Dialogue Don’ts (an exercise)
Here’s the worst piece of dialogue I could come up with in thirty seconds.
“So, watcha think?” Susan queried John with raised eyebrows.
”Dunno, Susan,” John said dismissively.
”Well, John, I totally think you should, like, know,” she sniped. “As Director of Strategic Planning at our company, Nuts, Bolts & Widgets, it’s, um, so your job!”
He nodded. “It is my job. But I’m so unhappy right now because of my divorce that I’m not paying attention to stuff.”
Reading it makes me shudder. It breaks all these basic dialogue rules:
- Don’t bore your reader. In other words, don’t let your characters talk about nothing, and don’t even think about writing in the verbal tics of real life. Fictional dialogue is both dense and distilled. It’s full of information about character, setting, and story.
- Don’t As You Know Bob. John and Susan know what their jobs are; they wouldn’t need to tell each other.
- Don’t use names all the time. These characters know what they’re called–and apart from cheesy sales patter, how many times in real life does the person you’re talking to use your name?
- Don’t use italics or exclamation marks to emphasize dialogue. Trust your words. If they don’t convey what you want them to, choose different words.
- Don’t use clichéd physical mannerisms: nod, smile, raise eyebrows, etc. Yes, we all do those things, but they are so over-used in fiction that readers don’t see them; on their own they’re more or less devoid of information. Pick something else. Perhaps John scratches his head with a pencil. Perhaps Susan unbends and rebends a paperclip.
- Don’t embroider speech with fussy said-bookisms. No one need to query or snipe. She said/he said is perfectly acceptable. It’s standard and therefore practically invisible. (Not wholly invisible; use it sparingly. Your readers aren’t morons. We can remember who’s talking for several whole lines at a time.) Closely allied: don’t use adverbs to describe speech. If you’ve picked the right words, described the right mannerisms, the character’s attitude will be apparent. Again, trust your words.
- Don’t have talking heads in space. I don’t know where John and Susan are. I assume it’s cubicleland, but it could be a bar, or the lobby, or a bus.
So let’s rewrite it. First of all, we’ll just clean it up, take out all the bits that break the rules.
”What do you think?” Susan asked John.
”I don’t know.”
She glared at him. “It’s your job to know.”
”I don’t care.”
That’s so bland it’s pointless. We don’t know who these people are, where they are, what’s happened to trigger this conversation, or how they feel.
So here’s the exercise. Pick a setting (a bank, a hospital, a paper manufacturer’s offices). Decide what’s just happened (rumours of downsizing, the arrival of the police, a siren going off). Decide how old the characters are (and, while we’re at it, let’s give them better names–something a bit less whitebread). Decide how their home life is going (he’s getting a divorce and she’s worried about her sick cat; perhaps they’ve just ended an affair; maybe he’s having sex with their boss).
Watch Kelley’s latest editcast on dialogue (and watch the first one on first-person voice, for good measure).
Now rewrite this snippet of dialogue in fewer than 200 words. Make sure your characters’ speech and mannerisms reflect who they are, where they are, and how they feel. Post your snippet in the comments. We’ll all critique it. Then in a couple of days I’ll discuss some examples of brilliant dialogue, and we’ll all have another go.
Posted by: Nicola
Susan McGee, branch manager, was having a bad day. Sleeping through the alarm, out of her favorite shampoo and runs in her nylons-both legs! Add that to the traffic this morning and she was ready to scream.
Opening the double doors of her bank branch only made it worse. In her chair, was Mr. John Wothers, District Manager. “Good Morning Susan.” he said, playing with a pen in his hands as he swiveled back and forth. “Irregularities in your branch records have come to my attention.”
Susan sat down hard in the customer’s chair. Oh god! she thought, but said, “What do you think?” She prayed she kept her face composed. Any hint of fear now would mean disaster.
He reached and put the pen back into it’s cup. “I don’t know.” he said and leaned back to look at her without a hint of emotion.
Annoyed at his calm attitude, she glared at him and said, “It’s your job to know.” She wished she could have a drink right now. Tonight she promised herself, she’d get stinking drunk.
His hands made a pyramid with his fingers. Eyes narrowed and with an icy brittle tone he said, “I don’t care.”
Agree totally–so many novelists/fiction writers/budding dramatists are guilty of this kind of writing.
There is one exception to this rule. Daytime drama (and much of what’s on at night as well) is rife with this sort of clutter. the main reason this is done in TV is that the writers there know that the viewers really aren’t paying attention. the other reason is that the writers have to fill upwards of 100 minutes a week.
Thank you for great examples!
I like this. I like that Susan is the manager but she’s all panicked at the beginning. She’s like some people I know.
But then some of it doesn’t make sense. She prays that her face looks calm, but then she glares at him. Mr. Wothers shows no hint of emotion but then he narrows his eyes and uses an icy, brittle tone. There should be something there to make them be like this?
Too, I think you don’t need both ! points, and John doesn’t have to use Susan’s name. Unless it’s kind of ironic?
Stephanie, thanks for breaking the ice. Ciarla has some good points. Susan is like a lot of people we all know–I can certainly understand her stress. However, I don’t understand the abrupt change from terrified (she’s praying–something most people only do when really freaked out) to annoyed. ‘Annoyed’ is a very particular word. To me it connotes minor irritation. I can imagine Susan turning her fear to ferocious attack, but not to mere annoyance. Think about how you could recast that.
