The Art of Manliness: Rules of Conversation for Gentlemen from 1875!

Everybody knows what dialogue is. You read it all the time, in every fiction book you pick up. You hear it on TV and in the movies. It’s obvious … isn’t it?

Not really. Writing dialogue is more involved than most beginning writers think it is. It’s not just a matter of slapping down a few lines of speech. Here are five myths about dialogue — and the truth for each one.

 

1. Good dialogue uses plenty of synonyms for “he said.” Many writers believe that they need to come up with a unique dialogue tag for each line, such as “he exclaimed” or “she hissed.” The truth is, good dialogue seldom uses more than the occasional “he said” or “she asked” — and that’s only when clarification is absolutely needed. Readers skim over those familiar words, and read only the spoken lines. When they hit one of those oddball synonyms, they’re jarred right out of the story trying to figure out what the character was doing. Especially jolting are terms like “he smiled” or “she grimaced” — actions you don’t normally associate with speech at all. Just stick to the old stand-by and your readers will thank you.

2. You need a dialogue tag for every line of speech. Your readers are pretty clever people. They know that when two people are talking, they’ll typically take turns speaking, so every other line will be another person. The truth is, you almost never have to write “he said” or “she asked” at all. Start the ball rolling with the primary character doing something, then just slip in their dialogue. The reader will pick it up at that point and understand that the next line belongs to the second person. Show the action, and you can skip the tags. At most, you’ll just have to stick in the odd “Bob said” or “Sally replied” once in a while.

3. Just write the way the average person speaks. Nobody would read past the third line of dialogue if you did this! Dialogue is not just a transcription of normal speech. Most people do a lot of hemming and hawing, with plenty of “ums” and “ers” and “uhs” thrown in. People blather a bit as well, asking about your health and the family and talking about the weather. Nobody wants to read all that! Condense your dialogue to the main information and skip all the small talk.

4. Show dialect phonetically. This seems reasonable on the surface. After all, a character from Ireland will speak a different dialect than one from China. However, phonetic spelling is hard to read, and you end up jolting the reader out of the story again as they try to puzzle out what the character is saying. The best way to handle dialect is to show one — two at the most — examples of phonetic spelling to give the readers the idea. From that point, you need only phrase the speech in the proper manner to remind them. Throw in a few recognizable slang terms, for example, or show the stilted speech of a non-English speaker. Otherwise, use standard spelling and let the reader “translate” into dialect in their own head.

5. Give the whole dialogue. Many writers don’t seem to know when to describe and when to use dialogue. They include the small talk, the greetings and farewells, and all the little boring things people normally include in a conversation. The beauty of writing is that you can skip all the boring stuff and get right into the meat of a dialogue. Show the characters coming together — you don’t need the greetings, the remarks about the local sports team, or the catching-up on the family members. Start the dialogue when the meat of the conversation is reached, and stop as soon as the relevant information is conveyed. The readers can fill in the rest (if they even want to).

 

What are some of the worst examples of dialogue you’ve ever read?

^{Writers are incurable eavesdroppers — and we should be. It’s our job to create believable characters, and in order to create, you have to understand. Thus, we spend a great deal of time listening to real characters interact.}

^{Never let an opportunity pass you by. Pay attention to those two old ladies behind you in the check-out line as they complain about their ungrateful grandchildren. Prick up your ears as the couple at the next table discusses their finances over dinner. Sit back in a corner of the mall and absorb.}

^{But you’re not just collecting gossip when you eavesdrop. Here’s what you should be listening for:}

• ^{Rhythm – people don’t deliver information in packets, like an encyclopedia or computer program. Conversation ebbs and flows, and you must pay attention to catch the rhythm of the speech. Rhythm can be a regional trait as well, so familiarize yourself with the cadence of local conversation as you listen. A New Yorker, for example, will speak in a more rapid, brusque manner when compared to a South Carolinian.}
• ^{Tone 1 – the attitude or emotion of the speaker. This can be freely expressed or hidden, so you must pay attention to body language in addition to words. But that’s a subject for a later article.}
• ^{Tone 2 – when conversation is emotionally charged, people speak in a higher tone of voice than when they are relaxed. Emotion tightens the vocal cords. Professional speakers utilize a lower, relaxing tone. Think Morgan Freeman.}
• ^{Diction – word choice. This is unique to every speaker. Educated people use longer, more vivid words, while uneducated people use simpler words. Regional dialect plays a part as well, especially with the uneducated speaker.}
• ^{Sentence Length – educated people usually use longer sentences than uneducated people. Shorter sentences can also signal tension or urgency. People also tend to shorten or abbreviate their sentences in informal situations.}
• ^{Syntax – the way words are arranged within sentences. English typically uses a subject-verb-object order, for example. Non-English speakers often give themselves away with syntax as well as word choice.}

^{The art of eavesdropping, you can see, is a bit more complicated than it seems. Or it is if you’re a writer looking for material.}

^{What’s your best eavesdropping technique?}