Maybe Cholla is a real artist.
What do you think? Animal art, by all accounts, is a commercial success. I'm not sure it's just the novelty of animals creating art. After all, "novelty" is one of the defining characteristics of great art - or literature - and I think the BBC News article, "Bidders go ape" ( http://www.elephantart.com/catalog/thailand.php), implies as much by dragging Andy Warhol's Piss Painting into a story that's primarily about works produced by a chimp. I'm not sure I can appreciate Warhol's friends' urinating on copper any more than I do Duchamps' "Fountain," but I wouldn't go so far as to say, "That's not art!"
Sooo...Andy Warhol's Piss Painting on your wall, or a colorful painting by Congo the Chimp? Apparently, Picasso had no problem giving other species their due; he reputedly had one of Congo's works on his wall.
I wonder if Tony Long would acknowledge the animal artists before giving a nod to the human digital artists out there. After all, it must be a hot, sweaty job teaching an elephant to paint.
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For Authors: August 23, 2006 Issue [#1226]