Some other suggestions: lose the exclamation points. Consider the Wortham’s use of Susan’s name–either cut it, or put a pause before it, e.g. “Good morning. Susan.” That way, we feel the deliberate, cutting weight of it. Also, take a careful look at your point of view. It’s clear that Susan is your POV character–we get her thoughts and feelings–but saying he leaned back ‘without a hint of emotion’ comes perilously close to suggesting that’s his intention. In other words, it could be read as touching upon his POV. A better way might be to simply describe his actions (or lack thereof), for example, he “leaned back, face smooth,” or to use Susan’s POV: he “leaned back and met her gaze, but Susan couldn’t tell what he was thinking.”
So now I want to know the story: what has Susan done? Why doesn’t Wothers care? Are they about to enter into some kind of unholy conspiracy?
MisterBad, yes, indeed. Soap opera dialogue is classic AYKB stuff. I don’t know how the writers bear it. Writing that execrable snippet above made me grumpy. Writing a hundred minutes of it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Suz shut the door behind her. The tortured mewling had stopped at least. She lifted the already damp hem of her wife-beater and wiped the sweat from her temple.
Johann didn’t look up to see the flat of her stomach or the lower curve of her breast. He was too busy field-stripping his Glock 21 for the umpteenth time today.
“What do you think?” Suz asked out of nowhere.
Johann eased the slide into place and jammed the magazine home. His shirt was plastered to his kick-boxer physique but it didn’t seem to bother him. It was better than Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever-the-hell he’d been stationed before.
“I don’t know.”
Suz turned away, hearing him eject the magazine and dry-fire. The room was little bigger than a jail cell. There was nowhere for her to go. “It’s your job to know,” she said, mostly to herself.
She did not hear him rise or cross the room. Barely felt her body being wrenched around before the explosion of pain as her head hit the wall. Johann’s gorilla grip clamped around her throat. She stared into whatever passed for a soul behind those dead eyes of his.
“I don’t care.”
Dianne, I like this. The POV is a bit shaky: is it Suz’s or not? If it is, then she can’t ask anything out of nowhere: she’s know where her question came from. If it’s not her POV, then we can’t know about the pain in her head, or that she’s turning away because she heard Johann ejecting the magazine. (Thank you, by the way, for calling it a magazine, and not a clip.) The rhythm of the last paragraph is a bit off, too–a comma between room and barely would be better than a full stop.
I get a real picture of the scene, though, a sense of their working relationship and the pent up energy/tension. (You could enhance that with some more sensory detail: smell, taste, or texture.)
So what’s going on? Where are they?
They’ve kidnapped a woman on her honeymoon. Things went wrong. They’ll probably have to kill her. They’re waiting for word from their boss that the husband has paid the ransom.
Janelle slammed a fist down on her desktop, causing her keyboard to jump. Byron, sitting across from her, jumped as well.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sagging in her chair and giving him an apologetic look. She looked around her tiny office space, her pride and joy, the company she’d worked so hard to get off the ground, and all she felt was despair. Looking back at her business partner, she asked him, trying to keep her voice level, “So, what do you think?”
He met her eyes and shrugged almost casually. “I don’t know.”
She gaped at him. “But it was your job to know! We lost five thousand dollars, Byron! That’s not pocket change.” Her voice hardened on those last words.
“Yes, it was my job,” he threw back at her, his own temper now rising. “But I didn’t know those contractors were going to cut and run, so don’t blame me for this. It’s not my fault.”
“Oh, that’s cute, not your fault. So whose fault is it then? You hired them.”
He abruptly stood, shoving his chair back almost violently. “You know what, I don’t care.” And he stormed out of the office.
”What do you think?” She asked entering the engine room. “Will it work?”
”I don’t know.”
“You were built for this” She glared at him. “It’s your job to know.”
“Lieutenant, I was built for ship maintenance.” He began drumming his fingers against the bulkhead support beam. Metal clinked against metal in perfect rhythm.
Lieutenant Weiss hated it, that imitation of humanity. “That’s what I’m proposing.”
“By routing power from the stasis pods.” Rotating motors whined as he turned his head from the screen to face her. “It’s murder.”
“It’s survival.” She didn’t return he gaze. “Allowing them to live on board as I have for the past few months would use up the remaining power inside of a week. This is the only option.”
“That’s incorrect. The exotic energy field drained the power and altered our course.” He pointed to the screen. “This planet.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I will.”
“Authorization code: Weiss D-G-7-1-3. J-0-N-N, I command you to reroute power.”
“Your code wont prevent me from preserving life.”
“We’ll be stranded.”
“Everyone will survive.”
“But I want to go home.”
J-0-N-N left the engine room, six metallic legs clinking perfect rhythm against the floor. “I don’t care.”
Sanne was in REMsleep when Yla slipped into the airlock and jettisoned herself into space. The note was on her pillow when she woke, scribbled on a piece of precious onionskin. That was five days ago. Sanne hadn’t slept since.
Sanne blinked at the monitor before her. Her fingers danced over controls, shifting frequencies, resolutions. Out there, in the blackness of space, something was leaking energy. Could be salvage, could be nothing. Nine weeks out and the hold was still half empty.
“What do you think?” She turned expectantly toward Xo at the console across the bridge.
Xo was spaceborn, lanky, with the radiant pallor of those who have never known the light of day. Sanne thought of her as “Mutant Bitch.” Xo was impassive, studying the New York Times Sunday crossword displayed on her Kindle. “I don’t know.”
On Earth, Xo would’ve been helplessly gravity-bound, but here, in MinGrav, she was quick and lithe as a cat. Sanne’s earthborn physique, the sheer mass of bone and muscle put her at a disadvantage. Sanne forced an insipid smile. “It’s your job…”
Xo counted the boxes. “I don’t care,” she said, scribing “C-O-N-T-E-M-P-T” into 27-across, next to “V-E-X” and “M-U-T-I-N-Y.”
