Is Dialogue Really Necessary--part Two

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When we hear the characters speak we experience the events in the story as they happen. We are there in the thick of the action. But when characters do not speak, the writer has to put over the missing dialogue in other ways - usually in long, fussy descriptive passages and clumsy, intrusive explanations. We are no longer involved in the story, we are listening to a narrator recounting the adventures in a flat, static, second-hand summary that others considered a poor substitute for a ring-side seat on the action.

A story needs a dynamic dialogue. Most of what we say in an average day is boring, repetitive and commonplace. Short story dialogue cannot afford to be any of these things. It is the key phrase, the vital speech that brings tension, humor or drama to the piece. It is the writer’s equivalent of the journalist sound bite. To prove it, consider which of the samples has more impact:

A. ”I hate you,” Leah screamed, waving the knife in Paul’s face. I’ll make sure you never betray me again. I’ll make sure you never look at another woman…ever!”

Edging back, he gulped. “L-l-look,” he stammered, “can’t we be calm and talk about this? You don’t need the knife.”

B. Angrily Leah confronted Paul, waving a knife in his face. She told him he would never betray her again with another woman. He backed away nervously, asking if they could talk it out. He told her that she did not need to threaten him with a knife.

A and B contain the same basic information but one is exciting. At A, there is life, danger, emotion when Leah screams in rage. While B is not dramatic – in fact it reads like the minutes of a committee meeting.

Dialogue has three main functions:

• To move on the action of the story. “Honey, sit down. I’ve got a surprise for you. It wasn’t indigestion after all…I’m pregnant!”
• To reveal more about the characters. “Love you? I could never love anyone poor.”
• To inject excitement. “If you don’t hand it over, I’ll kill you – so help me!”

In all these instances, dialogue is providing information – not just slavishly mimicking speech. If your dialogue is not telling the reader something crucial about the action, the characters or the atmosphere, it should not be there. 

Also fiction writers should not fall into the Hello trap. Beware having your characters waste their dialogue on routine greetings and pleasantries. There is no need to have them wishing each other good morning or asking: how are you keeping these days? It is surprising how much space in a short story you can gobble up with people saying hello and goodbye to each other. It is amazing how much such greetings kill the pace. Also do not allow characters to rabbit on pointlessly just for the sake of hearing their own voices. Unless a conversation is emotion-packed and plays an important part in moving the plot forward, leave it out. 

Is Dialogue Really Necessary--part One

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Take a look at any group at a party. The people who do not speak are ignored. When people open their mouths and speak - it signal that they truly come to life. So dialogue in its simplest form is just a conversation between two or more people. It is just like the chats you hear and take part in every day. Nothing more threatening than that.

Dialogue scares new writers. They will do anything to avoid it – cross the street, move house, change their names. But you cannot run away from it forever. Dialogue must be faced and mastered if you ever hope to make it into print. Have you ever seen a published story that did not contain at least some dialogue? Normally we spend our lives talking to each other and we expect the characters who inhabit the stories we read to do the same. Then why is it so scary?

Correct me if I am wrong that the reason most new writers give is that, deep inside themselves, they are afraid to reproduce conversations that are real; that sound right. So how you would make characters speak like real people in your story? How do you pick up on each person’s individual mannerisms and unique speech patterns? Surely for new writers it is impossible – unless they are trained linguist who have the time to go round tape-recording conversations and analyzing them.

The good news is that you do not have to. In fact, it does not matter if your dialogue is not authentic, as long it sounds as though it might be. Dialogue is not an accurate representation of how people speak. It is a carefully selected series of words uttered by characters that pretend to be real people.

The purpose of dialogue is to put over vital information – about what is happening, how people feel, the tension of the situation or the background of the main characters. It puts over information in much the same way as your descriptions do. It tell the reader important facts and snippets of information he needs to know.

When you look at a story, you will see that the way the characters talk is not realistic at all. There are no ahs and ums, no woolly phrases or sentences that drift off at a tangent, no sentences left unfinished. Everything is clear, quick and clean.

Yes, dialogue is vital. Characters need to speak. They need to be heard – out loud. If you writer do not let your readers hear what the character thinks and feels out of his own mouth, he will remain forever a symbol – not a living, breathing, individual and your reader would not care about him or what happens to him. Dialogue brings the readers closer to the characters. A story without dialogue is boring. You writer is like summarizing only events rather than letting them unfold in real time. You will end up telling instead of showing!