Dialogue
Hi everyone,
What I want to talk about today is dialogue. Dialogue is something that needs to be studied. It’s part of the illusive voice that everyone talks about. Not the words themselves. That belongs to the characters but the dialogue tags you add to them. Or the ones you don’t add.
In dialogue, we need to achieve 5 things.
Tell the reader who’s speaking.
Prevent our characters from being talking heads.
Prevent chunking the dialogue in such a way as it’s boring or a monologue or so broken up that the flow is disturbed.
Get across the emotion of the speakers.
Add in subtext/tension where possible.
All the choices you make about these add to your voice.
I used to find dialogue elusive. Like everyone, I’d read it all my life in books. I could recognise good and bad dialogue, but when it came to writing my own, even the mechanics were hard. Fullstops, commas, quotation marks, he said, she said, I say. Then behaviour tags, thought tags, or adding setting.
How was it all done? I had no idea. I had to look it up because as a reader you never notice them. They’re invisible in good dialogue. And that’s the way it should be.
Readers only notice the conversation—unless you’ve messed up—not the mechanics used to get across the setting, or emotion, or the behaviour of the character.
I studied a few fantasy books I liked and I highlighted every dialogue tag in them, color coding them according to type:
She said (straight forward, invisible tag).
I whispered, I shouted, I muttered etc.
He said angrily (adverb tag).
I can’t believe she’s lying to my face (thought tag).
She tapped her finger on the book (behaviour tag).
Something she only does when she’s hiding something (commentary tag).
The breeze picked up, blowing her hair into her face (setting tag).
The reason I highlighted all the tags (even the boring he said, she saids), was because I wanted to see how often they were used and which ones I liked and didn’t like. For example, in writing classes, we’re told, don’t take the readers focus away from the dialogue, just write: he said, she said. I wanted to see how many times they are used in a row, without anything else to jazz them up.
Some courses said, try to use no tag. Again I wanted to know how long you can go without a tag of any kind. I highlighted this too. I think about 5 is the max in a two people conversation, unless it’s a really rapid fire conversation, then you can get away with more.
I’m not a big fan of ‘he said grumpily’, I feel it gives the book a younger vibe, more like Enid Blyton. Not to say I don’t use adverbs here and there, but it’s not my go-to.
I like behaviour and thought tags because it gives me setting and character as well. They’re good for adding in emotion, and subtext. The mismatch between what is being said and the characters behaviour/thoughts can help create subtext.
There’s no right or wrong choice. But the choice you do make contributes to your voice, so I suggest studying it. Find the tags you like and the tags you don’t like. Make an informed decision.
That’s all from me. I’m busy planning my scene. Nothing earth shattering other than I have to write a dialogue scene tomorrow, that’s why dialogue is on my mind.
Talk to you tomorrow.
Happy writing,
Joanne.
