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On Dialogue

The document discusses the craft of writing dialogue. It notes that dialogue needs to move the story forward, provide information, and develop characters. Good dialogue does more than just mimic realistic speech - it conveys deeper meanings through what characters aren't literally saying. The document analyzes examples from published works to illustrate how authors develop impactful dialogue that serves dramatic purposes rather than just replicating everyday conversation. Writers are advised to focus on what characters mean rather than what they say when developing dialogue for their stories.

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Sagui Cohen
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67 views

On Dialogue

The document discusses the craft of writing dialogue. It notes that dialogue needs to move the story forward, provide information, and develop characters. Good dialogue does more than just mimic realistic speech - it conveys deeper meanings through what characters aren't literally saying. The document analyzes examples from published works to illustrate how authors develop impactful dialogue that serves dramatic purposes rather than just replicating everyday conversation. Writers are advised to focus on what characters mean rather than what they say when developing dialogue for their stories.

Uploaded by

Sagui Cohen
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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On Dialogue "You can type this shit, George, but you sure can't say it." ? Harrison Ford to George Lucas, during the filming of Star Wars A writer's voice is the product of many years' learning by doing. Then ? just when you start to get good at it ? they'll tell you you've got ?a good ear for dialogue'. It's meant to be a compliment, I think; they're calling you a natural. But it's a fallacy, just a clich passed from generation to generation of critics the way kids transmit nursery rhymes in the playground. It seeks to confirm the lie that writers are recording angels, huddled on buses, in pubs and coffee shops with notebooks in furtive hand, jotting down other peoples' bon mots. Truth is, there isn't much point in listening to what people say, because what people say isn't usually all that interesting. It's critically important, however, for any writer to spend as much time as possible listening to how people speak. Which is a very different thing. It's a distinction you have to appreciate if you want to spend your professional life putting words into the mouths of imaginary people Anyone can write a bunch of talking, but talking isn't dialogue. Like every other word in your novel, dialogue is there to do a job ? a number of jobs, in fact. It needs to move the story forward, to give information, to intensify characterisation. Ideally, it should do all three at once. This is an extract (chosen almost at random) from Roddy Doyle's The Commitments, the story of working-class Irish kids forming a soul band in the Dublin of the 1980s: ? What's wrong with our ordin'y names? Dean wanted to know. ? Nothin', Dean, said Jimmy. ? Nothin' at all. ? Well, then? ? Look, said Jimmy. Take Joey. He's Joey Fagan, righ'? ? Plain ordin'ry Joey Fagan. An ordin'ry little bollix. ? That's me, Brother, said Joey the Lips. ? I'm the Jesus of Ordinary.

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? But when he goes on stage, he's Joey the Lips Fagan. ? So? ? So, he's not ordin'y up there. He's special. He needs a new name. ? Soul is dignity, Joey the Lips reminded them. ? What's dignified abou' a stupid name like the fuckin' Lips? This satisfies all three criteria: the story is moved forward, information is given, and as for intensifying character ? well, don't you know these people, even from this tiny extract? Can't you see them and hear them? Would-be novelists worried about their comparative lack of dexterity often decide their dialogue is insufficiently ?realistic'. Attempting to compensate, they can tend to the sin of the ?said bookism' ? using an artificial verb to replace the simple word ?said' ? ?He asked', ?she explained', ?she shuddered', ?he shouted': these are said bookisms that wrench you directly from the story, remind you that you're reading, stop you believing. Elmore Leonard put it best, as he often does: ?Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in.' Said bookisms are to be shunned. This is one of the very few cardinal rules that should never, ever be broken, not even if you're a genius ... unless you're a genius trying to write like an amateur. In fact Roddy Doyle's dialogue, for all its vivacity, isn't realistic at all. It removes the ers, the ums, the pauses, the failed interjections. It comes in late, it does what it needs to do, it gets out early. It improves on reality. All good dialogue is the consequence of such meticulous artifice. Lord knows, David Mamet probably never heard anyone having a conversation anything like this: No. What do you mean? Have I talked to him about this? Yes. I mean are you actually talking about this, or are we just ... No, we're just ... We're just ?talking' about it.

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We're just speaking about it ... as an idea. As an idea. Yes. We're not actually talking about it. No. Yet it sounds completely true. (It's from Glengarry, Glen Ross.) This sounds true, too ? but in a different way: The girl came out in her robe and put her arms round the boy. Hey, the boy said. I'm sorry, the girl said. It's all right, the boy said. I didn't mean to snap like that. It was my fault, he said. You sit down, the girl said. How does a waffle sound with bacon? That's from a story called ?Everything Stuck to Him' by Raymond Carver. It's commonplace; nobody seems to be saying much of anything ? not with much ingenuity, anyway. But it says everything about these characters; their lives, their history, their age, their relationship, even their future You'll note that in each of these examples of impeccable craftsmanship, none of the characters are really talking about what they appear to be talking about. There's an undercurrent, a deeper meaning. There's something bigger they want to say. The dialogue shows more than it tells. It has dramatic purpose. Which is about as far from everyday conversation as it's possible to be. So if you think you've got a tin ear for dialogue, you're probably wrong. Chances are, you're

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simply trying to make dialogue do the wrong job; you're trying to make it sound like people talking. To write good dialogue you don't need to carry a notepad and pencil, and you don't need a ?good ear' for what people say. You need to hear what people mean, which often means you need to hear what they're not saying. Then you have to work out how to make your readers hear it, too. If there's a secret ingredient, that's it. (A version of this article appears in Booknotes magazine, Autumn 2010)

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