The Seven Year Speech: Tips for Writing Dialogue in Fiction

I have a love-hate relationship with writing dialogue. Some days I skip over it and other days it's all I want to write. I've been looking for some tips on writing and improving my dialogue and this is what I've gathered so far. Hope some of you find it helpful and please, share any tips you may have too!

Read it!

Always read your writing aloud – you want to make sure that it sounds realistic. Would you actually say something like this in real life? Try to make dialogue sound as natural as possible. Watch out for clichés and oddly archaic sounding conversation bits. Delete unnecessary dialogue, superfluous or filler words, phrases, descriptions, repetitive information that a character may say to clarify a scene or setting (The action in your story should be sufficient to fulfill the imagination of your readers so that they can visualize the scene at hand.) On a similar note, when in doubt, use a VERB. “Verbs are our friends.” Ask yourself: Do my characters sound natural or forced? Are they coherent or all over the place?

Read More!

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, reading can be a great research tool. Look carefully at the dialogue used in other works of fiction and how it effectively fits into a scene, character description, relationship, etc. Ask yourself: Why was it used where it was placed in the story? What was effective about it? What was not effective about it? Could you have written it any differently?

 

Vary word choice.

You don’t want your dialogue to read like this: He said. She Said. She was going to say. He’d said out loud by accident. If he hadn’t said that, he would have said this. Use profanity and slang as little as possible – also be wary of stereotyping. Ask yourself: Is my dialogue active or passive? What makes this word choice better than another? Can I replace any of my dialogue with description? Or a more concrete statement/question/exclamation, etc.?

Congruency

You also want to be cognizant of the relationship between what your character is saying, their personality and the situation. Would your character truly say something like she just did? Or would it be better fit for another character to make such an exclamation? Ask yourself: Does my dialogue have fluency? Is it varied in its rhythm in accord with the story’s tone and setting?

Punctuation

Be wary of punctuation! Don’t go comma crazy. You almost never need exclamation points – the dialogue should infer the expression on its own (and if it doesn’t, think about revising.) Delete any (and ALL) unnecessary dialogue tags. Also, beware of excessive dialogue modifiers (many times you can just put dialogue in quotes with no “she said, he cried, she exclaimed, he pondered,” etc. etc. Ask yourself: Am I punctuating my dialogue correctly? Or am I confusing my reader with commas, apostrophes and tag lines all over the page?

Naming

Do you ever notice that you almost NEVER say another person’s name back to them in casual speech? Try not to have characters use another character’s name in speech to establish identity. If this is necessary in your dialogue, remember, it is most often typical of characters, such as car salesmen. When editing (see below) ask yourself: Are your characters are so individualized by their speech that you don’t even need to use things like “Joanne said.”?

Edit, edit, edit!

I have read over and over (and over) again that the delete key on your computer’s keyboard is your friend. Simplify, combine, make more concrete and clean up your dialogue. You will likely be surprised to find that you can say the same thing in half the amount of words you originally wrote. Ask yourself: What is the purpose for the dialogue here? Does it advance my story? Reveal something new about a character? Does it provide other important information? (Hint: Here are four reasons for dialogue: To convey exposition - to tell us, through the conversations of the characters, what we need to know to make sense of the story; to convey character - to show us what kinds of people we're dealing with; to convey a sense of place and time - to evoke the speech patterns, vocabulary and rhythms of specific kinds of people; and finally, to develop conflict: to show how some people use language to dominate others, or fail to do so.)

I found a web site that has some great (and fun) exercises that are applicable to the art of writing dialogue for fiction. My personal favorites are #1, 2, 4 and 10. If you happen to try any of these, feel free to post the exercise in my comments section. I’d love to see how your interpretation of the dialogue practice turns out!

Please see below for details of refer to their site:

http://www.poewar.com/12-exercises-for-improving-dialogue/

1 Write down the things you say over the course of the day. Examine your own speech patterns. You don’t have to get every word, but you may find that you say less than you think and that your statements are surprisingly short. You might also find that you rarely speak in complete sentences.



