Writing About Writing...About Talking

I haven't written about writing in a while, and this being a writers' blog, I should pitch in. And I'll write about, well, talking. The characters, anyway. Dialogue.

TO GET SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY

Writers have opinions about things like "dialogue" versus "dialog." Both are acceptable under reputable style guides. I use "dialogue" exclusively unless somebody is interacting with a computer. "Dialog" is more specific to speech, meaning interactions such as "hello" and "pass the salt." "Dialogue" is more expansive, implying a progression or learning tied to the discussion. Writers should write character interchanges that propel events, that lead to something new. Hence, it's "dialogue" for me.

Harrumph. 

I'm less-is-more when it comes to dialogue. It has its purpose, and nothing is better at that purpose. Dialogue freezes time while someone takes that spotlight. Dialogue is the character framer. Dialogue is the big reveal, the perfect riposte, the thing that must be said. But spotlights, like stories, must move. Narrative moves. It's malleable. Narrative plays with ideas and time in ways dialogue often can't. 

When a moment calls for dialogue, I have a general approach, and it goes like so:

1: WHY DOES IT NEED TO BE SAID?

We're writing fiction here. Verisimilitude. It's a crafted world, right down to what people say to each other. Dialogue isn't conversation. 

My early drafts can be guilty of dialogue running long. The characters get in a back-and-forth groove, but the story stops dead in its tracks. 

Let's say Bill and Doug are getting together to watch a game. Real-life discussion might go:

"Hey, man," Bill said. "What's up, brother?"

"Same old," Doug said.

"Grab a beer. Kick-off is in like five minutes."

"Great. Thanks."

"Pizza?" Bill said. "I was thinking pizza."

"Killer. Hey, turn the sound up."

"Sure. What a game this is, right?"

Let me clean that up.

"Hey, man," Bill said. "What's up, brother?"

"Same old," Doug said.

"Grab a beer. Kick-off is in like five minutes."

"Great. Thanks."

"Pizza?" Bill said. "I was thinking we order Giuseppe's."

"Killer. Hey, turn the sound up."

"Sure. What a game this is, right?" Bill cleared his throat. "Man, I am mad in love with your wife."

That's a story. That's what needs to be said. Now, some dialogue ahead of that showing Bill working up to the big reveal could be great. And much argument should follow, but where to sit and where to get pizza? It better be critical to something later.

Novels deserve more latitude. Novels are long. Readers need pauses and key fact reminders to help hold plot and character arcs together. Still, it's one thing to summon everyone into the drawing room to rehash the clues. It's another thing to hold a 10-page chinwag.

2: WOULD ANYONE EVER SAY THAT?

You know where I'm going.

"So, Agent Coolguy," Bigbad said. "Now that you're my prisoner, I suppose it's fitting that I explain my evil plan. At length. Yes, you were right that I've been buying up all the fast-casual restaurants west of the Pecos. What you weren't clever enough to see is yadda yadda yadda."

Yes, the dreaded Monologue. 

Or:

"As we all know," Madge said, "it's quite mild here this time of season. It's when the tourists come, as we also all know, they come for our famous lobster races. One reason they are famous is that the races were illegal for many years until in 1886 Mayor Codfish up and died. From fatty lobster, the legend goes. Well, what were we talking about?"

Call this the Basil Exposition, the Michael York character in Austin Powers who pops up with a recitation of backstory. Then there's Stating The Obvious. You know, characters just speaking explain-y facts and spot-on deductions at each other.  

HARDEDGE: The shooter must have been on the fire escape. High-cal weapon. 45mm, I'd say.

KICKSIDE: That's elite marksmanship. You're not saying the perp was Special Forces like you? 

HARDEDGE: That's exactly what I'm saying.

I get that word count or run-time pressure might require shoehorning in facts, and I'm probably guilty of info-dumps myself. But things people say in fiction should be things people might actually say.

2a: WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE?

I have a corollary pet peeve to Stating The Obvious: Chiming In The Obvious. Let's pick up the chase for that shooter.

HARDEDGE: That's exactly what I'm saying.

KICKSIDE: Then he's highly trained. You know, he could strike again.

SMITTY: He would need access to cleaning solvent.

DR. PROFILER: That checks out. I've been writing about this for years.

McNERD: There's been chatter on social media about scoring solvent.

ROOK: We should head over to the Army base. They have a lot of solvent there.

CHIEF: Army? Good call, kid. This is a really tense moment. I want everyone's A-game, got it?

NOTGONNAMAKEIT: Come on, Rook. Let's hit that base.

I like big ensemble casts. What distracts me is when everyone gets a toss-in line apparently because it's a big cast. Dialogue hits harder when it's person-to-person, not group brainstorming.

3: WOULD THAT CHARACTER SAY THAT?

Nature and nurture make us each our own person. What we say and how we say it is a product of place, culture, education, life experience, and so forth. That singularly created individual is who has the dialogue spotlight. Let them be singular.

Speaking of which, first-person point of view. Of my published stories, first-person perspective tops third-person three-to-one. I write characters, and first-person is pure character. Literally. I write every word of those as if the main character is always speaking, whether narrative or their share of dialogue. It's only the other characters who speak in another voice, their own voice. Even that gets filtered by what the main character must hear -- or is willing to hear.

4: HOW WOULD THAT CHARACTER SAY IT THEN?

A story moving along in a single flow, everything converging as it should. It's time for our characters to have an important verbal exchange. All good. But where are we in the story? What's happening at that very moment?- What's going on around them? Bill and Doug will need very different lines if that love triangle is the inciting incident versus a final showdown.

I keep the characters talking about only the story problem as it exists then and there. Exchanges might be longer or more subtextual while characters grapple with their problem. There might be more misunderstandings and talking around each other. As the problem reaches its resolution, words are more pointed, more revealing.

Going back to human nature, people shift from moment to moment. How we speak and how we phrase it changes based on mood, place, power dynamics, who we're speaking to, whether we're protecting something or we're straight-up lying. Dialogue is a combination of those choices in that moment, and it makes for characterization gold.

I'VE SAID MY PEACE

A truly powerful character choice is when to stop talking. Which I'll do now, leaving this as my take on dialogue. The approach keeps me out of trouble, mostly. And I need it, because it's easier to write about dialogue than to write actual dialogue.