On Dialogue

I'm back! Real life got the better of me, and I've recently been swamped in quite a bit of stressful stuff. What little free time I've had has been devoted to relaxation activities or to further progress on Descent. Now I have a bit of time to update again, although it may slow down come time for NaNoWriMo - still deciding whether to do it or not. I've got some more ideas I'm tossing around for it, some that aren't fully developed and some that are but are outside of my comfort zone.

Today's post is about dialogue. Or, rather, how bad I am at dialogue. Chapter one for Descent was one of the first creative writing pieces I had done in a while (the prologue was actually written much later), and, consequently, it was terrible. I'm sure many of you picked up on some of the atrocities present in it, such as the fact that I said it was afternoon and then a few paragraphs later proceeded to talk about the darkness of tonight. Earlier today I read over it, saw how terrible it was, and promptly deleted it and edited chapter two to make it chapter one.

Back to the point of dialogue. It was one of the main reasons why chapter one was so terrible. You see, I'm not the most social person, and my social interactions usually aren't very "normal." As such, I have a tad bit of difficulty writing dialogue that sounds like how normal people will speak. I'm getting better at it, and I will touch on how below, but here was the main problem with the speaking in chapter one: it sounded scripted. I was using that chapter to introduce a primary aspect of my protagonist, Scenn. But I was doing it so blatantly that it came across as nothing more than an obvious characterization device. The same thing happened with the lines intended to build some of the setting and mood. Here's an an example dialogue to provide a template for the kind of thing I'm talking about. (Note that this is not an excerpt from anything I've written; if it were, I would be hanging my head in shame for the rest of eternity.)

          "Mmm, this is a tasty apple. Anyway, where do you want to go now?"

          "How about the basement? Nothing could go wrong there!"

          "Sure! Why not?"

This is a prime example of how not to do dialogue. A highly exaggerated example, yes, but this isn't how real people talk at all. Also, it's purpose of moving the story on and the direction that it's moving it is so blatantly obvious that it no longer reads like part of the story. Instead, it reads like a plot device, and nothing more.

So, how do you write good dialogue?

Well, to be honest, I'm really not the one to ask about that. However, I do have one tip that has helped me a lot; your characters should say what they would be most likely to say, not what you want them to say.

Seems like a bit of a weird concept, but think of it like this. Your characters should have strong, defining characteristics and personalities, and their speaking should reflect this. Instead of using having dialogue fit the plot, the plot should go with the dialogue. Your big beefy motorcycle-riding protagonist shouldn't say that he loves roses just because your plot depends on him showing up at florists shop. Then again, I'm more of a "plan as you go" type of guy, so as always, take what I say with a pinch of salt; I know there are lots of those "plan the whole plot out ahead of time" people.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it.