Mastering Dialogue

People quote dialogue from movies and TV shows. People race through or skip description and narration to get to the dialogue in novels and short stories. Great stage monologues capture us and standup comedians, especially those who are storytellers, live or die (mostly) by words alone.

Characters speaking are stand-ins for real people — the writers and the readers. We want to listen to them, but the bar is set high. Characters who do not reveal themselves through their words. We may identify with them for traumas suffered or though familiar situations, of course. But usually, we know about these events because of the answers they give — like Clarice in Silence of the Lambs telling Dr. Lecter about the lambs. We may enjoy a characters sense of humor, but — with the exception of silent films — that usually comes across through wit or goofy remarks.

Sometimes  characters start yacking at me before I have a story for them. For most, I just write and they become themselves about ten pages into the introduction. But for a significant number, I get to know them well enough so they speak in their own voices and (usually) interrupt my daily life because I dedicate some time to interviewing them.

I plan the interview strategy (sometimes having the antagonist or best friend ask the question instead of me, sometimes getting the character drunk first, sometimes pulling them aside after a key scene), and I ask rude questions, intended to reveal what I need to know to create a good story. I want to hear the truth, but, from the point of view of hearing their voices, lying is fine.  

Some writers achieve the same thing by working from familiar models (people they know or celebrities). Other can make the jump from character work, listing everything from backstories to physical characteristics to social standing. There is no wrong way.

The advantages of locking in voices (of at least the main characters) is that it makes for clarity (no who said what problems), it adds interest (variation), and it naturally restricts what issues characters talk about and how they present them. A lot of getting the voices right comes with rewriting. Anything that sounds off stands out. Since there’s a real temptation to put words in their mouths to do the work of a scene (and it’s fine to do this in a draft), having voice as a way to spot where dialogue is off is a real benefit.

Most of all, when the voice fits the character, the character comes to life in a special way and becomes more memorable. Whether the character is as familiar as a neighbor or as mysterious as an alien, the right voice can create a connection, engage empathy, and make concern about the character stronger.

Mastery of Dialogue 1: Give each character a distinctive voice.
Practice: The process of created a distinctive voice is alluded to above. Interviews, character sketches, listening, and modeling after real people are all valid approaches. But before getting to work on the voice, it’s good to get a broader perspective of voice in fiction.

A great starting point is to turn to the work of a writer whose voice captures you every time. See if you can list some of the reasons why the character voice comes across so well. Sometimes writers take a short cut with a catch phrase or an accent.

That’s fine, especially with minor characters, but look for cases where a character explains him or herself — particularly if values are cited. (Often this happens when either a past trauma is mentioned or another character is confused or concerned about a decision.) Then see if this pivotal moment of dialogue is reflected in dialogue elsewhere in the story. In may even be possible to see dialogue in a new light after learning about what a character values.

Finally, writing dialogue and letting the characters talk builds the capability. It’s easier to work with characters who differ in age, social standing, education, etc., but the best writers can take peers with similar backgrounds and differentiate them. It’s likely that your first drafts won’t measure up. I believe revision is the critical step where most voices become true to themselves.

People often don’t say, directly, what they mean. There is a classic bit in Annie Hall that provides a great example. Annie and Alvy have a conversation on an early date, mostly about intellectual issues. But, underneath, the titles show what the thoughts, concerns, and intents were something else.

Most often dialogues are power duels conducted with words. But, as in real life, quoted words can lead to consequences or reflect badly on who speaks them. So the points are made indirectly, by implication, and by illusions. The classic subtext line is “Nice restaurant you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.” A gentler form of this, and my favorite, is from The Princess Bride. Instead of saying “I love you,” Wesley (and later the Grandfather) says, “As you wish.”

Writing guru Robert McKee has said one test for subtext is, can the actor interpret the lines? If it can’t be acted, it’s on the nose. And that means an opportunity has been missed to reveal more of the character and engage audiences in filling in the blanks.   

Mastery of Dialogue 2: Find ways to say the most important things indirectly.
Practice: Chances are your favorite dialogue scenes use subtext. There are many of these to study. You may even have some of these committed to memory. It’s helpful to write out the lines to make their intentions explicit. (Going further, it’s interesting to discern why the truth is veiled and see what the approach chosen says about the character.)

The more difficult exercise is to go through your own work and see where opportunities for subtext have not been taken advantage of. And to see how they might be revise. As a half-step, look at a peer’s work and see if you can find opportunities. Personally, I became more sensitive to subtext and where it belongs through critiquing the work of peers. If you have the chance to do that, I recommend it as part of your education as a writer.

The best advice I ever got on writing dialogue was include only what you’d want to eavesdrop on. The duel, mentioned above, grabs my interest. I don’t mean fighting. Many times, people in real-life conflict engage in bickering. They repeat their points. Things plateau. Power does not shift. And the other person often does not listen and respond. In the best of circumstances, there is escalation. More is at risk. Consequences go up. And the end of the dialogue leaves increases power for one of those conversing or moves the power from one to the other.

Shifts in power intrigue. Bickering is boring. No one wants to be around bickering.

Eloquence, even poetry, also gets people to lean in. some of this was covered in the last post. Dialogue, especially because it’s valued, is a wonderful place to take advantage of the music and lyrics of great lines. Wonderful monologues, if not overdone, can enhance the storytelling and the reader/audience experience. Often, the best character to give a monologue is the major character who has said the least in the story to that point because that will be the character people most want to learn about.

Mastery of Dialogue 3: Make the words engaging.
Practice: One of the best pieces of advice I was given was to put three to five beats in a scene. It took me awhile to understand that meant power shifts in most cases. Since every scene should have a purpose, usually tied to what the character wants. Now often, the beats are physical (as with a fist fight). But they can be purely verbal, with threats, revelations, offers, trades, promises, and more being used for one person to persuade the other. Identify the power changes (one getting more or a shift to the other). Then see if they can become more consequential each time.

Oh, and generally, you want your character to end up in worse shape after this duel. Either losing, or coming to realize a new, worse challenge is on the horizon.

Dialogue is a big issue. This post is not comprehensive. My hope is that is suggests ways to understand and improve key approaches. In practice, I find dialogue can be improved in many ways just by editing out lines that aren’t needed (hello, goodbye), removing explanations no one would make (“as you know…”), and cutting back on exposition that exists for readers, but don’t fit the character situations. The suggestions here are about going beyond these shabby practices and making a story’s dialogue more powerful.