D is for Dialogue

There are 3 aspects of dialogue to consider: technicalities, what is said (and what isn't) and what surrounds the speaking ie the context.

1. Technicalities:

Dialogue attributions.

He said, she said are always preferable - we hardly notice them when we're reading. The other attributions that work are related to volume eg he whispered, she shouted. Ditch all the others - people can't smile speech, or giggle it, and it should be clear from the words spoken and the context whether someone is for example answering, or replying or asking etc. (This is contrary to what you're taught in primary school BTW.)

Fashion.

'Right now,' she said, 'using "she said" is preferable to "said she".' Too many "said she" in your text will give you an old fashioned feeling.

Another fashion is in the use of quotation marks. Current UK practice is single quotes for speech, with quotes within speech given a double quotation mark.

Punctuation.

'It's got to be like this,' she said. 'Start with a quotation mark and a capital letter, finish with either a comma, full stop, question mark, or exclamation mark followed by a closing quotation mark.'

If it's a full stop, then there shouldn't be a "she said" afterwards, as you're starting a new sentence. You can, however, have a new sentence that is: She smiled.

If it's a comma, then you haven't yet finished the sentence. You need to put a 'she said' afterwards.

If it's a question mark or an exclamation mark then you can treat them as either a comma or a full stop - in other words, they don't need a 'she said' afterwards, but you can put one in.

Paragraphs

A bit of speech from a new or different character always starts on a new paragraph. If it's the same character speaking then you can continue the same paragraph.

If in doubt, get a good book on grammar. I like The Elements of Style by Strunk and White for this sort of thing, but there are lots around.

2. What is said (or not)

Good dialogue can do things such as pass on information, but it should always be characterised for the speaker. I did an exercise in class a few weeks back where I took an extract from a book and cut it into speech and actions. The students knew nothing of the characters, beyond there being two of them. They had to put the dialogue into the right order and tell me about the characters. I was impressed that everyone managed to do this and get the characterisation right, just from a few lines. They also managed to guess the relationship between the characters. That's good writing.

Sub-text

What isn't said is as important as what is said. People rarely answer questions directly:

'Did you sleep with Jack?'

'Who said I did?' or 'Why would you think that?' or 'Don't be ridiculous' are all more likely answers than a straightforward Yes or No.

Well, do you think they slept with Jack? If so, you've been reading the subtext that says answering a question with a question or an accusation would imply a positive answer.

Try this one:

'How much did that dress cost?'

Which is/are the most likely answer(s), and fill in your own subtext...

'Oh this old thing, I've had it for years.'

'It was in the sale.'

'Isn't it great - I'm going to wear it to the Christmas party.'

'It was quite expensive, but I'm going to get lots of wear from it.'

'£149.99.'

3. What surrounds the speaking

I think the actions that surround the speaking are actually more important than the speech itself. Consider -

She threw the coffee cup across the room. 'I hate you,' she said.

She twined her fingers in his hair, and breathed softly into his ear. 'I hate you,' she said.

The actions tell us about the intonation and intention behind the words more clearly than the words themselves do, even with the addition of some adverbs.

'I hate you,' she said angrily.

'I hate you,' she said seductively.

Actions can also be used to provide thinking space, to allow the character a change in thought direction. 'Let's go into town,' she said. She looked around at the bodies slumped in front of the television set. 'You're all losers.'

So those are the basic areas to consider when writing dialogue. Listen to people in real life, hear your characters speak, and you won't go far wrong.

Is There Such a Thing as Pointless Conversation?

My student daughter came into my room at the weekend, puzzled by a text conversation she was having with another girl, a sometime student on her course who she hadn't seen for 6 months. The conversation went something like this:

A - Hey, how are u? x

B - I'm good, how are u?

A - I'm fine. It's been ages. Hows everything going?

B - I'm at home, going up to London in a few days.

A - oh v nice. How is it in Bath then. Is the weather nice? Are u in London over the summer? I'm back home myself.

B - Yes the weather's lovely. I've got my room this summer, but I don't think I'll be living there. Have u still got your flat?

A - Yeah it's lovely here too. Hope it lasts. Nice. I moved out of my flat so not going back. Any plans over the summer, holidays or anything?

B - I'm not sure, will probably go somewhere but not sure when or where, how about u?

And at this point, B, my daughter, turned to me and said 'What IS this conversation about?'

I asked her what she meant. She said:

' You'd think she'd get to the point. Usually, I kind of start off with a bit of the point so it's hinted in the conversation what the point is, and then I move it through the conversation. You start with the point of why you're texting. Surely that's the question you'd ask - how's X, have you seen Y. She doesn't seem to want anything.' Daughter looks at phone in puzzled way. 'I mean, I don't think she wants anything except maybe to keep contact but I don't know what she wants. It's weird.'

In real life we don't have pointless conversations. Subconsciously we're making points, and we're on the alert for the points the other person is either making or hoping to make. When we can't see the point we think it's weird.