Last one (I promise):
Morning sun spilled across the heart pine flooring, casting a golden glow into every corner of the room. Suzie stood in the doorway, enjoying the warmth on her bare feet.
Everything was still painted spotless white, a blank canvas without even curtains to interfere with her happy-ever-after daydreams.
Jon padded up behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist. The sandpaper of his morning stubble chafed the side of her neck, and she luxuriated in his greasy coffee and testosterone scent.
“What do you think?” she asked, holding up two paint chips — pale pastel yellow and blue.
He kissed her on the throat and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She smiled playfully, teasing. “It’s your job to know.”
He pulled closer, nibbling her ear, and she felt a part of him move against the small of her back. “I don’t care.” It came out as a gravelly whisper.
She leaned into him, feeling desired, loved, safe. She knew he would take care of them, would protect her — protect them both. As if in acknowledgment, the child moved within her.
It’s bad only because it’s awkward, but it has a good aim, that of letting readers in on the inner life of the viewpoint character. The clutter comes in because most if not all the physical business is not necessary in written fiction these days. In Victorian fiction — and please note how popular faux-Victorian remains to this day — people needed hand-holding like this in order properly to visualize stage business. Now we are raised to visual entertainments and saying, “She drove across town to a bar and got drunk,” suffices for us to fill in all the details.
Stark dialogue with no inner glimpses or pointers toward surroundings or circumstances can be, if not cluttered per se, confusing too.
A happy balance and a focus on what’s pertinent to the scene’s purposes are in order to achieve decent dialogue.
Gene, which snippet are you referring to?
I couldn’t agree more: a happy balance is what we’re all aiming for. The trick is knowing how–what works and what doesn’t. If the point, for example, is that she got drunk, then, yes, simply saying so works fine. Except…why would she drive across town? Why go to a bar rather than drinking at home? Every choice raises questions. Also, if we rely on visual entertainment to fill in the blanks, what we’ll get is generic.
Rebecca –
I like the dynamic between Janelle and Byron, and the general flow of the scene. Coming from a screenwriting background, I feel the dialog is a bit bloated. For example:
“It was your job to know. We lost five thousand dollars, Byron!” Panic crept into her voice.
You’ve left us wondering what she’s willing to do to fix this.
Tranceptor –
Interesting sci-fi take. Nice tactile references, “Metal clinked against metal in perfect rhythm.” I did feel the exposition was a bit heavy in the dialog and probably could be cut back.
Looking forward to the rivalry between J-O-N-N and Weiss.
OK here is my take, rewrite.
Thirtish Tessa is stressed as she tries to find out if her friend got her the appointment with the CEO.
So tell me Ned, did you speak with the Ceo? She asks, sitting on her hands so that she won’t chew on her fingernails.
A thirty-three year old Ned curtly counters, why is this so important to you? While he waits he leans back in his chair to see her better.
It just is. she stresses firmly
I don’t care I want to know why. he demands
I can’t tell you that. she says
Then I can’t help you. he replies
Please Ned this is vitally important. She pleads.
Not until you tell me why. he says.
When she doesn’t answer right away he gets up and heads to the door saying, We’re done here.
Panicking she shouts NO Ned you don’t understand this is vitally important.
TELL ME WHY he demands getting in her face.
Its private. she murmurs unsure how to tell him.
As he opens the door she rushes him and slams it shut. Alright I had a vision about him, he’s going to die if he gets on that jet.
He freezes for a moment as he ponders her words. He can see the fear in her eyes and hear it in her voice. That is why she is such a good poker partner. Aloud he asks, How many times have you had this vision?
this last time you were on the plane with him. she says softly I couldn’t bear it if I lost my best friend ever.
He closes his eyes for a moment on a heavy sigh.
Anxiously she waits his decision then not sure why she leans in and kisses him on the lips. As their lips meet he allows her to direct the pace, then as the kiss deepens.
“So what do you think?” Lucy tried to make her words nonchalant – like she wasn’t desperate for this job, like if she walked out the door and down San Juan Street multiple CRM companies would just throw their doors open for her. Once upon a time maybe, but now her reputation was toast. As Taggart tapped his pen idly on the cover of her employee file, Lucy’s heart jittered madly. The Wichita dig had been a total disaster. She just wanted her old job back. She just wanted to come home. But would SolCRM ever be home again, now that Taggart had been promoted to Project Archaeologist?
Taggart contemplated her with his cold blue eyes. “I don’t know.”
Damn it. Trust Taggart to draw it out, trust Taggart to make her pay, as if she hadn’t paid dearly already. “It’s your job to know. You’ve got a rush project coming up, you haven’t got a crew lined up, and you know I don’t need training. What is there not to know?”
“Oh, I know all that,” Taggart said, letting the words drawl out. “But when it concerns you, I just don’t care.”
In retrospect, keeping in mind Dianne’s comment, I think I could have done without the exclamation marks. I was trying to convey that Janelle was appalled, not panicking, and that she was fast approaching anger. Interesting. Thanks for the comment, Dianne.
Rebecca –
We know that she’s frustrated and angry when she slams her fist down on the desk.
Dianne,
Granted…but not at him…not yet. Which was my point. Which perhaps I need to consider more closely how I did or did not convey that accurately.
Rebecca –
Ignore the whole thing about panicking. The point was that you don’t need that much dialog or description to convey her anger. “We lost five thousand dollars, Byron! That’s not pocket change.” comes dangerously close to an “As you know Bob.” The fact that she’s angry about the $5k lets us know it’s a considerable sum to them.
Especially when people get angry, their dialog gets clipped down. In the heat of battle, your sentences should come fast and furious as well. Here’s another example — Take it with a grain of salt: it’s just one woman’s opinion.
