Dialogue (35 page)

Your viewpoint character George's Aunt Maude is coming to stay with him and his wife, Carol, for a couple of weeks in the summer as she does every summer. You want your readers to understand exactly what Aunt Maude's visit means to George and Carol. You need to give them some background so they'll understand that this is less than pleasant news. George has just gone out to the mailbox and found a letter from Aunt Maude announcing her annual visit. He's reading it as he comes into the house.

"Well, Carol, my Aunt Maude is coming again in August for her annual visit. You know, that's the aunt from Iowa whose teeth always fall out at the dinner table, the one who was married to my Uncle Willis before he died in 1998, I believe it was. You remember, she chatters on like a runaway train, and even when you're starting to snooze, she doesn't notice. She's the one who wears those plaid housedresses. She has the blue one and the red one—"

It's easy to see why this isn't working. If Aunt Maude comes to visit every summer, Carol already knows all of this. You can't put these words into George's mouth just for the sake of the reader who needs to know it. In this case, this information would be better conveyed in narrative or, if the reader doesn't need to know all of this right away, in action once Aunt Maude arrives.

Make sure each character speaks out of his own need, not that of his listener or the reader. Depending on the purpose of the scene, George might come away from the mailbox with all kinds of thoughts that would lead to a
real
scene of dialogue. Let's say George's goal is to keep Aunt Maude's letter from Carol until he can figure out a way to tell her because she hates it when his aunt comes to visit.

"Did we get any mail?" Carol asked.

"Nothing exciting." That was the truth. So far so good. He hadn't had to lie. George put the flyers down on the kitchen table, tucking the letter under

them for now. If Carol knew they'd received a letter from Aunt Maude, it wouldn't be a pretty scene and he wanted to avoid the unpleasantness for now. He could take or leave his elderly aunt, but Carol dreaded her visits. He wasn't sure exactly why Carol dreaded his aunt's visits every summer, whether it was the way she kept dropping her false teeth into her food at dinner or because she chattered on like a runaway train most of every day.

"What's that?" she asked, pulling the envelope out from under the flyers.

"Oh, nothing," he said again, grabbing the letter from her hand. Maybe it was Aunt Maude's dresses Carol was tired of. She had the blue plaid one and the red plaid one.

"Not Aunt Maude!" Carol cried.

Much more natural, don't you think? It's not all dialogue, but it's still an effective dialogue scene because these are thoughts George might actually have in light of the fact that he's trying to keep the letter from his wife, and the reader gets all of the necessary information (well, if all of that information is necessary). The amount of information the reader needs is again determined by the plot and where you're taking these characters.

the speech

In real life, what does it feel like to listen to someone go on and on and on about something—anything—and on and on and on? Even if it's a subject in which you're interested, another person's speech is seldom something we can or even want to listen to for long. Well, unless we're at a lecture or something, and it's
supposed
to be a speech.

Likewise, you don't want to write speeches for your characters. This is something I see quite often in new writers' dialogue. A character has a lot to say on a subject and the writer just lets him run on at the mouth for a page or two or three. Not good. This seldom works in movies, and it definitely doesn't work on the printed page. People who ramble on are often boring their listeners. It just never occurs to these folks that the other people in the room might have something to say or a thought or opinion on the subject.

There are always exceptions—mainly the character who makes speeches because that's who he is. But just know that this character won't be one of your reader's favorites, and his speeches better be few and far between and be there for a purpose that fits in with the story. Otherwise, you're the one who will look bad, not your speech-giving character.

the ho-hum moments

These are passages that do nothing to further the plot, develop the characters, or create tension in the story. The ho-hum moments might appear in the form of introductions.

"Joe, this is Sally." Sally stuck out her hand. "Hi Joe." "Hi Sally," Joe said, shaking her hand. "Pleased to meet you," Sally said. "Me too," said Joe.

This is so not interesting. Sometimes this kind of dialogue continues, increasing the pain for the reader.

"Do you live around here?" asked Sally.

"A couple of miles from here," Joe answered. "Over on Main Street." Sally smiled. "Oh yes. I have a friend who lives over there." "What's your friend's name?"

WHO CARES?! This scene needs a mugger, a plane dropping out of the sky, Sally taking off her clothes—anything would help.

With dialogue, we try to capture the essence of a scene, not record every word the characters might say to each other, even if they might engage in this kind of small talk in real life. To be honest, though, even if I happened to get caught in such a conversation, I wouldn't last as long as Sally did.

Other ho-hum moments can easily occur when you're trying to get a character from one place to another. Here's a scene that shows a mother

driving her son to soccer practice.

"Did you do your homework before we left?"

"Uh-huh."

"How about that report for Mr. Colton's class? Get that done?"

"Yup."

