Of all the elements of fiction, dialogue is my favorite as both a writer and a reader. I get excited when a come across a long stretch of dialogue in a novel, and as a writer, I work on dialogue for hours.
There is no resistance. I love picturing these scintillating conversations between characters, and I have no complaints working out the kinks as I put those talks to paper.
If anybody has come across some of my work-in-progress excerpts, you would find a lot of dialogue because I love it so much. If you’d like to check that out, go here.
Maybe I should have been a screenwriter. Because splendid dialogue between characters on a movie screen makes me high for days.
For example, Pulp Fiction is one of the best dialogue movies I’ve ever seen. Without the exquisite dialogue in every single scene of the movie, Pulp Fiction would have been awful.
As far as the characters and the plot are concerned, the stories are disturbing. Generally speaking, all the characters are out for themselves and nobody has a moral compass.
There are exceptional scenes of personal growth, like the choice Butch made to save Marcellus Wallace from a hideous fate, even though Marcellus Wallace had put a hit on him.
Also, the epiphany of Jules to quit the hit man’s life, walk the earth as a holy man, in the final scene when he spares the lives of Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, made a breathtaking end to a film that boggled the minds of most people who saw it.
Pulp Fiction took black humor to a new level. Throughout the many psychotic and psychopathic events, the audience laughed hysterically and savored every moment (or almost every moment), and I believe it was because the dialogue was that brilliant.
This was during the days when Quentin Tarantino collaborated with Roger Avary. Either Avary was the dialogue genius, or the two of them needed each other for that magical precision of back and forth verbal volley between characters. All I know is the dialogue in Tarantino’s films has made me cringe once they fell out and parted ways. Too many monologues.
I love good dialogue in a novel. I relish the chance to imagine these fictional conversations in my mind and put myself in the story as one of the characters.
The dialogue in Tom Robbins’ work (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Jitterbug Perfume, Still Life With Woodpecker) makes me want to dance and celebrate the glory of life. But his characters and his plots are every bit as magnificent as the dialogue they speak.
Back in the day, Jane Austen had some pretty luscious dialogues set in Regency England. But Jane Austen had far more fodder to work with. We’ve gotten lazy and unskilled in the act of communication. For centuries, conversation was an art that most people wanted to excel at.
Now that my rant about my love of dialogue is finished, the nuggets of advice I can offer on how to pen dialogue are:
1) Practice Writing Dialogue. Even if you suck at it, or think you do, make this a regular part of your writing practice.
2) Recall the most recent boring, inane small talk you engaged in recently (happens a lot in life), and throw in an unexpected twist. From there, one key word becomes several key words that feed the following next lines until you have a dialogue the flows like a cascade of dominoes.
For instance:
“I’m so sick of all this rain, aren’t you?”
“I’m sick of my husband’s farts in the middle of the night. Makes me want to sleep in the rain.”
“Oh really? My boyfriend talks dirty in his sleep. I wouldn’t mind so much if he wasn’t talking dirty to some chick named Agnes.”
“Who the hell talks dirty to girls named Agnes?”
“I know, right? Agnes sounds like somebody’s granny!”
“My grammy’s name was Serena.”
“That’s a sexy name.”
“Hey! That’s my grammy you’re talking about!”
“Maybe Agnes should change her name to Serena.”
“Why? She’s doing just fine if your boyfriend is talking dirty to her in his sleep.”
“Then I should change my name to Agnes.”
“That’s crazy! Maybe you should break up with your boyfriend.”
“Yeah, that may not be a bad idea. My boyfriend has a micropenis on top of all this.”
“That explains why he’s talking dirty to a chick named Agnes in his sleep.”
You don’t have to use this in anything. So relax, play with words and images, simply to see where the flow takes you. If you practice writing unexpected dialogue, eventually you will make magic happen in the dialogue of the stories you care about.
3) Eavesdrop. Listen in on conversations you find juicy, fascinating, or even irritating. Then write as much of them down from memory the best you can. Since chances are good (unless you have a 100% photographic memory ) you won’t recall everything, you’ll have to improvise.
Feel free to use step #2 above to take it in a different direction, and thus make the dialogue your own.
4) Read Your Dialogue Out Loud. That’s the only way you can hear the rhythm and flow of a conversation. You’ll catch any glitches or things that sound false.
5) For anybody who really struggles with dialogue, I suggest writing dialogue between the writerly YOU and your principal characters.
I suggest doing this one character at a time, to open yourself up to an impression of who they are as people and how they sound, even their quirky and unique expressions.
A few exercises like this and you’ll be creating luscious dialogue between your characters with little to no trouble.
I’m also happy to share a lovely article that gives other detailed tips on dialogue. Click here.
