Calling all authors... anyone have any good guides to writing dialouge?

[Lorizael]

Advice garnered from my own amateur writing...

Most writers, whether consciously or unconsciously, take personality traits from people they know and insert these into their fictional characters. It can do quite a bit of good to pay attention to what the people around you say. You may notice that people repeat certain phrases over and over, or that they consistently drop a particular part of speech from their sentences.

It's important to remember that people, in general, do not speak proper english, even if they do know how to write it. And while it makes things easier on the reader and the writer if dialogue is mostly proper, a character can gain a lot of character by having various idiosyncrasies.

The other thing you have to do, which took me a very long time to figure out, is to think about why your characters are engaging in conversation at all. Again, if you pay attention to the way real people communicate, you will notice that they do not always respond to everything another person says and they might not always respond cogently at all.

Also, people will respond to what they think the other person has said, which is not always the same as what the other person has actually said. You have to consider how a person will interpret another person's words, rather than having the characters take things literally.

[Kontiki]

"Hi."

"Hi. How are you?"

"I'm fine, how are you?"

It's awesome because it's real.

[Lorizael]

Most conversations with a good friend of mine online:

"hey"

"sup?"

"nm u?"

"nothing."

"ok"

[Cort Haus]

dialouge

Attention to detail is always useful when writing anything.

[Japher]

I tried to proof a friends writing once and I found that he avoided dialouge like the plague. A lot of people tend to have a problem with it.

I take my lead on it from Hemingway. Avoid nondiscripters like "said" or "spoke" if at all possible. You are putting the words in " marks so we already know it is being spoken.

Use words that describe how something is said to imply that things are being said.

"You're toast!" Ming yelled in a mocking manner, as he habitually banned Asher.

[Lorizael]

And then there are other authors who will tell you that you should almost always use the perfunctory "said" in place of more descriptive adjectives. They believe that good dialogue is better at implying tone than words hanging around the dialogue.

*shrug* It's all a matter of style.

[Japher]

They believe that good dialogue is better at implying tone than words hanging around the dialogue.

"If you are going to do that you might as well be a playright instead of an author," Japher mused.

[Velociryx]

Ves, shoot me an e-mail:

velociryx2002@yahoo.com

I have something you may find....valuable.

-=Vel=-

[Nostromo]

Vel's guide to dialogue?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Eavesdrop on conversations, and learn the rhythms of speech and conversation. Then write them out.

[Japher]

yeah... good advice Laz

Stalk ppl

[Zkribbler]

Orson Scott Card once wrote an interesting essay on how to write dialog. He made a couple of interesting points:

In school, they teach you to write using action words.

"Stop that!" she snapped.
"Try and make me," he growled.
"Vile dog!" she spat, slapping him visciously across the face.

According to Card, that style of writing is appropiate only for romance novels. In other types of fiction, while an occasional word like that is okay, don't overdo it.

A second point Card made was that the verb "said" is barely perceived by the reader. You can use it over and over, and the reader won't even notice:

]"I missed you last night" she saud.
"I had stuff to do.
After a minute, she said, "Sometimes I feel like you love Apolyton more than me."
Zkribbler glanced up and said. "What makes you think I was posting on Apolyton? You're always accusing me of stuff like that.
"That's because you're always posting on Apolyton," she said simply.

[Tattila the Hun]

"Zkribbler- Early Years"

[Q Classic]

Re: Zkribbler: Stephen King makes a similar point in On Writing, with the addition of the comment that he hates how some rely too much on adverbs.

As far as overuse of "said", I'd disagree. I noticed it all the time, and in fact, it's one of the parts of Michael Crichton's writing that drives me up the wall. So much so that in my case, if I find myself in a long chain of dialogue, I'll just drop the "___ said" bit. After all, if, as you say, people ignore it, then they won't miss it when it's gone.

[Nostromo]

I repeat: model yourself on the masters. Why the masters never write how-to books? (Card and King can hardly be called masters.)

Btw, I agree with Q Cubed on "said". In the book I'm translating, the author is always using "said". I notice it, and its irritating. In french, its generally frowned upon.