Dialog

[ricaykw]

I’m working on a novel right now and it seems to have a lot a lot of dialogue. What I’m wondering is, how much dialog do you think is too much? Is there a point when there’s too much talk and not enough action?

[Birol]

Action and dialogue aren't mutually exclusive.

[maestrowork]

Have you consider writing a screenplay instead?

[moblues]

While I look into the balance of dialogue vs. other content issue, this is a good link for now. It's nest lies comfortably upon a branch in a tree within this wonderful garden:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/novels/cheatham02-23-05.htm

Just got done with a long BIC and need a break anyway.


Mike

[maestrowork]

I hate to be the bad guy, but I don't agree with some of the things said in that article. When I read something like:

"What a lovely sunset," Ginny gushed.
"But those are storm clouds," Ray grouched.

... makes me cringe....

... and too much action to break up the dialogue is not necessarily a good thing.

[moblues]

This may also help:

http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/crafttechnique/tp/dialogue.htm

Let's see if Maestro thinks this info is good before you use the guidlines suggested.

I tend to keep the dialogue short and to the point. I let the characters write themselves into and out of trouble by their actions more than by their words.


Mike

[moblues]

Maestro –– I reread that stuff, and you're right. I think I caught a rash upon the second read. Where's my hydrocotisone?

Anyway, please take a look at the dialogue of "The Mound Builders" in 'Share Your Work - Sci-Fi Fantisy' if you have time. This is what I'm talking about. Am I on target? If not, I'd love to hear your comments. No-one seems to want to touch it.

Thanks Again,
Mike

[azbikergirl]

This may also help:

http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/crafttechnique/tp/dialogue.htm

I thought this was a good article. I've known writers who go overboard with tip #5, however, and can't write a conversation without scripting out every head turn, blink, nose scratch, lip lick, shrug, etc. to the point that it is sometimes downright humorous.

[LadyLazarus]

I’m working on a novel right now and it seems to have a lot a lot of dialogue. What I’m wondering is, how much dialog do you think is too much? Is there a point when there’s too much talk and not enough action?

I have this problem as well, and have to make a conscious effort to not put less dialogue in, but to break it up a little with perhaps thoughts of one character or a bit of "atmosphere". I did check a few books I have read and they sometimes have dialogue that goes on for well over a page or two, so perhaps it just feels like a lot when you are writing it.

[Andrew Jameson]

I thought this was a good article. I've known writers who go overboard with tip #5, however, and can't write a conversation without scripting out every head turn, blink, nose scratch, lip lick, shrug, etc. to the point that it is sometimes downright humorous.Well, I agree with maestro. The first three points weren't bad, but the advice on avoiding "the dreaded said" is just terrible. The last point (injection of action) is a good tool, but the author doesn't bother discussing its limitations. Too much scripting (as you say) produces dialogue that's downright silly. Even a more moderate use of action slo-o-o-ows the scene down. Take a look at the author's own example. The scene with the beats reads much slower, as the characters wait for each other to perform their pirouettes. That sense of languidness can be useful, if that's what you want, but it can destroy tense, snappy dialogue -- an easy pit to fall into (as I can attest), and one the author should have mentioned.

[maestrowork]

This may also help:

http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/crafttechnique/tp/dialogue.htm

Let's see if Maestro thinks this info is good before you use the guidlines suggested.

Mike

These are good advice.

A good book on dialogue I like: Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella.

Back to the OP's question... I don't think he's asking how to write good dialogue. He's asking what to do if his book is too heavy on dialogue. So one of the things to do is to cut these out:

- info dump using dialogue
- rambling
- unnecessary words

Breaking up the dialogue with action/narrative only works if it's done sparingly. If you insert an action for every line of dialogue, it reads awful.

Break up your dialogue heavy scenes with narratives and descriptions. Describe the settings, the characters, what the characters are doing or feeling... read a few books that you enjoy and see how the authors balance narrative vs. dialogue.

[azbikergirl]

Well, I agree with maestro. The first three points weren't bad, but the advice on avoiding "the dreaded said" is just terrible.
The first linked article encourages writers to use said bookisms, which I think is poor advice. The second linked article advises writers to avoid said bookisms.

I read recently (and I kick myself for not noting the source) that a good balance of dialog in a story is 40-60% of lines. I actually did a count of a few randomly selected chapters in my novel (counting lines that had some dialog vs. lines that had none on a printed page w/standard ms. format) and came up with 59%.

[Ken Schneider]

I hate to be the bad guy, but I don't agree with some of the things said in that article. When I read something like:

"What a lovely sunset," Ginny gushed.
"But those are storm clouds," Ray grouched.

... makes me cringe....

