Natural Dialogue

[asmira]

My dialogue always sounds to me as if it is being delivered by robots. Do any of you have any tips on how to get my characters to loosen up and talk naturally?

It seems like the easiest thing in the world when you think about it.. but it never *sounds* natural to me. Especially when you have as little time to develop the character as you do in a short piece.

[Erin Kelly]

Listen to the way people talk. Read short stories and study how the writers managed their dialogue. Incorporate mannerisms into the dialogue to give your characters more depth. Read the scene aloud so you know how it sounds, then read the work of other writers aloud so you can gauge the difference.

But mostly, read, read, read!

:-)

There are also several craft articles on dialogue that can be helpful.

Best of luck.

[blacbird]

Read your dialogue aloud, and dramatically, in the manner you envision the characters interacting.

caw

[yendor1152]

And remember, people don't always stay on topic; they sometimes stray and go off on tangents...and once in a while, their conversation is peppered with stuff like, "um," and "aahh."

[Drey of Boon]

Originally Posted by Erin Kelly

Read the scene aloud so you know how it sounds.

Definitely this.

And use actions and even dialogue tags to control the flow of the conversation and give it a more natural rhythm.

[jaksen]

Read it. Stand up and read it. Dash back and forth if two characters, move to a third spot if there are three. My sister and I used to tape* TV shows, memorize the dialogue and then do this. You should have seen us do Star Trek: You be Spock, I'll be Kirk and Uhura. Oh, you're the green slave girl, too.

No kidding and now I do that with my writing. If the dialogue sounds off, then it probably is.

Also prob. best to do this when alone, but I still read dialogue aloud when my family's around. Got to the point that I don't care if they hear me or not. I think they mostly tune me out.

*On a little reel to reel tape recorder, just the sound track obviously. Mike pointed at the TV.

[kkbe]

Last month I answered a post about that. . .hang on. . .

Okay, here it is, in part:

Let who's speaking be reflected in action sometimes. Use dialogue tags to eliminate confusion of who is saying what, or slip in a name every now and again, sparingly. So it doesn't come across like, "What do you think, Joe?" "I think you're full of shit, Bob."

People talk clipped sometimes so, for example, instead of saying, "Are you talking to me?" DeNiro's taxi driver said, "You talkin' to me?" They use contractions, so do that if appropriate to the character. Create unique speech patterns, little quirks, whatever, to help delineate your characters.

If your dialogue is going to come across as real, you have to know your characters, really know them. That's paramount, I think. So, I envision the scene, see my characters--I know exactly what they're doing, feeling, and I write what they say. Then I read the scene aloud. Does it sound natural? Is it appropriate for the scene?

EtA: Already mentioned. A really good idea, I think.

Another really important consideration is, does the dialogue DO something, move the story along in some way? Sometimes you have to drop the boring little stuff people really say, remembering that you're . . . not transcribing. You always have to be cognizant of story.

So I read aloud and often edit right after that. Or rewrite. Cut. Edit some more and read it aloud again, blah blah, until I'm satisfied. Sort of. I tend to return to key dialogue scenes after writing more, to double-check that everything still makes sense and fits together smoothly. An example from my NaNo WIP:

“When did he do it, do you know?”

“I think before Halloween. Maybe way before--no, not way ‘cause lots of leaves was on the ground. What’re we gonna do, Mike?”

“I don’t know.”

“Should we tell Mom?

“We ain’t got no proof, Albert. We gotta get proof or nobody’ll believe us and then he’ll know and that’ll be it.”

[blacbird]

Also, don't succumb to the temptation to use dialogue to spoon-feed background information to your readers.

caw

[asmira]

Thank you all for your time!
Reading it aloud, and understanding the characters definitely helps.

I think one problem I'm having is that I really don't know one of the characters in this scene very well at all. I'm going to spend some time getting to know him and I am sure that will help.

@jaksen: That is an absolutely adorable idea. I kinda love it.

Again, thanks for your time.

[Rufus Leeking]

Thanks to Jaksen for reminding me of the green alien too. I do live storytelling slams. In a recent final in Ann Arbor (where deep PC stories have extra ummmph) a woman beat me with the story of being a hospital minister. She was asked to counsel a young woman dying of extreme jaundice, it was so bad the woman was a shade of green. In the story the minister said she was creeped out, but then she realized that was only due to the patient's color, and then she concluded she was being prejudiced, and it was no different than being racist.

She won, which was BS. And up until now, when I've told this story, i say, "Until they find a tribe of green people somewhere, it isn't prejudice to be afraid of green people." Now I can work in the Star Trek angle.

[Liralen]

Voice. Stay true to the character's voice.

You can't be self-conscious when you're writing dialogue.

[asmira]

Thank you both for your time. I don't think I'm falling into that exact trap, James, but I will definitely be on the lookout for it in the future.

[blacbird]

Originally Posted by Jamesaritchie

I believe really good dialogue is the one part of writing that can't be taught, and often can't be learned. To write natural sounding dialogue, you must hear dialogue as it really is. Few people can do this, and I'm not sure practice helps.