“My job –” his jaw clenched. “I didn’t know the contractors were going to cut and run.” The clenched jaw shows us — rather than tells us — he’s losing his temper.
Rhyanna –
Your piece will read a lot more smoothly if you get rid of most of the “she stresses,” “he demands,” et al. If the words are right, the dialog will let us know. Although there are a lot of writers who don’t use quotation marks, it’s a lot easier to read if you do use them.
Ned leans back in his chair, assessing her. “Why is this so important to you?”
“It just is.”
“Why?”
“I… can’t tell you,” she says, her eyes flickering downward.
“Then I can’t help you.”
It’s great to see so many people in this conversation! Thank you all for writing, and for sharing suggestions.
Rhyanna, I second Diane’s comment on using adverbs or “said-bookisms” — let specific action choices, body language, facial expressions or just the dialogue itself do the work for you. Here’s a good article by Margo Lerwill that you might find helpful.
Rebecca, I like the emotional arc you’ve created. A great exercise now would be to see how much you can condense it. What’s the one piece of behavior or body language that will convey the emotion of “sagging in her chair and giving him an apologetic look. She looked around her tiny office space, her pride and joy, the company she’d worked so hard to get off the ground, and all she felt was despair”, for example? Paradoxically, sometimes the place we lose readers is when we explain everything — as readers we stay more engaged when we have a clear clue or two about what the characters are feeling, and can then fill in the spaces with our own imaginations.
Tranceptor, I enjoyed this take on the scenario, especially the nice way you handled the human/inhuman contrast. But I’d edit as follows:
“It’s survival.”
She didn’t return he gaze. “Allowing them to live on board as I have for the past few months would use up the remaining power inside of a week. This isThe only option.”“That’s incorrect. The exotic energy field drained the power and altered our course.”
It’s cleaner and more tense, and gives us everything we need to understand the situation.
Off to a coaching session now, but I’ll be back later with other comments. And please keep the writing coming!
Kelley,
Thank you. I’ll give it a shot…see what I can come up with.
All right…here we go.
Janelle slammed a fist down on her desktop, causing her keyboard to jump. Byron, sitting across from her, jumped as well.
“Sorry,” she said, and sighed heavily. “So, what do you think?”
He met her eyes and shrugged almost casually. “I don’t know.”
Her expression hardened. “But it was your job to know.”
“Yes, it was my job,” he threw back tightly. “But I didn’t know those contractors would cut and run, so don’t blame me for this. It’s not my fault.”
“Oh, that’s cute, not your fault. So whose fault is it then? You hired them.”
He abruptly stood, shoving his chair back violently. “You know what? I don’t care.” And he stormed out of the office.
Rebeccca,
You could go even shorter.
Janelle slammed a fist down on her desktop, causing both her keyboard and Byron to jump.
“Sorry,” she said, “what do you think?”
He met her eyes and shrugged almost casually. “I don’t know.”
“It was your job to know.”
“I didn’t know those contractors would cut and run. It’s not my fault.”
“Whose fault is it then? You hired them.”
“You know what? I don’t care.” And he stormed out of the office.
@Kelley, thank you very much. I can see cutting the J-0-N-N dialogue and streamlining it. In the Weiss dialogue, I wanted to give an explaination as to why she didn’t try something rational first like simply wake these people up to save power. Doesn’t it’s removal paint her in a much colder light?
@Dianne, thank you as well. I assume you see things in the same manner as Kelley, correct?
Kathy,
Granted, I could go shorter…but frankly, I have issues with that. I’m the kind of writer who does like to spell certain things out…to my fault, perhaps…but there it is. I’m amenable to change, I really am…and I will grant you that what you offered was certainly…workable. I just need to get there. Even so, I figure what I offered what pretty short compared to what I had originally had in mind…keeping in mind the parameters of the exercise.
Tranceptor –
Kelley has a much better eye than I do, but I agree that there’s too much exposition going on in your dialog. As I told someone yesterday, I’m used to writing scripts: I am the queen of lean.
“Routing power from the stasis pods,” servos whined as his head turreted to face her, “is murder.”
Rebecca –
You made it more succinct, but I don’t think you captured her sense of impending loss and despair. Maybe something like,
She stared longingly at a photo of the two of them clinking flutes of sparkling cider at their grand opening. She blinked back tears.
Kathy (cc: Rebecca) –
While your version is concise, it doesn’t carry the emotional arc that Rebecca’s original has — frustration, despair, anger. That’s the hard part — choosing every to exactly convey the right message.
choosing every word to exactly convey the right message. :rolls eyes:
Tranceptor: Ah, yes, I see where you’re going with the Weiss dialogue. Okay. Then how about simplifying just a bit, go straight for the point from her perspective. Maybe something like I’ve kept them as long I can.
Or maybe this:
“It’s survival. Awake or asleep, there’s not enough power for all of us.”
He pointed to the screen. “There’s the planet.”
What do you think?
Edited to add: I also like Dianne’s suggestion. It really depends on what information we need to learn for the first time in this scene. That’s the interesting thing about dialogue in context: people tend to speak from their deepest knowledge and their deepest feelings, although they don’t always know what they know, or know what they feel. The writer’s challenge is to make it clear to the reader, even if what must be clear is how confused the character is.
Writing is so cool (grin).
Jo, I like the emotional immediacy of your scene and the way you’re weaving in the exposition. And as She Who Streamlines (grin), I have a few suggestions.