"I think I'll stop at the store on my way home. I need some eggs and milk."

"And batteries for my Game Boy."

"Oh, of course. Will you remind me?"

"Uh-huh."

"Is that kid still picking on you at practice?"

"Nope."

Whatever. Which reminds me, I need new batteries for
my
Game Boy. I am so done reading this story.

If you want to get your fiction published, and we know you do, you can't write ho-hum dialogue. You can't create this kind of pain for your readers. Storytelling, by definition, is about conflict and resolution. Nowhere is this truer than in dialogue. Characters that agree with each other are boring. Characters that talk about nothing are boring. Lively dialogue lights up our stories like nothing else. Be sure every line and every scene of every story you write includes lively dialogue—the kind that makes the reader one of your biggest fans.

Following is an example of what could have been a ho-hum, boring scene of characters introducing themselves to one another. It's from a very familiar novel,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
by Ken Kesey. Here we're meeting the main character, R.P. McMurphy, for the first time, a few moments after he's been admitted to a mental institution. The story is actually told by a minor character making some observations. Instead of McMurphy simply entering the room and the other characters saying their names, McMurphy appears on the scene with a flurry of dramatics, and we meet the other characters as they begin reacting to him.

"My name is McMurphy, buddies, R.P. McMurphy, and I'm a gambling fool." He winks and sings a little piece of a song: " '.and whenever I meet with a deck a cards I lays.my money.down." ' And laughs again.

He walks to one of the card games, tips an Acute's cards up with a thick, heavy finger, and squints at the hand and shakes his head.

"Yessir, that's what I came to this establishment for, to bring you birds fun

an' entertainment around the gamin' table. Nobody left in that Pendleton Work Farm to make my days interesting any more, so I requested a transfer, ya see. Needed some new blood. Hooee, look at the way this bird holds his cards, showin' to everybody in a block; man! I'll trim you babies like little lambs."

Cheswick gathers his cards together. The redheaded man sticks his hand out for Cheswick to shake.

"Hello, buddy; what's that you're playing'? Pinochle?"

Nothing ho-hum about this scene or this character. And the reader begins to anticipate what McMurphy is going to do next.

the perfect grammar problem

"Joseph, I think we should see other people." Janet held her breath as she pushed her carrots around on her plate.

"You think we should see other people? Do you want to break up with me?" "That is what I am thinking. I believe we have outgrown each other and should date others."

Joseph looked confused. "I do not understand. Just yesterday you spoke about how you thought you might like to spend the rest of your life with me." "I have changed my mind. Women do that sometimes." "Oh. You can give me the ring back, then. I think I still have the receipt and can get a refund."

In dialogue, more than in any other element of fiction, you do not have to utilize perfect grammar. If anyone has ever told you that your dialogue sounds "stilted" or "formal," what they're saying is that you're writing too perfectly, not the way people really talk. At least I hope you've never had the above conversation with anyone. The problem is obvious—the characters are speaking to each other in perfect English. To clarify, during some periods in history, people talked like this. But if your story is not set in such a period of history, and you don't want your reader laughing at you, you need to lighten up when it comes to dialogue. Let's try again.

"Joe, I'm thinking maybe we should go out with other people." Janet held her breath as she pushed her carrots around on her plate.

"Huh? What are you talking about? Are you breaking up with me?" "I guess, I don't know. I mean, I just think maybe we should, you know, go

out with others before we settle down, that's all."

Joseph looked confused. "I don't get it. Just yesterday you were saying you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me."

"Okay, I changed my mind. Women do that, you know." "Oh, sure, that's right. Well, how about taking off the ring, then? I think I kept the receipt and can get my money back."

This is a little better. Not so stilted and formal and perfect.

If you suspect that you write stilted dialogue, try reading it out loud, either to yourself or your writing group. See if it sounds like a conversation real people would have. As always, the better you know your characters, the less likely it is you'll be writing stilted dialogue.

the redundancy issue

When our characters say something to each other, we don't have to repeat the information in narrative or action. Once is enough. I see this problem a lot and have caught myself doing it.

Randy decided he'd go to the store for some milk.

"I'm going to the store for some milk!" he called to Joyce.
Unnecessary. I'm not sure why this problem occurs unless we're simply trying to introduce our dialogue to the reader. Our dialogue needs no introduction. It's better to just jump in. You may not catch yourself doing this, so watch for this problem at the revision stage.

This is all a lot to think about, isn't it? Try not to feel overwhelmed. I learned about the mistakes I was making one by one as I grew as a fiction writer. You can't possibly think about all of this while you're doing the actual writing or you'll drive yourself nuts trying to do it perfectly. This is left brain stuff and thinking about it while creating will paralyze your creativity. When learning a new skill, you can't be constantly thinking about what you might be doing wrong.