I disagree with everything said here. But to do it, you have to listen, which is a skill different from hearing.

caw

[Buffysquirrel]

Anyone can learn anything, if they know how to learn it and are prepared to put in the time and effort to learn it. That dialogue can't be learnt just by listening may be true; it does not however mean it can't be learnt at all.

[BethS]

I can't disagree with James, at least in that writers of brilliant dialogue have a natural ear for it. An ear for dialogue (or language or music) can't be taught, but it can be developed and honed. And I think there are degrees of natural ability; it's not an on-or-off, black-or-white scenario. A writer takes what's been given by nature and works to improve it.

Asmira, there are rules for good dialogue that have little to do with writing stuff that sounds like normal people talking. Dialogue is its own special universe; it may sound natural, but it is a highly artificial construct.

Make your dialogue adversarial--full of conflict and friction, overt or subtle. Make it oblique, rather than a back-and-forth ping-pong match. Let characters say surprising things, rather than the obvious. Make it dark, make it shocking, make it amusing. Above all, don't let it boring.

[kuwisdelu]

Originally Posted by blacbird

Read your dialogue aloud, and dramatically

"Dramatically" or DRAMATICALLY!!!?

[asmira]

Thank you, BethS. I will keep that in mind.. I think mine may well be in need of some serious cuts.

[Linda Adams]

Originally Posted by asmira

Do any of you have any tips on how to get my characters to loosen up and talk naturally?

Just a different suggestion. Instead of looking at fixing the dialogue, look at the characterizations. It may be the dialogue problem is being caused by the character development.

[asmira]

Originally Posted by Linda Adams

Just a different suggestion. Instead of looking at fixing the dialogue, look at the characterizations. It may be the dialogue problem is being caused by the character development.

Upon reflection, I am afraid that you may be correct. I'm working on sitting down with the problem character and just getting to know him better.

[Cornelius Gault]

My problem right now is I don't have much actual dialog(ue). I am writing in epistolary format, so most of the story is my MC speaking first-person about what happened to him during the day (see Frankenstein and Dracula).

Part of my story takes place in Victorian New York around 1800-1850, so I also have to make the writing style sound from the right era. Cornelius wouldn't say, "You said THAT to him? Really? That was cool beans".

[VanessaNorth]

Read your work aloud. If you have significant worldbuilding, incorporate it into expressive language (think about how in battlestar galactica, they said "gods" instead of god, stuff like that). Get into the rhythm of it, the natural patois of dialogue is different from the rest of your prose, it should read differently, flow differently, fall all over itself like a real conversation with interruptions and everyone bringing their own agenda to the conversation.

Never forget that your characters have agency. They want something out of every conversation and they're going to try to get it. Let that goal power their speech.

[asmira]

I think the catcher to what BuffySquirrel said was "if they know how to learn it and are prepared to put in the time and effort to learn it"

Knowing *how* to go about learning a thing is not always obvious. And to be frank, most people I know are not always willing to put the time and effort in to learn everything that crosses their path.

It's like what my mother always complained about, being a mathematics teacher. She hated that people let their children believe that math was hard, and that elementary school teachers taught it like it was magic. By the time they got to her, no one knew *how* to learn math, and it was perfectly acceptable in their minds to say that 'math is too hard' and then it was okay to fail at it.

If over an entire lifetime of book writing a writer has not improved one iota, then I guarantee that you have a writer that does not know HOW to learn to write, or how to see what they need to improve.

I think BuffySquirrel hit it right on the head, but you have to have both.

[Bulletproof]

Originally Posted by Jamesaritchie

and I've certainly seen little evidence that it can learned, at lest in the sense that a write who's really bad at writing dialogue will ever become really good at it.

I agree with this in 99% of cases (gotta leave a bit of room for the late-blooming geniuses). But you forgot something...most writers aren't 'really good' at dialogue because most writers aren't 'really good' at every aspect of writing.

If the goal is to go from 'really bad' to 'good enough'? That's attainable for someone who realizes that robots are doing the yapping. The OP isn't a hopeless case...just needs to back up a bit.

Here's an alternative to reading your own work aloud (which to me sounds like a good way to solidify bad habits, but it seems to work for others).

In addition to keeping to your reading/writing schedule, pick 4-5 contemporary writers whose dialogue you admire. Make sure that 2 of them are amazingly good, that 2 of them are merely passable. Read their dialogue over and over and over and over...write it out. Write it again. And again. Read it aloud if you must, but I'm not sure it's necessary. Did I mention doing it over and over? Then scoot over to the SYW part of the forum and eavesdrop for a while. Then start all over again. Add in some fresh writers this time. When you start mentally editing the passable dialogue, you know you're where you need to be.

It's a lot of concentrated, dedicated work, but I think it also happens to be the fastest, surest way to improve.

[asmira]

Thank you, Bulletproof. I actually like that advice a lot. (and thanks for not calling me a hopeless case! ) It sounds like just the kind of homework I need to be doing, along with getting to know the one character better.

Thank you much for taking the time to comment.