2 Find a crowded place such as a restaurant, a bar, or a shopping mall and write down snippets of the conversations you hear. Avoid trying to record whole conversations, just follow along for a brief exchange and then listen for your next target. If you are worried about looking suspicious, you might want to purchase a Palm Pilot, Handspring Visor or other hand-held PDA device. These handy spy tools make it look like you are conducting business or playing with your favorite electronic toy rather than eavesdropping.



3 Test responses to the same question. Think of a question that will require at least a little thought, and ask it of several different people. Compare their responses. Remember that you are focused on their words. Write them down as soon as you can.



4 Record several different TV shows. Some choices include: sitcom, news, drama, talk show, infomercial, sporting event, etc.). Write down a transcript using just the dialog and people’s names. If you don’t know the names, just use a description such as announcer or redheaded woman. You can also transcribe two shows of the same genre, using one show you like and one you dislike. Compare dialog between the fiction and non-fiction programming you recorded. Look for such things as greetings, descriptions of physical actions, complete sentences, slang, verbal ticks (Such as like, you know, uhhhh, well, etc.). Compare how these dialog crutches change according to the show format and quality.



5 Rewrite one or more of the shows in exercise 4 as prose, trying to recreate the show as accurately as possible. Note how easy or difficult it is to work in the entire dialog from the show. Does it seem to flow naturally and read well or does it get in your way. Rewrite again eliminating any dialog you feel is unnecessary. Try not to change any dialog though until your final draft. Work with what you have. Remember that you don’t necessarily have to rewrite the whole show. Do enough to be sure you have the feeling for it.



6 Rewrite one of the transcripts from exercise 4 using as much of the dialog as possible, but changing the scene in as many ways as possible. Change the setting, change the people’s intent, and change the tone. See how easy or difficult it is to give the same words a different intent. Again, do enough to be sure you have the feeling for it.



7 Write the dialog for a scene without using any modifiers. Just write down a conversation as it goes along naturally. After you have completed the dialog, add narrative description, but not dialog tags such as said, shouted or ordered. Instead, try to work the dialog into the action as a logical progression of the statements. Finally, add any dialog tags that are absolutely necessary, and keep them simple such as said, told, or asked. Again, only put them in if you can find not other options. Compare this to the previous dialog you have written and see what you like or dislike about the changes.



8 Write a scene in which one person tells another person a story. Make sure that you write it as a dialog and not just a first person narrative, but clearly have one person telling the story and the other person listening and asking questions or making comments. The purpose of this scene will be both to have the story stand alone as a subject, and to have the characters’ reactions to the story be the focal point of the scene.


9 Write a scene in which one person is listening to two other people have an argument or discussion. For example, a child listening to her parents argue about money. Have the third character narrate the argument and explain what is going on, but have the other two provide the entire dialog. It is not necessary to have the narrator understand the argument completely. Miscommunication is a major aspect of dialog.



10 Write a conversation between two liars. Give everything they say a double or triple meaning. Never state or indicate through outside description that these two people are lying. Let the reader figure it out strictly from the dialog. Try not to be obvious, such as having one person accuse the other of lying. That is too easy.



11 Write a conversation in which no character speaks more than three words per line of dialog. Again, avoid crutches such as explaining everything they say through narration. Use your narration to enhance the scene, not explain the dialog.



12 Write a narrative or scripted scene in which several characters are taking an active role in the conversation. This can be a difficult aspect of dialog to master, because with each additional character, the reader or audience must be able to keep track of the motivations and interests of the individuals involved. This can be especially difficult in prose, where the time between one character speaking and the next can be interrupted by action or description. See how many characters your can sustain within the scene and still have it make sense and be engaging.



I will be looking more closely at the dialogue written in the books I am currently reading and I plan to provide a follow-up post to this one on dialogue soon thereafter. If you have any suggestions for books that you’ve noticed to be extremely well-versed in the art of writing dialogue, please let me know here (either with, title and/or author, or even better yet, with an example of some of the dialogue written).






As always, thanks for reading and Happy Writing!

#Amwriting

I just wanted to apologize to my fellow bloggers for dropping the ball last week and not posting my usual Writer's Wednesday column. Things got really busy between work and (mostly) school; but now that my research paper is done, I am working on some great posts for this week.