It's exactly the same with dialogue in fiction. When we can't see 'the point' of the dialogue we give up reading. Your characters should know what points they're making - it could be anything such as establishing a relationship, angling for information, working round to asking a favour. But there should be points to be made, and you as the writer should know what they are. Otherwise your readers will be looking at your dialogue and thinking...weird.

Rhythm in Prose

I always advise people to read their work aloud. It does several things:

1. Makes you realise if there are any grammatical errors.

2. Shows where there are clumsy sentences (where you stumble reading, you can be sure the reader will also stumble).

3. Gives you a sense of the rhythm of your writing, particularly when it comes to the dialogue.

Rhythm is something we don't often talk about, but it's there in everything we write. I write with a different rhythm to you, and you write with a different rhythm to your friend and so on. Our rhythm is as individual as our fingerprints - it's one of the aspects that makes up our 'voice' as a writer.

People speak with different rhythms, and this is one of the hardest things to get across in dialogue. You have to hear how your characters speak, and then transfer their different speech patterns to the page. If you've got a good ear you'll do it naturally, but other people have to practice - a good starting point is learning to listen.

Try saying both these phrases aloud: "That's enough" and "Enough already"

I bet you said them with a different intonation. They mean the same, but the different words give a different rhythm, which show a different accent, which suggests a different background. Read a Roddy Doyle novel, for example, and the Irish accent rings out clearly through the rhythm of the sentences. Listening and reading out are key in developing this for yourself.

Variety is the Spice of Dialogue

Recently I was looking at some student work and while the dialogue seemed realistic, it also appeared clunky. Then I realised: it was the spacing of the attributions. They invariably came at the end so it went something like this...

"Blah blah blah. Blah blah. Blah blah blah," A said.

"Blah blah. Blah. Blah blah," B said.

"Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah," A said.

"Blah. Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah," B said.

"Blah," A said.

"Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah," B said.

And here it is with the attributions moved around:

"Blah blah blah,' A said. 'Blah blah. Blah blah blah."

"Blah blah. Blah," B said. "Blah blah."

"Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah," A said.

"Blah," B said. "Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah."

"Blah."

B said, "Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah."

Just moving the attributions around make it look more attractive to read. (It's blah blah to help you see more clearly. Nothing to do with lacking inspiration for sample dialogue.) I've also omitted one of the attributions, because it should be clear who is talking on line 5.

I could have played around with action:

"Blah blah blah.' A sipped the hot tea. 'Blah blah. Blah blah blah."

"Blah blah. Blah." B spilt sugar all over the table. "Blah blah."

"Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah." A carefully wiped the sugar grains into a napkin.

"Blah." B flung the sugar spoon into the saucer. "Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah."

"Blah."

B began to cry. "Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah."

Not an attribution in sight, but the actions make it clear who is doing the speaking. Whatever method you use, remember to vary the format: actions, plus attributions, plus changing speech rhythms make for interesting dialogue, even when what's being said is, frankly, a bit blah.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

Creating Convincing Dialogue

I get Google Alerts so I know when my name gets mentioned on the internet. The only trouble is, my name is hardly unusual so I get alerts for a photographer, a legal big cheese and a Texan volleyball player, among others. I see the first two lines of the relevant post. This came into my inbox yesterday...

Sarah Duncan walked 4.46 kilometers in 51 mins. It was VERY cold & windy. Another neighbor came with us and she walks slower so we could not walk as fast as ...

I imagine she's about fortyish, with ash-blonde streaks because she's going a little bit grey. She likes to wrap a big scarf around her neck and dig her hands deep in her pockets, along with a tube of Lipsalve and tissues still in the packet. She wears sea colours: mid blues and greens. Her husband told her when they were dating that they brought out the colour of her eyes. That was more years ago than she cares to mention. Since January she has been walking with her friend from across the road - Patty - to try to get fit and lose some weight. They're doing OK, they've been surprised at how easy it is to build up their times over the distance. When they finished the walk, the neighbour wanted to join them again, and they smiled and said they'd let her know, but knew they wouldn't.

That's all made up. For all I know, she's a lapdancer with dark hair snaking down her back. But not to me. My version comes from those few lines and the clues: the precision of the distance, the capitalised VERY, the sentence construction - particularly the 'she walks slower'. I'm busy constructing a whole persona from those clues.

So as writers, we need to make sure the clues are there. The problem is, I don't think you can construct the voice to fit the character - at least, that's not how it works for me. I hear the voice first. I hear how they speak, their intonation, their sentence construction, their accent, if they use jargon, or a particular vocabulary. I hear them, and from what they say, I work out how they look and how they are.

Writing this post, I realise that's the same process a reader goes through. They read/hear the dialogue and pick up clues, just the same way I did for speedwalking Sarah Duncan. I don't know if other writers do it the same way, but it seems a good way to create convincing dialogue - hear it first, then write it down.