“So what do you think?” Lucy tried to make
her wordsit nonchalant – like she wasn’t desperatefor this job, like if she walked out the door and down San Juan Street multiple CRM companies wouldjustthrow their doors open for her. Once upon a time, maybe, but now her reputation was toast. The Wichita dig had been a total disaster.AsTaggart tapped his pen idly on the cover of her employee file. Lucy’s heart jittered madly. (Not really wild about “jittered madly”… can you find another way to characterize her anxiety?) She just wanted her old job back. Shejustwanted to come home. But would SolCRM ever be home again, now that Taggart had been promoted to Project Archaeologist?Taggart contemplated her with his cold blue eyes. “I don’t know.”
Damn it. Trust
Taggarthim to draw it out, trustTaggarthim to make her pay, as if she hadn’t paid dearly already. “It’s your job to know. You’ve got a rush project coming up, you haven’t got a crew lined upwith not enough crew, andyou knowI don’t need training. What is there not to know?”“Oh, I know all that,” Taggart said
, letting the words drawl out. “But when itconcernscomes to you, I just don’t care.”Not trying to step on your style — but I am trying to break up your rhythms to a certain extent. You’re doing a lot in twos and threes (like she wasn’t this, like she wasn’t that; you have, you haven’t, you know; etc.), and that’s the sort of rhythm that works better as emphasis in dialogue or narration, rather than a standard rhythm.
Okay…I’m getting confused now. Did I do well, or did I not? I kinda thought I did…now I’m not so sure.
Rebecca, it’s better. Good job of stepping back and making choices about what specific information to give us. I believe that it’s one of the most important things a writer has to learn to do.
I personally am constitutionally suspicious of adverbs (smile) and so almost always want to edit them out. So I might be tempted to lose “heavily” and “almost casually,” and I’d probably pick one or the other of “abruptly” or “violently,” but not both. If you create the emotional arc with the words and the physical actions, you don’t need to telegraph them with the adverbs — we’ll get it, and our imaginations will supply the punch.
Okay…so considering I used all of the above…which I actually did (shamelessly)…how do I go about repairing that? In all seriousness…
@Dianne, Thanks. I’ve done script work before, where things need to be precise and clean. It’s not my favourite medium for writing, so I suppose tend to rebel against it when writing other things.
I like your suggestion of changing “Rotating motors” to “servos”, I hadn’t noticed it before but saying “Rotating” and “Turned” in same sentance is a bit redundant.
I’ll keep in that he was looking at a monitor. I put that in there to show that he was actively doing something when she came in as opposed to just standing there. Not just looking at a screen, but considering an alternative option.
I’ll keep “By” since (probably only to me) it directly ties the last word of his previous statement “maintenance” to the last word of his next “murder”. Which is why the command code Weiss gives is ineffective. J-0-N-N can only interprit her order as “Maintenance by murder.”
@Kelley, yes thank you. I think your second suggestion is the ideal balance, revealing both pertinent information and character.
Changing the J-0-N-N dialogue just that little bit could very well reveal more of internal thoughts of the Weiss character. Suggesting that she knew about the planet but either didn’t consider it or simply didn’t want to. Makes her a little more complicated and interesting.
It even opens up what directions the story can go.
And the second pass looks like this:
”What do you think?” She asked entering the engine room. “Will it work?”
”I don’t know.”
“You were built for this” She glared at him. “It’s your job to know.”
“Lieutenant, I was built for ship maintenance.” He began drumming his fingers against the bulkhead support beam. Metal clinked against metal in perfect rhythm.
Lieutenant Weiss hated it, that imitation of humanity. “That’s what I’m proposing.”
“By rerouting power from the stasis pods.” Servos whined as his head turned from the screen to face her. “It’s murder.”
“It’s survival. Awake or asleep, there’s not enough power for all of us.”
He pointed to the screen. “There’s the planet.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I will.”
“Authorization code: Weiss D-G-7-1-3. J-0-N-N, I command you to reroute power.”
“Your code wont prevent me from preserving life.”
“We’ll be stranded.”
“Everyone will survive.”
“But I want to go home.”
J-0-N-N left the engine room, six metallic legs clinking perfect rhythm against the floor. “I don’t care.”
Rebecca –
There are no absolutes. Ask 20 people their opinion of your writing and you’ll get 20 different viewpoints. Personally, I like “She looked around her tiny office space, her pride and joy, the company she’d worked so hard to get off the ground, and all she felt was despair.” Kelley doesn’t.
Keep in mind it’s just an exercise, and what we’re focusing on here is dialog. If you read Always (by Nicola Griffith) you’ll find dialog that goes on for several pages, that if cut to the bone might be a handful of paragraphs. (The Twilight novels are even “worse” in that regard.) But it works, and is beautifully perfect.
In the end, you’ll have to find your voice, and decide what’s best for you.
Kelley – Cool, thank you very much :).
Rebecca, Dianne is right, there are no absolutes. I often spend unbelievable amounts of writing time on dialogue, body language and the physical actions that carry conversational meaning; because it can be very hard to capture speech that sounds realistic, with all the other physical/facial cues that support it, without taking so long to describe these things accurately that the reader loses the momentum of the conversation.
I do like the emotional urgency of “tiny office” and “pride and joy” and “all she felt was despair,” these are nice specific ways of showing that she’s going through something. But I thought they got lost in the sagging and sighing. I think it would be fine, for example, to have Janelle slam her hand, startle Byron, and then simply look around her office and feel bad. (Without the apology,etc.)
There are so many ways to play with dialogue! Almost every choice the writer makes can obscure, clarify or change the meaning, change what story is going on within and underneath the words.
Tranceptor, yep, this feels cleaner now, and I like the way it opens up the contrast between Weiss’ hardassed decision-making attitude and her “I want to go home” at the end.
