Dialogue-heavy novels

guttersquid said:

Not sure if you're actually agreeing with me, because what I meant has nothing to do with economy.

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I meant, your response was brief, to the point, and successfully conveyed your message.

Alas, mine did not.

I think it's insulting to call a book "dialogue-heavy". It would be much more tactful to say "dialogue-chunky" or "dialogue-big-boned".

Samsonet said:

For what it's worth, the Puzzle Lady series really does have pages with nothing but dialogue. I'd think that a novel that has a certain amount of pages(/pages' worth) of dialogue could be objectively labeled dialogue-heavy. Don't ask me what amount that is, though. I'm still trying to catch up on algebra.

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But how many pages worth? I've read many novels that had dialogue stretch for several pages in several spots, but at least eighty percent of the novel was still narrative.

The FLETCH books by Gregory McDonald are the most dialog heavy books I've come across. In a lot of chapters it starts with a line or two to set the scene then nothing but dialog. They're fun.

Oooh, Jackx reminded me of studying OF MICE AND MEN in school. It was originally written as both of a novella and a script for a play, and you can see it in the novel's final structure: a big descriptive paragraph to start the chapter (setting the scene), and then it's almost all dialogue.

I'm reading the Goblin Emperor right now (one of the Hugo nominees that got on the ballot without puppy slates), and it's just occurred to me that it's very dialog driven. Much of the plot, and the decisions made by the main character, are driven by things he learns conversing with other characters as he adjusts to his elevated circumstances. It's billed as steampunk, but those world building details have been very much in the background so far. It really feels a lot more like what's sometimes called mannerpunk in some ways.

So this at least suggests that a modern fantasy novel (a genre often associated with action) can have a lot of dialog and a plot that hinges on it.

Exactly. When I read a novel, I don't really start thinking about things like the dialog to action to narrative ratios if I'm enjoying it.

The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy. I bought it thinking it was a novel (its actually either a play or a screenplay), but I thought it was really interesting how he managed to get so much across through just dialogue.

Dialogue-laden novels read faster and I would guess that young readers would find them more digestible.