I wrote my piece. and everyone is saying that my dialogue is too forced, but I don't understand what that means.
Can you give me an example?
Can you give me an example?
Can anyone tell me what forced dialog in stories mean?
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Hey Blue, I think sometimes people say dialogue is forced when it is used too obviously to take the place of exposition, like two people meeting:
NOT FORCED
--Hey
--Oh, hi.
--I'm Ziljon.
--That's a weird name.
--Tell me about it.
FORCED:
--Hey.
--Oh Hey, you startled me. Who are you and where did you come from anyway?
--I'm Ziljon. I just came from Birelli where I had to get my license stamped.
--Ziljon? That's a weird name for a dude with golden hair and blue eyes.
--Tell me about it. I was adopted. I don't know where my real folks come from but it's not here, where everyone is dark haired and dark eyed.
NOT FORCED
--Hey
--Oh, hi.
--I'm Ziljon.
--That's a weird name.
--Tell me about it.
FORCED:
--Hey.
--Oh Hey, you startled me. Who are you and where did you come from anyway?
--I'm Ziljon. I just came from Birelli where I had to get my license stamped.
--Ziljon? That's a weird name for a dude with golden hair and blue eyes.
--Tell me about it. I was adopted. I don't know where my real folks come from but it's not here, where everyone is dark haired and dark eyed.
Forced dialogue to me, is when it sounds stilted and/or is used as an info-dump. The kind of writing that makes you cry out, "No one speaks like that in real life!"
Act out your dialogue, both reading aloud and performing whatever descriptive tasks that accompany it. You'll figure it out better that way than any other.
And remember, the primary purpose of dialogue in fiction is to show character relationships. It emphatically is NOT to provide factual information to the reader.
caw
And remember, the primary purpose of dialogue in fiction is to show character relationships. It emphatically is NOT to provide factual information to the reader.
caw
I was going to add my 2 cents.
But I read this first.
You should be paid for your 2 cents.
This was a PERFECT example!
I think basically forced dialogue is when the characters sound like they're two robots talking to each other. Or like...you know how on CSI a lot of times, two investigators will talk to each other about a certain process that surely all CSIs already understand? They discuss it as though one of them doesn't so that the watchers can understand.
I read a book by Barbara Taylor Bradford. I actually think her story is wonderful, but too often her characters sum up things, and it feels as though she just through that scene in so that we can remember everything that's happening. She'll have two characters sit down and review together everything...everything that she actually already told us (or rather, showed us) earlier in the novel. Her novels are long, and I'm willing to bet she could cut out a lot and make them quite a bit shorter.
But that's just me. I'm just sayin...
I read a book by Barbara Taylor Bradford. I actually think her story is wonderful, but too often her characters sum up things, and it feels as though she just through that scene in so that we can remember everything that's happening. She'll have two characters sit down and review together everything...everything that she actually already told us (or rather, showed us) earlier in the novel. Her novels are long, and I'm willing to bet she could cut out a lot and make them quite a bit shorter.
But that's just me. I'm just sayin...
This method sure works, but I'm not sure it's better than any other. The best I ever found (now impossible) was to get kids 8-12 who were good readers to read the dialogue aloud and act it out. It's even better than reading it yourself, because the kid doesn't know how you hear a line or envision an action in your imagination.
Plus they'll work for next to nothing.
Maryn, whose kids are too old now--anybody got some she can borrow?
Good summations on what forced, or stilted, dialogue is and good advice on how to determine if dialogue is forced or not. Does anyone have any suggestions for how BlueLucario could learn to write more natural-sounding dialogue? Techniques she could practice? Methods that have worked for you when you were learning?
If your dialog seems to contrived or even corny, it comes off as forced. I have a great example of something I wrote 15-20 years ago that was really forced and bad bad bad. The line was said by a charactor leading a recovery team of test animals after a nuclear test in a Nevada desert. For some reason I thought it might be nice to have the commander express something to his team as to the way they handled the animals... "Remember gentleman, these animals have been through hell, and our job is to get them back to the lab in as good of condition as possible. Lets treat them with dignity." ( Oh hurl) The line was so bad it still gives me the quivers, " I was drunk or high or stoned or having sex when I wrote it, then quickly tossed whatever was in my gut and threw half the damn book away. My point, is that it was a ridiculous line that would have never been said... As noted in the posts above, to force a line is to say something that needs not be said, or in this case shouldn't have been said.
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Basically unnatural dialogue -- doesn't sound like your characters would say things like that. Info dump, etc. As if they are puppets and the author is force feeding lines to them. They're saying those lines because the author says so.
"Good morning, Mary," Joseph said.
"Good morning, Joseph."
"How are you and our lovely daughter Sue?"
"Our lovely daughter Sue is still in bed sleeping. But would you like some orange juice to go with your french toast this morning?"
"That would be lovely, my dear wife."
Bonus point: Tell me the specific reasons why the dialogue above is forced, stilted, or unnatural.
I can't.
I threw it across the room, pissed I'd spent money, having fallen for a GREAT cover--again! Gah, but I hate when authors treat me like I'm in 1st grade.
See Mark run?
See Sox chase Mark?
See Jane wave to Mark?
"Look, Sox, here comes Jane!"
When in actuality, it would be:
"Stuck entertaining the stupid dog again, eh?"