... and too much action to break up the dialogue is not necessarily a good thing.

Me too. He said/she said still rules the day.

Why not- "But those are storm clouds," Ray said. Ginny laughed. She could see by Ray's dark stare and furrowed brow, that he was as advertised, a curmudgeon.

[maestrowork]

Ricaykw... how about this? You post a snippet of what you consider too dialogue-heavy... and we'll see if we can balance it with narrative...

[Birol]

Ricaykw... how about this? You post a snippet of what you consider too dialogue-heavy... and we'll see if we can balance it with narrative...

Or tell you if you're just being paranoid. :)

[Ken Schneider]

Ricaykw... how about this? You post a snippet of what you consider too dialogue-heavy... and we'll see if we can balance it with narrative...



Ooh, ooh can I post something? I need the help as well.

[ricaykw]

First of all, I just wanted to say thank you so so much for your thoughtful and helpful responses.

I am semi-reluctantly posting a snippet. As nice as you all have been I am afraid (or perhaps paranoid :) ) that you will enjoy a private snicker over how hopeless my writing is. Nonetheless, I would very much like your input. So here's a hunk (I have no idea how much writing a snippet entails, so feel free to ignore most of this if it is too long) of dialog. As a warning, it has only had a glance-over editing at this point. Thank you very much for help!

“If you just agreed to be his running mate today, how does he already have pens with both of your names on them in the process of being manufactured?” Booker asked.
“A valid question.” Ashley replied. She took a minute to ponder her response. “I suppose he just assumed I would agree to it, that presumptuous ***. Or maybe if I was about to say no he was planning to be like but I already spent all this money getting pens made! Tricky…”
“I think he likes you!” Booker blurted out unable to contain the jealousy in his voice.
“Slick darling,” Ashley said, “you think absolutely everyone has a crush on me, including two gay guys and quite a few girls who I know for a fact are not of that sexual persuasion.”
Booker had quickly acquired the nickname Slick after that first Friday night. On one hand he detested the name, afraid that someday someone unreceptive to his affiliation to such an unsavory establishment would inquire as to the source of the name. On the other hand he loved having a nickname, it was a sort of validation of his closeness with his friends.
“Ashley,” Booker said quietly looking down, “why don’t you like me?”
“That’s ridiculous. You know I adore you Slick.” Ashley smiled and blew him a kiss.
Booker tried to pound his fist on the table, but couldn’t bring himself to. Instead he lightly tapped his clenched fingers along the edge of the booth in frustration. “I don’t want you to adore me like you adore a damn puppy dog. I want you to like me, to like me like me.”
“Booker, Booker please look at me,” Ashley pleaded. “You crashing into me on that crazy mechanical skateboard of yours was the best thing that has ever happened to me. You don’t really like me Booker. It’s just easy to say that you do because you’re so comfortable with me.”
“No,” Booker said firmly, “I like you Ashley.”
“Platonic love is the highest form of love. Don’t get greedy Slick.” Ashley smiled.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
“Your vision must be deteriorating. You should get the prescription level on those glasses of yours amped up.”
Booker was going to repeat himself when his father came over. “Do you mind if I interrupt?” he said in a way that was not so much a question but nonetheless amiable.
“Yes.” Booker’s voice had a strain of frustration only achievable in a conversation between a parent and child.
Mr. Ramsey ignored him. “Have you heard of a group at your school called The Brotherhood?”
“I’m not a leper.”
Mr. Ramsey once again ignored his son’s hostility. “They were all in here a few days ago,” he said. “Real classy bunch. Anyways, we got to talking… As I’m sure you know, because you’re not a leper, their policy is that new members pledge during the first week of school. But we got pretty chummy and I told them that I have a son who is a freshman at WIT and before they left the head of their group approached me and said they’d be willing to make an exception for you.” Mr. Ramsey was beaming, clearly exceptionally proud of himself and awaiting certain adulation from his son. “Of course the membership fees are sky high,” he whistled.
Booker rolled his eyes. “You are such a fool dad. First to think that those people warmed up to you for any reason other than the fact that you gave them tons of free drinks and second to think that I would ever want to be associated with such a group of arrogant, worthless *******s.”
Mr. Ramsey looked as if he had been shot. “We’ll talk about this later Booker. It’s a great opportunity and you owe it to me to at least consider it.” He dropped a pamphlet on the table. “It’s nice to see you Ashley,” he said as he walked away.
Booker’s face softened into confusion.
Ashley laughed in an effort to lighten the mood. She raised her eyebrows playfully and picked up the pamphlet. The front said THE BROTHERHOOD in a majestic and important font just above an old-fashioned and oversized crest. The crest, for no apparent reason, featured a book and an almost cartoon-like genie’s lamp.
“I guess they think they’re all official because they were founded a whole eight years ago,” Ashley chuckled.
She opened the pamphlet eagerly. It was just as John had described, except it included a customized post it note with the group’s crest that read “Booker, If you are interested in learning more about the Brotherhood, please come to a private meeting with me at the clubhouse on Tuesday at 8 PM. I look forward to talking with you. Sincerely, Wes Reilly (president of The Brotherhood)”
“Booker!” Ashley exclaimed sarcastically, “do you think you could possibly get me a stack of these the Brotherhood post it notes? Or I don’t know… maybe a t-shirt?” She closed the pamphlet and handed it to Booker with a smile.
He took it and without a word put it in his bag. Ashley waited for a reaction but got none.
“Are you going to use it as bonfire kindling?” she joked with genuine curiosity.
“Sure,” he replied blankly.