One (that I actually started last week but just couldn't get it done in time) is going to be about how writers' use connections in their novel writing. Emily Giffin appears to be a follower of this trend. In her latest book, Heart of the Matter, we see the appearance of Dex and Rachel once again from Something Borrowed. Similarly, in Baby Proof, the lead heroine, Claudia works for a book publishing company and one of her favorite clients is an author from London, named Ethan, who is married to a woman named Darcy and she asks him about how his twin boys, John and Thomas (a reference to characters in Something Blue). I love reading cameos, connections and links like these! They make me smile and reminisce (especially if it was a really great book).

The second blog that I am going to be working on is going to be about using dialogue in writing. I have finally been picking up where I left off (eek! Months ago) in my own novel. Can you believe I even forgot one of the secondary characters names?!!!! That's when you know you are long overdue to get back to writing. Anyways, I worked on a few chapters yesterday, jumping around between chapters 2 and 3. filling in the dialogue I wanted to include to keep the storyline flowing and the chapters in order. I will be exploring the importance of dialogue and how you can reveal so much about characters through its use and examples of how to use it most effectively in your writing.

On another note, just to keep you all up to date on my To Be Read List, I have recently finished reading The Importance of Being Married by Gemma Townley, a new author addition to my list of chick lit faves. I also just finished wrapping up the audio cd of Secrets of a Shoe Addict by Beth Harbison, which to my delightful surprise was a spinoff to her first novel, Shoe Addicts Anonymous. As always, look out for my audio reviews at the Chick Lit Club.

I update my current reading list on Twitter a lot too if you want to follow me there as well. My username is cgraceh and my picture is the same as the cartooon pictured on my blog here:)

Thanks! Write a lot. Read more soon.

The Importance of Being A Character: Revealing Personality through Action & Relationships in Chick Lit

As a psychology major I am constantly studying people – the way they think, the way they behave, the way they talk (and they way they don’t think, don’t behave and don’t talk) and who they are in relationship to other people. Perhaps that is why I am so attracted to the Chick Lit genre as it has been said before that “Chick lit is also a truly fascinating character study”. Every time I read one of Emily Giffin’s books, I am in awe of the depth with which she describes each character. Even greater than I am inspired by the depth of each character, I am more inspired by the way she brings life to each one, whether they are the lead heroine or the token stand-in character sitting on a bus. When I read her books, I find myself thinking about the characters when I’m not reading, wondering what they are doing, how they are feeling after, say, their husband just cheated on them, or their ex-boyfriend just contacted them out of the blue, and I have to remind myself that hey, it’s just a book - these are merely characters in a piece of fiction (a very moving piece of fiction mind you, but, nonetheless they are not real.) For the characters to blur the line of reality, to me, that shows great talent on the part of the author.

It was no surprise to me, then, when I read the line, “The single most important element of your chick-lit novel is your main character.” What readers love about chick-lit is that the heroine is them — but with more attitude, more courage, or maybe just more shoes. She is Everywoman, with quirks and problems that are believable yet larger than life. She’s confident yet insecure. Smart but naive. Loveable yet flawed.

How you create her your main character will depend largely on who you are and whom you’ve come into contact with in your life.” But “As long as the characters live and breathe, not an awful lot need happen. Don’t get too complex.” ~ Freya North

Emily Giffin has been quoted as saying something similar – that not a whole lot happens between the beginning and end of her books, but the character growth and relationships that are drawn out in her stories are incredible.

“The trick to making your characters sound different is to bury yourself really deeply in their head. Become them. Think like they would thinks. Speak like they would speak. Use words they would use. Today we're going to focus on using POV to make your characters stand out from each other.” ~ Stephanie Rowe

I love this quote because it reminds me of what I’ve heard from many authors, including one of my most favorites, Emily Giffin. I heard Ms. Giffin say in an interview after the audio version of Love the One You’re With, that before she even thinks about putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), she spends much time (months even!) getting to know her characters. I have heard other authors mimic similar advice, saying that before they begin writing, they know their characters inside and out. They know what their characters will be wearing on Tuesday, eating for breakfast on Thursday and where they will be going out Friday night better than they know their own plans! For me, this is something to aspire to as a “wannabe” chick lit writer. So far, as I work on writing my first Chick Lit novel, I have followed a wonderful outline (because in addition to my love for post-it notes, I love to be organized) from See Jane Write: A Girl’s Guide to Writing Chick Lit by Sarah Mlynowski and Farrin Jacobs:

