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| Dialogue: The Illusion of Reality |
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| The first rule of dialogue is to make it sound real. Dialogue should not sound
robotic or trite. It should not sound lifelike. What do I mean? Here's a typical exchange between my teenage boys: "Hey." "Oh Hey." "What's up?" "I dunno. What's up with you?" "Where are you?" You get the picture. In fiction, this would be a waste of paper. Fictional dialogue is supposed to have impact, show characterization, move the story along. Let's rewrite it. "Hey Ethan. Mom is flipping out. Where are you?" "Don't tell her anything." "Don't tell her what? You were supposed to be home an hour ago." "Can't talk right now. Mr. Woodward just walked in." "You're in the principal's office? What the heck did you do?" "Can't talk. Gotta go." Okay, this isn't Shakespeare. But you know the relationship between the two characters and that one is in trouble, not only with the principal but also with his Mom. It brings up some questions: What did Ethan do? What will his brother tell their mother? Hopefully you'll want to read on. The best way to get a feel for dialogue is to listen to people. Listen to the rhythm of their speech, any colloquialisms, what they talk about. The exercise: Note: This was taken from the Gotham Writer's Workshop book, Writing Fiction . Transcribe a conversation you overheard or a conversation you've had recently. Write everything that was actually said. Don't airbrush out the boring parts or try to make it sound interesting. Transcribe it exactly, as if you're transcribing it from a recording. At this point don't worry about using proper punctuation, quotes, etc. Once you have it all down, go back and rewrite it, this time making it concise and dramatically interesting. Feel free to fictionalize the names and embellish it a bit. As always...have fun! |
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