[maestrowork]

Ooooo.... fresh meat...

OK, the exercise here is not to rewrite or crit... but to see if there's a problem with too much dialogue...

Here we go...


“If you just agreed to be his running mate today, how does he already have pens with both of your names on them in the process of being manufactured?” Booker asked.

Right off the bat this is too long, too grammatically correct, and too on the nose. If you want to make your dialogue short and sweet, these are the things to pay attention to. So maybe, try this:

"If you just agreed," Booker said, "to be his running mate, how does he have the pens made already?"
"You mean, with both our names?"
"Yeah."



“A valid question.” Ashley replied. She took a minute to ponder her response. “I suppose he just assumed I would agree to it, that presumptuous ***. Or maybe if I was about to say no he was planning to be like but I already spent all this money getting pens made! Tricky…”
“I think he likes you!” Booker blurted out unable to contain the jealousy in his voice.
“Slick darling,” Ashley said, “you think absolutely everyone has a crush on me, including two gay guys and quite a few girls who I know for a fact are not of that sexual persuasion.”

At this point, I feel one of the problem is that you're doing #1: info dumping.

“Booker, Booker please look at me,” Ashley pleaded. “You crashing into me on that crazy mechanical skateboard of yours was the best thing that has ever happened to me. You don’t really like me Booker. It’s just easy to say that you do because you’re so comfortable with me.”

Again, info dumping...


“No,” Booker said firmly, “I like you Ashley.”
“Platonic love is the highest form of love. Don’t get greedy Slick.” Ashley smiled.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
“Your vision must be deteriorating. You should get the prescription level on those glasses of yours amped up.”

Here, if you really must cut some dialogue, I would cut these. These are what we call, sometimes, literary chitchat... If you think they advance the plot or develop the characters, then keep them. If not, that's the place to cut.



Mr. Ramsey once again ignored his son’s hostility. “They were all in here a few days ago,” he said. “Real classy bunch. Anyways, we got to talking… As I’m sure you know, because you’re not a leper, their policy is that new members pledge during the first week of school. But we got pretty chummy and I told them that I have a son who is a freshman at WIT and before they left the head of their group approached me and said they’d be willing to make an exception for you.” Mr. Ramsey was beaming, clearly exceptionally proud of himself and awaiting certain adulation from his son. “Of course the membership fees are sky high,” he whistled.


Long speech. People usually don't talk like that. Also, a big blob of speech is scary... and probably boring. Unless what he is saying is absolutely riveting, my eyes will gloss over. Or worse, you yank me out of the dream state...




Booker rolled his eyes. “You are such a fool dad. First to think that those people warmed up to you for any reason other than the fact that you gave them tons of free drinks and second to think that I would ever want to be associated with such a group of arrogant, worthless *******s.”

Same here.

The rest seems okay.

Reading your prose, I do sense that it reads like a screenplay... dialogue, then some gestures, action, then some thoughts or reaction, then more dialogue... Very skimpy on descriptions -- I mean, where are they? What does the place look like? Smell? Sounds?... the lack of the 5 senses does make me feel like I'm watching a radio play...

[scribbler1382]

I agree with most of what Maestro has said. MAJOR info dumping going on (i.e. telling, not showing). Watch some cop shows or read some John D. MacDonald and you'll get a better feel for back and forth dialogue. I'd probably do your opening like this:

"He's already made the pens?" Booker asked.

"That's what I'm telling you, darling," Ashley said.

"For both of us?" She nodded, looking a little embarrassed. "Guy's pretty sure of himself." When Ashley avoided looking him in the eye, he changed his mind. "Or sure of you. Which is it?"

Something like that. I disagree somewhat on the long speeches. They can easily be overdone, but if used properly, they can be effective. Even then, though, you need periodic interaction from your speaker's audience.

[Writing Again]

I'm going to address the "How much dialogue is too much" with an example.