Rebecca, here’s one approach to not using the adverbs:
Janelle slammed a fist
downon her desktop.causingHer keyboardtojumped.Byron, sittingAcross from her, Byron jumpedas welltoo.“Sorry,” she said. She looked around her tiny office space, her pride and joy, the company she’d worked so hard to get off the ground, and all she felt was despair. “So, what do you think?”
He met her eyes and shrugged
almost casually. “I don’t know.”Her expression hardened. “But it was your job to know.”
“Yes, it was my job,” he threw back tightly. “ButI didn’t know the contractors would cut and run, so don’t blame me for this. It’s not my fault.”“
Oh, that’s cute, not your fault. So whose fault is it then?You hired them!”He stood abruptly. “You know what? I don’t care.” And he stormed out of the office.
I think we don’t need so many adverbial descriptions of Byron’s tone or actions in his last couple bits of dialogue. We get that there’s a fight going on, and we’ll imagine our own little movie of it. In my experience, adverbs just get in the way of that movie (sorry to get all metaphorical, but it’s the only way I can think to explain it right now…)
What do you think?
Writing IS so very cool!(huge grin)
Hi Kelley,
Your rewrite slightly altered my meaning in one place, so I’ve changed it a bit. Lucy’s reputation is toast because of something her xgf posted on SolCRM’s website. The Wichita dig was a disaster because of what was posted.
“So what do you think?” Lucy tried to make it nonchalant – like she wasn’t desperate, like if she walked out the door and down San Juan Street multiple CRM companies would throw their doors open for her. Once upon a time, maybe, but that had all ended with a few clicks of April’s mouse.
Taggart tapped his pen idly on the cover of her employee file. Lucy’s heart pounded faster than the Navajo drumming on the office radio. She just wanted her old job back. She wanted to come home. But would SolCRM ever be home again, now that Taggart had been promoted to Project Archaeologist?
Taggart contemplated her with his cold blue eyes. “I don’t know.”
Damn it. Trust him to draw it out, trust him to make her pay. “It’s your job to know. You’ve got a rush project coming up with not enough crew, and I don’t need training. What is there not to know?”
“Oh, I know all that,” Taggart said. “But when it comes to you, I just don’t care.”
Thank you for your help :).
Hey Nicola/Kelley. Here’s my go.
Susan slipped into the conference room ahead of her colleagues and sat at the head of the table. She closed her eyes and listened. The room was quiet, nearly silent except for the sound of her own movements. When she inhaled, the trapped, stale air reminded her of the study kiosk on University’s fourth floor or her father’s den tucked away in the corner of the large house. Bored summer afternoons she would creep along the porch to his window and standing very tall, peer in, hoping never to be found out. She never was.
Susan opened her eyes to a rough, scratching sound on the other side of the conference room door. In two seconds, she knew John would be coming through, spreading his loud, dismissive manner all over the quiet room, declaring, without actually speaking it, how she meant nothing to him, anymore. His intense gaze latching onto a vague spot on the wall behind her head. Since their divorce, it has been John who has reverted to childish way of pretending she were nothing more than thin air. All along Susan thought it was he who was the smart one.
The door knob clicks and John enters, dropping his stack of manila folders on the walnut table, spilling some of the contents. Predictably, he glances at his wrist, then his eyes flick to the clock on the wall to his left, then back to his wrist. He paces, ‘I’ve gone over your new plans for the children’s park in Highgate Circle,’ he says, staring at the vagueness just beyond her head. ‘And your designs just won’t do.’ He straightens his spine, squares his shoulders.
Susan nearly smiled, suddenly remembering this is what her father would do when he was about to refuse her an outing or the new red bicycle. She leans forward, ‘The specs were designed with child safety concerns and–’
‘I don’t care,’ John shouts and throws his arm into the air.
Susan sighs softly and leans back in her chair. One hand rests on the walnut table, fingers drumming softly. ‘I know you don’t care, John,’ she says, watching him. ‘Even though, as head of the department, it is your job to care.’
His eyes leave the back wall and for the first time in seven months come to rest on her face. He looks more anxious than angry, she thinks, as though the floor beneath his feet is suddenly and inexplicably dissolving. He cocks his head at her, a boyish gesture from the past.
‘You’re fired,’ Susan says. ‘The company has decided to replace you with someone who actually does give a damn.’
His mouth opens and closes, his hands turn into fists, his jaw tightens. ‘Who, for instance?’
Susan stands, resists the urge to touch him, a kind hand on his arm or shoulder. ‘Me,’ she says and sits down in the chair at the head of the table.
@Jo, ah, I see… definitely didn’t intend to alter your meaning. And you’re welcome! Happy to help.
@Jan, I really like the specificity of some of these moments — John’s watch/clock checking, and the way that Susan associates some of his behavior with her father’s from the past. I also like that he won’t look at her directly — that’s a nice indicator of the relationship.
The tense changes from past to present aren’t working for me. Your final choice for tense would depend on the larger context, although my default is always the past tense: it’s the traditional narrative tense because it’s pretty much transparent to readers, allowing us to enter into the story as if were happening right now. In many cases present tense can actually be more work, and less immediate, for readers.