PS Absolutely nothing to do with writing, but my lovely daughter Isabel is entering for Miss Bath! She needs people to vote for her, so if any one felt inclined to do so, text 11Isabel to 84205 - the downside is it costs 60p per text.

More Talking

Thinking about yesterday's post, how dialogue is fuelled by emotion, I thought you might like to try this exercise.

A: Hello. Come in.

B: Thanks. It's been a long time.

A: Would you like a cup of tea?

B: Please.

A: Milk and sugar?

B: Neither, thanks. I like it black.

Tea drinking scenes! They should really be banned, not encouraged. How dull. How mundane. How static. That said, now have a go at writing up this scene, adding all the description and emotions, but without removing or adding any other dialogue. The dialogue may not be changed at all.

Write it with this scenario in mind...A and B are twins, but they fell out some time ago. Now, B has made contact with A and asked to meet up. What A doesn't know is that B is ill and needs a new kidney. A should be the perfect match. Remember, all through this rather banal dialogue exchange there is just one thought burning through B's mind: will A donate a kidney? Write it out, and see the difference knowing the emotional situation makes.

Why Are You Talking?

Seriously, why are you talking? What makes you talk? Think about it...

I'd guess the answer is, you open your mouth and utter when you have something to say. And that something to say is in response to another stimulus - your emotions. Even if it's a simply 'good morning' type of exchange with your neighbour or the postman, that's an emotional response - you want to be friendly or polite.

Of course, quite a lot of our dialogue in real life is about being friendly or polite, and there's also the desire to be helpful, to give information but some of it will be fuelled by stronger emotions. Jealousy. Anger. Love. Fear. Whatever the emotion may be, I'm pretty certain that you're not randomly opening your mouth and letting a stream of consciousness pour out. You have reasons for speaking.

Same with written dialogue. It's fuelled by emotion. Once you know what the characters emotions are, you'll know what they have to say. And because it's fiction, and not real life, most - all? - of the situations we show our characters in are going to be subject to the more powerful emotions. Bertie Wooster may be written to amuse and entertain, but for Bertie the absurd situations he finds himself in are often fuelled by fear. It's funny to us, real to him.

When writing dialogue I find it best not to think about what they say. Instead I think about why they're saying it, what emotion is driving it. And then, what they say just comes.

Flavouring Speech

Last week I was doing something very silly (pointless, you could say) on television with my mate Caroline. Or was it with my friend Caroline? When I'm with my mother with other adults around I usually call her by her given name, but alone she's still my mummy. In other words, my vocabulary shifts depending on who I'm talking to and the circumstances, and I bet yours does too.

Each character you write will have their own way of speaking and their own vocabularies which will change subtly depending on their circumstances. As a writer we need to be aware of this and not write one universal vocal pattern for all our characters. It should be clear from the way the language is spoken - the rhythm of speech, the vocabulary used - which character is talking without the need for dialogue attributions.

Try this... Write a short bit of dialogue as two dukes meet and discuss the weather. Now write another bit of dialogue with two dustbin men meeting up and discussing the weather. Now write some more dialogue, but this time it's with a duke and a dustbin man meeting and discussing the weather. Each time, hear their voices in your head before writing. The dukes don't have to be upper class twits, not the dustbin men Gorblimey Alfred Doolittle types, but try to make it clear from the way they're speaking who is speaking. Capture the flavour of their speech.

In case any one is interested, I'm running a class in Bath on Friday afternoons for 8 weeks over the summer, a mix of exercises and workshopping. Contact me for more details on sarah@sarahduncan.co.uk

Anchors Away

Occasionally when I'm reading I find myself floating. It's not the relaxing power of the prose; the writer has forgotten to 'anchor' their writing and the characters have drifted off into space, a whirling mass of emotions and dialogue - rather as I imagine Saturn to be. Editors usually pick it up: the last time I can remember floating was in a Jane Green novel when the characters sat down for coffee then drifted off and after four pages of floating dialogue I was inwardly screeching "where are we?" All it needed was a few bits of coffee stirring, perhaps some slurping, or sugar being spilled on the table to keep the characters anchored into the narrative present.

Anchoring keeps your characters in the real world and helps make them believable. It adds detail and texture to the characters lives. It gives characters actions when there are pauses in speech:

'I was thinking of changing job.' Arabella neatly folded the beer mat into four, bent down to shove it under the wobbly table leg then resurfaced. 'A little bird told me you were leaving work.'

You don't have to keep repeating that they're in the pub, just scatter a few references here and there to gently remind the reader.

Another form of anchoring comes at the start of a new section. Back at the ranch...Later that afternoon...Over the next six weeks...The cottage the following morning was... My first editor said the information should always be in the first paragraph. I'd agree - as a reader I like to relax into the writing without having to think, where or when are we? Most writers add anchors automatically as they go along, but it's worth checking you're not letting your characters - and readers - drift away.