Character Sketch

Answer the following questions about your characters:

Name     
Age
Physical description
Education
Five words that describe her personality
Her dream job, or dream life
Where does she work? Is she good at her job? Why? Or why not?
Things that annoy her
Her bad habits
What people like about her
Her roadblocks to happiness
The person she should trust most (and why)
Her dream guy
The person she trusts most (and why)
The worst day of her life
Before the book began, the best day of her life
What she does to relax

I’ve included some of my own questions/categories as I’ve moved along in my quest to “Get to Know My Characters.” For instance, I added “Birthday and Zodiac Sign Traits & Qualities”, “How She Met the Lead Character/Relationship to Main Character”. The list of questions, fill-in-the-blanks and other data you can gather about your character is virtually endless.


Other great advice I’ve received about characters - You don’t want your characters to be carbon copies of anyone, including yourself, for that matter. Think about it: There can only be one Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, one Elle Woods from Legally Blonde, one Beauty from Beauty and the Beast and the list goes on. Another pitfall of the “carbon copy” character – you don’t want your character to fall into any one stereotype or become a cliché. Especially in chick lit, many “type” characters have been overly cast and done to death. Some examples include the gay friend, the evil boss, the overbearing mother and the bubbly and near-perfect best friend. Here is a list from the Chick Lit Club’s Top Ten unforgettable (and unmistakable) Characters:

1. Bridget Jones - Helen Fielding

She makes you laugh, cringe and cheer. No woman sums up the life of a chain-smoking, social-drinking, weight-watching singleton better than Bridget.

2. Rebecca Bloomwood - Sophie Kinsella

Who wouldn't love this whirlwind with maxed-out credit cards? And the best bit is we can follow the Shopaholic's antics through five books.

3. Miranda Priestley - Lauren Weisberger

The female villain of The Devil Wears Prada is cruel, rude and overdemanding, and of course, exquisitely dressed. She'll definitely make you feel better about your own boss.

4. Walsh sisters - Marian Keyes

These Irish sisters have certainly added a few grey hairs to their parents' heads - there's Claire whose husband left on the day their baby was born; Rachel whose fondness for recreational drugs led her to a rehab clinic; Maggie who left her husband to head for LA; Anna who gets badly injured and Helen who never seems to be in work.

5. Tracie Martin - Alison Kervin

She may not be quite Posh Spice but Tracie is Queen of the WAGs in our book. Who else perfects the WAG look of orange skin, yellow hair, indecently short skirts and tower-high heels - while still being a charming, yet somewhat, clueless character.

6. Rose Feller - Jennifer Weiner

Apart from sharing a shoe size, attorney Rose is so unlike her wild sister Maggie. But in In Her Shoes, Rose learns to live a different type of life.

7. Rosie Dunne - Cecelia Ahern
From a naughty schoolgirl passing notes in class to a single mother trying to forge a career, we are with Rosie through several decades of her life and pray she'll get together with her soulmate in Where Rainbows End/Love, Rosie

8. Rachel White and Darcy Rhode - Emily Giffin

These best friends fall out over the same man but in Something Borrowed, then Something Blue your sympathies will swing between the pair.

9. Jemima Jones - Jane Green
You'll be right behind Jemima J as she undergoes her transformation to look like her altered after photo.

10. Kettle sisters (Cat, Lyn and Gemma) - Liane Moriarty
Right from the opening restaurant fight, the triplets of Three Wishes will leave a lasting impression.


In my journey to create a few (im)perfect characters of my own, I have learned that characters can be revealed in a variety of ways. Like the study of people in psychology, you can learn so much about characters through dialogue, action and relationships with other characters in novels.

