Talking of which

Good dialogue can make a story, bad dialogue can wreck it. Good dialogue follows the rules of conversation. Here’s some thoughts about what to bear in mind when your characters speak:.

* A lot of the time, we do not speak in correct sentences/we often use short sharp phrases and interrupt each other

* We assume the listener knows a lot about us

* Dialogue can impart information but we try to make that information interesting, lacing it with humour, personal interpretation etc

* We can tell a lot about a person in a short snap of conversation - a few words of dialogue can say a lot about a character.

For example
“Good morning, Bill,” I said as I walked past.
“What’s good about it?” he grunted and ambled down the street

Suddenly with one two line exchange we can start to build up a picture of Bill

He is grumpy

He is rude

He is curt

He is pessimistic

He rejected friendship

Or is he? That could be the challenge of the storywriter. We think we know someone but we do not. In fact, he is depressed for a reason, he is ill, something horrible has happened to him that we do not know about

* Dialogue needs to be crisp

We do not, by and large, talk in long sentences.

We don’t say “Good morning on this crisp and cold December morning, Bill” unless doing it for effect

We do say: “Good morning, Bill.” Or put some quirky take on it ‘How’s it hanging, Bill?”


* Needs to be in character

* Must take the story on unless we are trying as writers to make small talk

* But do not pack with extraneous information, ie. “Good Tuesday morning, William, although everyone calls you Bill, my neighbour of ten years in Acacia Avenue, in Darlington, are you your normal glum self, to which we - that is my wife and I - have grown accustomed over the years since your wife left you for a younger man and filed for divorce or has the darkness which seems to routinely enveigle you over the last few days lifted at last, may I ask?”


* If you need to slot in information, find a way of doing it subtly like “Saw Bill this morning. His usual gloomy self. Not sure he’ll ever recover his spirits. The divorce really has knocked him backwards.”

John Dean