Ten things to do… or not to do with dialogue

Stephen King in Danse Macabre, his wonderful book on writing horror novels, notes that he feels confident writing narrative, just fine about writing description, but terrified when writing dialogue… Shoot, that’s half our job. Ok. So here are just a few pointers to help avoid the pitfalls and create ‘real’ conversations.

Please remember:

1) People often speak in fragments. Right? Thought so.

2) Many people repeat themselves, say the same thing again, sometimes in different ways… right... right.

3) With the above two tips, keep in mind that dialogue is character-specific. If all your people speak the same… chances are you have a boring screenplay. Isolate 20 lines of dialogue from each of your major characters and see if they are interchangeable. If so… probably NOT good.

4) Dialogue is a great way to indicate educational level, social status and temperament.

5) Dialogue is a great way not only to share thoughts, feelings, ideas, plans and intentions but also to hide them, to drop ‘half-hints’, to say one thing while the action line tells us what the character is really thinking, feeling, etc.

Please forget about:

6) Characters ‘sharing’ knowledge they already share: “You remember when our mother died ten years ago today?” One character telling another something the character receiving the information already knows, ranks as one of the clunkiest ways of creating exposition. Ever!

7) OTN dialogue. Linked to the above tip, ‘On The Nose’ dialogue says EXACTLY what we are supposed to know: “It’s eight o’clock. Bert is supposed to arrive in five minutes.” Deal with dialogue exposition through hints, gradual revelation, or (since a movie is a story told in pictures) write a scene that shows what we need to know.

8) Telling the actor how to say the line in a parenthetical… e.g. (wryly). The situation and the character’s behaviour in it should give a reader or an actor all the clues they need to “interpret” what is really meant.

9) Overwriting an accent or a dialect: “Jaysus Morphy, begorrah, look ye now.” Give us a feel for the particular region or social status of a character, but don’t overdo it. A few well-placed idioms and the reader’s imagination will soon take over.

10) Getting it right the first time. Read your dialogue out loud… to yourself, or if you’re feeling brave, to a close friend. You’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll hear what needs to be changed!

Oh, and that dialogue exchange you, “Sort of think might not be quite there yet”. You’re right. It isn’t. So rewrite it already… before you’re tempted to send it to some producer who agrees with you, then bins your baby!