Here are some suggestions for the first couple of paragraphs:
Susan slipped into the conference room ahead of her colleagues and sat at the head of the table. She closed her eyes
and listened. The room was quiet, nearly silent except for the sound of her own movements(NOTE: the problem with that last phrase is that it makes me think she’s fidgeting in her chair. If it’s important that we “hear” her movements, then you should use this phrase as she’s moving into the room and sitting, rather than after she has already sat). When she inhaled, thetrapped,stale air reminded her ofthe study kiosk on University’s fourth floor orher father’s den tucked away in the corner of the large house.Bored summer afternoons she would creep along the porch to his window and standing very tall, peer in, hoping never to be found out. She never was.(NOTE: I suggest finding a different example here: she can’t smell the stale air in the office if she’s standing outside at the window, so the specific image doesn’t tie in as well emotionally to her train of thought. Perhaps she could sneak into his office when he’s not there?)Susan opened her eyes to a rough, scratching sound on the other side of the conference room door. (Not sure about this — I was imagining the door open, in the general manner of office conference rooms until the meeting actually starts. Perhaps she could hear him coming down the hall? That would give us a chance to experience his manner before he even gets in the room.) In two seconds
, she knew John would be coming through,he’d be here, spreading his loud, dismissive manner all over the quiet room, declaring, without actually speaking it, how she meant nothing to him, anymore. His intense gaze latching onto a vague spot on the wall behind her head.Since their divorce, it has been John who has reverted to childish way of pretendingThe day after the divorce, he started pretending she was nothing more than thin air.All along Susan thought it was he who was the smart one. (This last sentence is good emotional information, but it doesn’t work as well here — it almost reads as though Susan thought he was smart for pretending she was invisible. If that’s what you mean, then I would go a little farther to make her reasoning more clear).@ Kelley – The info about said-bookisms is very helpful. In high school (read as: late ’80s), we were encouraged to never use “said” if we could help it. That rule had unfortunately stuck with me. Also, I totally agree with you regarding past and present tense. Fiction written in the present tense always sounds stilted to me.
-J
Kelley,
your editing suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks for the opportunity to see/consider things differently.
BTW: switching the tenses. Not trying to be clever. Was an accident. Didn’t check/double-check what I’d written. (shame-faced writer leaves room)
I did so enjoy this exercise and look forward to others in the future.
Best to you and Nicola in your new venture. You are very talented and should do quite well.
@Jan — I thought it was something like that (grin). No need to leave the room! I find that a lovely cup of tea is just the thing to restore my tenses.
I’m glad you enjoyed the exercise. We’ll do more of these in the future, since so many people seem to like to play this way!
@Jo — Actually, I was taught this way too in grammar school and by the occasional teacher in high school. I’ve decided it was because they were trying to increase our vocabulary, or help us learn to visualize, or something…
This is (like most everything else in writing, for me) all about finding the balance between transparent language and beautiful writing. Half the balance is in the words that get out of the reader’s way: writing like window glass. The other half is in the perfect metaphor, the elegant sentence, the precise detail, the rhythm and voice, the writing that tells a story in a way no one else can, and brings the writer and reader right up against each other in the act of reading.
In general, my bias is for plain words as opposed to polysyllables, specific verbs as opposed to adverbs, and descriptions of action and setting that function on both a narrative and emotional level. And I like nothing better than a good metaphor or simile: sometimes they make the truth of the moment more clear and more powerful than any amount of realistic description can.
While reading this, please keep in mind that I am a Dyslexic, 16-year-old girl, and have only been through one highschool English class. With that being said, here is my entry:
Eletta glared at her captor, her lover, and at the moment, the object of her hatred.
“How could you kill her?” shouted the raven-hair thief.
“What do you mean? She was a dragon. Are knights not supposed to kill dragons now or something?” shouted the confused Ava.
“If they had been killing needlessly then yes, but she was just trying to protect her child!” With that Eletta walked into the dark, eerie cave and picked up the dark blue and gold egg. Gently handling it, she wrapped it in her fur cloak. With great care, she placed the egg in her sling.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m saving a life! Would you kill a mother protecting her child? Animal or Human, it’s all the same! They still feel pain; they still feel love,” the melancholy thief stated.
The young knight just stared at her, as if she had grown a second head.
“It’s just an animal!” she cried.
“Animals have feelings too.”
Donna –
Nicely done — and no need for the qualifications. Great dynamic between your characters.
One picky detail: it’s usually “raven-haired” not “raven-hair” when used as an adjective.
Avoid using so many “he said” equivalents:
shouted the raven-hair thief.
shouted the confused Ava
the melancholy thief stated.
You can probably get away with one of these, but three is a little much. Use actions to show that Ava is confused and Eletta is melancholy. For example
Eletta glared at her captor, her lover, and at the moment, the object of her hatred. “How could you kill her?”
Ava shook her head in disbelief. “It was a dragon…
Cameron,
Thanks for pointing that out, niether I nor my proofreader caught that!
I’ll work on that; thank you for your time.
~Donna
@Donna – Sorry, I thought I had mentioned that – my bad for not re-proofing it.
@Jo – *hugs* its ok Jo, it sometimes takes more than one person to catch a mistake. I mean look at the national government….
Donna / Jo –
Don’t worry about the “mistakes.” What’s important is that you’re writing.
I haven’t sold a thing and have only 4 stories to my credit, but here’s what came to mind for me:
As Andrea stood in the doorway, trying to decide whether to enter the bedroom, Francis barreled out almost knocking her down.
With a glance of exasperation, Francis picked up her i-pod and continued down the hallway.
“What do you want for dinner tonight?” was the best Andrea could muster.
“Whatever.”
“Oh, you must have some idea; we haven’t eaten together in weeks.” The sweet smile belied the pain in her eyes.
Francis turned back, replacing her head phones and said, “I really don’t care, Mother.”
Bob –
The emotional dynamic here between mother and daughter(?) feels very real.
I’d put something in before “What do you want for dinner?” to show that Andrea is following her, otherwise, it feels like she’s shouting down the hallway.