Use dialogue to show your character — “A gushy person might say “darling” a lot, an older person will speak differently from a younger person. When a man doesn’t say much it adds to his mystique.” ~ Fiona Walker

1. Dialogue should be brief.

2. It should add to the reader’s present knowledge.

3. It should eliminate the routine exchanges of ordinary conversation.

4. It should convey a sense of spontaneity but eliminate the repetitiveness of real talk.

5. It should keep the story moving forward.

6. It should be revelatory of the speaker’s character, both directly and indirectly.

7. It should show the relationships among people.

-Elizabeth Bowen

As I read and observe the writing of other great authors, I’ve learned that the best practice behind character writing is to avoid giving all information and background through pure description (yawn!). For example, I just finished reading The Bachelorette Party by Karen McCullah Lutz (co-writer of Legally Blonde and 10 Things I Hate About You, among many other screenplays) and I was in awe of the information that came out about each character through the short chapters that made up this 256 page novel. Never before had I read an author who made such excellent use of every inch of paper she had! Despite the brevity of print, with each passing page, full of dialogue and (even more) action, I found myself getting more than acquainted with every character. While I had a hard time keeping track of the characters on page 5, by page 100 I could tell you exactly what type of woman Jane was versus Betsey, Marci, Kim, Helen, Skinny, Snotty or Zadie. An excellent piece of advice, however, Don’t force your character(s) to behave a certain way simply because that’s what you need her to do to make the story move from point A to point Hopeful Ending. If it doesn’t feel true, you may need to rework that particular plot point. The Bachelorette Party took on a life its own and despite some of the incredulous events that occurred, the fast pace action was highly entertaining and kept me interested, invigorated and eager tot urn the page. I know for me, that is the type of book I want to write – one where readers say, “Wow, I hope there is a sequel”; “I hope we get to find out what happens next in [insert main character’s name here]’s life”; or “I hope this book is turned into a movie”.

Finally, every character in a story must relate to the protagonist in some way (otherwise, there is no point for their existence in the plot). One great way of keeping track of your own story is to make a family tree, connecting each character to the main character and then (if applicable) to each other. Through their relationships, each and every character has the opportunity to reveal something new about the story’s heroine (or hero). For example, the antagonist is often what drives the heroine forward, leading to the story’s climax. *I have heard that making the Antagonist multidimensional is just as important as creating a well-rounded main character. Look at Gregory Maguire’s books – they are all built on a classic fairy tale, but told for the perspective of the evil nemesis, like the Wicked Witch off the West in Maguire’s Wicked or Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister’s Iris. Other key relationships in fiction include the “foil”, who has the ability to bring out the main character’s best and worst qualities. In Shopaholic and Sister, Becky Bloomwoods’s newfound sister turns out to be a great character addition to the series, adding more depth to the Shopaholic that we already love and know so much about. Through their relationship, we, as readers, are able to see many more sides to Becky, some more noble than others. In fact, each character who crosses Becky’s path reveals something different about the Shopaholic. Between her husband to be, Luke Brandon, best friend, Suze, parents and even bill collector, Derek Smeath, we learn so much about Becky, from being an adorable, loving, naïve, and innocent financial editor who hates her job to the manipulative, scheming, smart and funny woman who will do anything to maintain her addiction to coordinating shoes and handbags and clothes. It is the whole mess of traits, qualities and imperfections that made me intrigued to read more…and more and more…and with one blockbuster movie already under her belt, the success of Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic series moves onto its 7th novel, due later this year.

All in all, you want to make sure to create likable characters. While chick lit is edgy and has been called “fiction with attitude,” the main character needs to be likable. Making her too strong may turn off an agent or editor, and you’ll receive a rejection notice. As I already mentioned with the success of one character, Becky Bloomwood, a long series was born with movie rights and no end in sight. That is my dream - To create a character that draws the attention of so many that it has them begging for more. To give you another example, I recently finished two two-book series by Brenda Janowitz, starring character Brooke Miller, and separately, Kristen Gore’s political chick lit series with hilarious (and hypochondriac) heroine, Sammy Joyce. I was so in love with the series that so far I have emailed Ms. Janowitz to see if she had any thoughts for a future novel with Miss Modern, Brooke Miller and I am still searching for a way to contact Ms. Gore to see if there is any chance for a political sequel for the zany Sammy Joyce.

Who are some of the characters who have moved you? I know for me, a general rule of thumb, if I can remember the character’s name and most of the predicaments that made up the story’s plot, it was most likely a story I would love to read a sequel – and a character I would like to emulate in my own work. What tricks, tactics or techniques do you use or write by to flush out your characters? Please share any (and every) thing with me in the comments section related to character mapping, creating or just your love of a certain character!