Read TEC Wars by William Shatner. (There is a series of them)

The books read well, there is lots of action, and the dialogue outweighs the narative by far.

[reph]

ricaykw, I know you asked only about dialogue, but the snippet you posted has a bigger problem that needs your attention: point of view. Who's the point-of-view character in this scene? Please look at this thread:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15522

[ricaykw]

Thank you so much for all your help! And that thread about POV was very informative.

Clearly I have my work cut out for myself :)

I will be sure to check the TEC Wars out. Does anyone have any other suggestions for books that they think do a good job of weaving a lot of dialog in?

[Mistook]

Always look at the big picture. Before any session of dialogue begins you have to paint the scene for us. Usually a paragraph is enough to cover the broad visuals and set the tone. A second paragraph is enough to set the characters, give them their props, and establish the order in which they are speaking.

With that, you can cruise fairly freely. There will be natural breaks in the conversation where you'll need to have time pass, either because a character is formulating their response, or they are internally reacting to some revelation. Use these breaks to update their gestures, and/or fill in details of the setting.

Above all, please refrain from over-explaining everybody's thoughts and motivations. We're adults. We can guess at the underlying motivations, provided you word the dialogue itself with room for inference. You don't need to qualify every verse with informational assides about their longings and trivia about their lives. That kind of writing is what's known in professional circles as, "bad".

Have your characters speak naturally. When in doubt, put yourself in the scene and imagine sitting with Character X and listening to her say, "Darling, according to my calculations, if we leave this very instant, we have but a three or four minute window in which to satisfy my mothers demands for returning me to the homefront before 1100 centons."

Wouldn't she more likely say: "****! We're late! My mom's gonna kill me"

[maestrowork]

(Alert: shameless plug)

Read my sample chapter and you'd notice it's a rather dialogue-heavy scene as well -- basically two people get together and they talk things out. Notice how I balanced the actual dialogue with narrative, internal reflection, settings, actions, etc., and how they all flowed together. And notice how I avoided info dumping, long, unnatural speeches, and use "telling/internal monologue" for some of the back story stuff...

/end: shameless plug

[Jamesaritchie]

I'm going to address the "How much dialogue is too much" with an example.

Read TEC Wars by William Shatner. (There is a series of them)

The books read well, there is lots of action, and the dialogue outweighs the narative by far.

If I remember right, the Tekwar novels are actually ghostwritten by Ron Goulart, who's a pretty fair country writer. Geting your hands on some of Goulart's other books might not be such a bad idea.

I don't think it's a matter of how much dialogue versus how much narrative. Theblance will always vary greatly from story to story, as it should. Dialogue should always be there for a reason. If something needs to be aid, it should be said, and if it doesn't need to be said, the character should be silent.

There are great novels that are very heavy on dialogue, and great novels that are very slight on dialogue. Trying to write dialogue as a percentage just doesn't work very well.

[maestrowork]

Ah, the art and beauty of silence.

[Ken Schneider]

(Alert: shameless plug)

Read my sample chapter and you'd notice it's a rather dialogue-heavy scene as well -- /end: shameless plug

Funny you should mention that, read it yesterday.


Good Ray, lets us know when we can pad your royalty check, be glad too.

It flowed well, but, had a little more discription than I like. Would need to dig deeper into it. I'm not a fan of first person novels.
Dialoogue was crisp, and you did paint a vivid picture.

Though,

Its easy to show not tell, when you're in first person. I saw, I went, I yi yi...

[Writing Again]

Jamesaritchie,

You are right, so says, Wikipedia:

Goulart ghost wrote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_writer) the popular Tekwar series of books credited to the actor William Shatner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shatner) (Shatner is said to have written the outlines for the books.) He has also written scripts for a number of comic strips (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_strips).

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Goulart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Goulart)"



And here I thought William Shatner was a talented guy... Oh well.

[macandal]

However, after all of what's been said, there is something to be said about dialogue. Manuel Puig wrote Kiss of the Spider Woman completely (if you don't count the little psychological asides he includes in certain comments the two main characters make. In my opinion you can choose to read these little asides and make them part of your reading. The novel works without them.) in the form of a conversation between two characters. Just my $0.02.

[Maryn]

macandal, that's an astonishing feat. I'm a short story writer trying to turn novelist, and writing a short story entirely in dialogue is a monstrous undertaking. I can't imagine it for something longer!

Truly one of the most difficult assignments I ever gave myself--although the readers seemed to like it. But the limitations are even more severe than screenwriting, where action and descriptive lines are allowed. How can you describe appearance, or setting, or past events, without info dumping? In some cases, you can't.

Hmm, could be a good writing exercise.

Maryn