Mark smirked at Jane, then handed her a plastic baggie. "Yeah, but you get doody-duty."
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Because they don't have a daughter called Sue, they have a son called Jesus? Wild guess.
I don't think it's impossible that a couple would speak to each other in this way, if they were being playful. In fact it sounds quite natural to me if viewed from this angle. But people who know each other intimately don't usually feel the need to say each other's names or spell out their relationship.
-Derek
...nor be so delightfully civil.
Well, I take that back.
I speak to my husband like this...when he's in the dog house.
Course, after 19 years, he now continues the conversation with inane questions. Ah, I miss the old days...when he used to back slowly away....and buy chocolate.
Well, I take that back.
I speak to my husband like this...when he's in the dog house.
Course, after 19 years, he now continues the conversation with inane questions. Ah, I miss the old days...when he used to back slowly away....and buy chocolate.
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Read the dialogue in good novels. George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is a great example, and on the occasions when characters indulge in paragraphs of exposition or description, he has a reason why they're doing so.
Ray's example shows something lots of beginning writers (and soap opera writers) do which real people talking to each other never do.
You may think Ray's overplaying it, but I've critiqued enough people's first-ever stories to know this is extremely common forced dialogue.
Two people having a conversation almost never use one another's names, except in daytime drama where the new audience members need to learn who's who. They don't even use affectionate or familiar forms of direct address (babe, my sweet Babu, buddy) very much, because they both know who they're talking to, although sometimes they'll use it to put the other person down or emphasize their roles (son, boy, master, boss, ma'am).
They also don't tell one another things they both know (we have a child, and we named her Sue--although she does look more like a Jesus, come to think of it), but the reader does not.
Maryn, still chuckling over the name thing
You may think Ray's overplaying it, but I've critiqued enough people's first-ever stories to know this is extremely common forced dialogue.
Two people having a conversation almost never use one another's names, except in daytime drama where the new audience members need to learn who's who. They don't even use affectionate or familiar forms of direct address (babe, my sweet Babu, buddy) very much, because they both know who they're talking to, although sometimes they'll use it to put the other person down or emphasize their roles (son, boy, master, boss, ma'am).
They also don't tell one another things they both know (we have a child, and we named her Sue--although she does look more like a Jesus, come to think of it), but the reader does not.
Maryn, still chuckling over the name thing
People don't spell out things like what's for breakfast in normal dialogue if they know each other. The husband is probably used to having orange juice in the morning, so the wife doesn't need to say what kind it is unless there's something unusual about it.
"Juice?" She set a glass of dark liquid before him and held up a hand before he could say anything. "You forgot the Tropicana yesterday, didn't you? Well, enjoy your blackcurrant."
See, to me the only way that would sound natural is if there was this line in there: Mary slid the divorce papers across the table.
Suddenly, the painfully stilted dialog takes on a whole new context.
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Their lovely daughter Sue's older brother Jesus came out from his room and said, "What would I do?"
I did. I copyed how J.K Rowling wrote. I read the harry potter books and I think that's how she wrote it with the dialogue.
I love the HP books; I've read all but the last one at least twice (and I'll re-read the last one eventually); and I think Rowling is a terrific storyteller.
But she is not someone you should try to emulate. For one, her dialog isn't one of her strongest points. For another, because of the sheer popularity of her books (not to mention the aforementioned strength in storytelling), there's a certain amount of...leeway given to her writing.
To improve your own dialog, you need to find writers for whom this aspect of the skill is one of their strongest. Martin is an excellent example (also great for characterization.) If you want to stick with YA fantasy, try Jonathan Stroud's The Bartimaeus Trilogy. Bartimaeus has some of the best lines of dialog you'll ever see in fiction.
For a more modern example, Janet Evanovich is great with snappy patter.
But she is not someone you should try to emulate. For one, her dialog isn't one of her strongest points. For another, because of the sheer popularity of her books (not to mention the aforementioned strength in storytelling), there's a certain amount of...leeway given to her writing.
To improve your own dialog, you need to find writers for whom this aspect of the skill is one of their strongest. Martin is an excellent example (also great for characterization.) If you want to stick with YA fantasy, try Jonathan Stroud's The Bartimaeus Trilogy. Bartimaeus has some of the best lines of dialog you'll ever see in fiction.
For a more modern example, Janet Evanovich is great with snappy patter.
I came back to this thread with a similar reply, but DeadlyAccurate beat me to it.
Reading and attempting to emulate one author is the worst way to learn. Be widely read and be a sponge while reading.
You could also try to go to a crowded place and eavesdrop. Take a pad of paper and a pen and jot down parts of conversations that you overhear. Don't worry about why people are saying the things and don't try to think about the conversations at the time. Just get the words down. Then, take it home and reread what you wrote. Can you tell what the people were talking about? How? What didn't they say that the other people seemed to understand? Was there information conveyed that was never said outright? What can you tell about the individuals speaking and their relationships to the people they are talking to based on how they spoke?
I write screenplays with a partner. Whenever we get stuck on a scene, we force each other to act out the scene without looking at what we already wrote. We know the situation, but we need to hear what we would naturally say if we were in that moment.
So, turn your back on the computer. Imagine you're the character in that situation. Then, don't think, just say whatever comes to mind out loud. You're more likely to get "pass that over, babe" than "Excuse me, Mary, can you pass me that pitcher of juice?"
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