““Oh, you must have some idea; we haven’t eaten together in weeks.” The sweet smile belied the pain in her eyes.” feels a little clumsy to me, and the last line doesn’t really resolve the scene. I’d try something like:
“You must have some idea–” Her smile belied the pain in her eyes. “We haven’t eaten together in weeks.”
Francis turned back, replacing her head phones. “I really don’t care, Mother.” She turned on her heels and disappeared down the stairs.
Dianne,
Thank you a lot. That was really helpful. One question: if this scene were to continue (such as the mother continuing the conversation with her daughter in the hallway) should I still wrap it up as you suggest?
I do like the way you resolved it. This was a great exercise, I hope to do more of these in the future. It encourages me to write.
Bob
Bob –
If you continue it on, then no, the resolution wouldn’t come until the end of the scene. For example:
“You must have some idea–” Her smile belied the pain in her eyes.
Francis replaced her head phones. “I really don’t care.”
“We haven’t eaten together in weeks.” Andrea trailed her down the
stairs. “Francis!”
Francis paused at the bottom and turned back, eyes cold and
indifferent. “You know, Mother, forget it. I’ll pick up something on
campus.”
She was out the door before Andrea could find words. Andrea slumped
on the bottom stair and watched as the door creaked slowly shut.
And so on…
Thank you. It’s a lot to learn, but worth every minute!
Bob
[...] balance is a technique, so head over to Sterling Editing where you can find three great posts: How Not to Write Dialogue; How to Write Dialogue; and a nifty Editcast on [...]
Hi everyone, and please excuse our absence here (writing appearances and non-editing responsibilities have eaten our lives the last several days). Thank you all for continuing the conversation, especially to Dianne for your helpful responses.
@Donna, nice to see you here! I agree with Dianne’s comments on the nice dynamic between the characters, and also on the dialogue tags: as Nicola says in her latest dialogue post, when you use mostly “said” for dialogue tags, then when you do decide to use “cried” or “shouted,” it has more impact on the reader.
There are also ways you can streamline the prose just a bit. For example: “She wrapped it gently in her fur cloak” lets you lose the clause “gently handling it”. I think it makes the action cleaner and easier for the reader to visualize.
I love that you call Ava a knight without explaining why it’s “okay” or “unusual” for a woman to be a knight. Great choice. It’s a very effective way to let us know something about the world of the story without “telling” us.
@Bob — Dianne’s suggestions are all great. I’d also encourage you to look at how action sentences can help establish emotion and relationship. For example:
As Andrea stood in the doorway, trying to decide whether to enter the bedroom, Francis barreled out almost knocking her down.
There’s a lot happening in this one sentence both physically and emotionally, and it feels rushed. I think it would be great to break up this sentence so that the reader gets a more clear picture. And I’m assuming that since the question about dinner is the best Andrea can muster, that really she wants to talk about something else. I think indicating that can help break up the action and also show us even more of their emotional dynamic:
Andrea hesitated in the doorway. (this is an example of using a verb that carries an emotional meaning, rather than “trying to decide” which is more intellectually-based). “Francis, can we –”
Francis barreled out of the room so fast she almost knocked her mother down. She shoved her iPod into her pocket as she continued down the hallway.
I changed “picked up her iPod” because it’s not clear whether she’s dropped it on the floor because of running into Andrea — but if the reader thinks she has, the whole encounter seems much more violent than I think you intend. If I’m wrong about that, then you just need to make more clear that it’s the kind of impact that could have really hurt Andrea.
@Kelley, Thank you, and earlier on in the novel I plan to have the king complain when she goes after her goal of becoming a knight; he ends up getting beaten by his wife though and so, well, I’ll elaborate more on that later :). Can’t spill everything at once now can I?
Donna –
Good luck with it!
@Donna, my pleasure! And nope, can’t spill it all at once — finding out is part of the fun :)
OK — here’s a question:
What do you suggest to someone who can’t seem to make a bit of dialog work?
I’ve been trying to rewrite a couple pages of dialog off and on for days, and nothing I do feels… right. I know where the scene begins and ends; but the middle part is eluding me.
Dianne –
Hmm. Since I don’t know the particulars of the dialogue, let me throw out some general suggestions. Maybe one of them will feel useful.
One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever read comes from a theatre director who said, “If the scene isn’t working, the entrance is wrong.” I use this all the time in my own work (prose and screenplay), and it’s spooky how often it’s true. So one immediate suggestion is to take a look at your entrance (into the scene, or into this particular conversation between the characters), and see if perhaps there is something you can do there that will alter the course of the middle section of the dialogue.
Another suggestion is that perhaps your dialogue isn’t working because it’s two different-but-connected conversations. Sometimes the most telling parts of a conversation is the long silence that’s followed by one character re-directing, re-attacking, doing an end run, getting up and cleaning the kitchen… essentially finding a new strategy. Or even continuing the conversation later in the story, in another scene.
If this is an expository conversation, perhaps you need to actually introduce the information earlier or later in the story. If it’s an emotional conversation, perhaps your characters needs to have higher stakes. One of the things I sometimes do when I’m wrestling with dialogue is to imagine the worst possible thing that one of the characters could say at this moment, and then see what happens when they say it (grin). I don’t usually stick with whatever it is, but it does help open up the options sometimes.
Is any of this helpful? If not, I’m happy to keep swinging at it and see if something connects.
Kelley –
I’ll go back and look at it keeping those things in mind.
The scene marks a pivot-point in the script: Two women who up to this point have been using each other are forced to admit they actually care about each other. (And that makes the scene sound MUCH more romantic than it is.)
Do you (Sterling Editing) do developmental edits of scripts or portions of scripts?
Kelley –
And thank you for your thoughtful reply!
Leave your response!
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