Writing Dialouge

[giorgiads88]

I'm not a seasoned writer like Mod here so definitely take note of his advice.
I find that dialogue, for me, is the easiest to write. Strangely, it seems, because it's one aspect of writing that most writers struggle with (I manage to find difficulties in other things).
Every well written dialogue, for me at least, comes from a character which I truly understand and that I think of being part of my persona. In one way or the other. Every time I try to write something I don't know, rather, that I don't understand, it turns out poo. I don't think we can actually write something we don't truly know, it comes out insincere.
This doesn't mean we cant write men (if we are women) or characters from different worlds or social backgrounds. We need to align the character with that part of yourself (that sometimes eerily matches perfectly) to write it. Empathy, I think, is one of the virtues which I think makes every writer great.
The truth is, that you do know. We have the ability to truly seep into another's perspective if we focus enough. Criminals, psychopaths - the lot!
I also always play out the scene in my mind as if it was a clip from a movie (pauses and all). Its not something I would advise doing for writing generally, but it helps with dialogue.
I realise, re-reading my post that its a little airy fairy (I'm not really giving step by step advice) but I do believe in what I'm saying. They say that writers always search out experience. Why? 'cause we cant really write what we don't know well. Mould, stretch and play with what you do know and the result will turn out honest.

[moderntimes]

Excellent advice, gio. Especially the imagery of playing the conversation in your mind as a movie clip. If we visualize actors speaking the lines it can really help develop the necessary verisimilitude.

[aparsons]

I'm not a seasoned writer like Mod here so definitely take note of his advice.
I find that dialogue, for me, is the easiest to write. Strangely, it seems, because it's one aspect of writing that most writers struggle with (I manage to find difficulties in other things).
Every well written dialogue, for me at least, comes from a character which I truly understand and that I think of being part of my persona. In one way or the other. Every time I try to write something I don't know, rather, that I don't understand, it turns out poo. I don't think we can actually write something we don't truly know, it comes out insincere.
This doesn't mean we cant write men (if we are women) or characters from different worlds or social backgrounds. We need to align the character with that part of yourself (that sometimes eerily matches perfectly) to write it. Empathy, I think, is one of the virtues which I think makes every writer great.
The truth is, that you do know. We have the ability to truly seep into another's perspective if we focus enough. Criminals, psychopaths - the lot!
I also always play out the scene in my mind as if it was a clip from a movie (pauses and all). Its not something I would advise doing for writing generally, but it helps with dialogue.
I realise, re-reading my post that its a little airy fairy (I'm not really giving step by step advice) but I do believe in what I'm saying. They say that writers always search out experience. Why? 'cause we cant really write what we don't know well. Mould, stretch and play with what you do know and the result will turn out honest.

I like how you said you play out the scene like a movie clip. I do that too, but it's all so damn quiet! I'll practice making my characters talk in my head, thanks for all the advice!

[moderntimes]

Sounds like you're on target, aparsons.

What is essential is that you try to imagine a real person speaking, and the "trick" to imagine this is a film clip helps us both.

The challenge is to write in different "voices" so that each character has a unique vocabulary, syntax, rhythm. Sentence length is also different for various characters. This is not easy, and reading aloud helps me with this.

In my novels, I have a few continuing characters. My private eye protagonist is highly educated and intelligent, and so is his best pal, Detective Meierhoff. So both use "ten dollar" words and don't make grammatical errors. Meierhoff uses more slang but it's evident that it's intentional, for humor. The 3rd character is Capt. Joe Duggan, an old time cop. He has a decent education but can make "standard" errors, like "David and me will see you tomorrow."

My new character is a trauma surgeon from New Zealand and she's also educated, and uses British-preferred language. My detective's neighbor is an older African American man, veteran, and has a modest education, and speaks with occasional "black" dialect but I minimize this because I don't want to create a stereotype.

Likewise, since I'm writing a modern mystery, there are thugs and random bad guys. I work hard to ensure that dialogue from them isn't stereotypical either, the old-school "Mike Hammer" crook-speak. Nobody actually speaks that way.

I have a few Hispanic characters and some of them use slang, but again, I really minimize any dialect or excessive slang. A little goes a long way.

And as you know, it's not always possible to write from experience. In my own life, I've met some pretty shady characters, but very little of that enters my stories. So yeah, I make up a lot of it from whole cloth. Hey, that's what writers do.

[aparsons]

I appreciate the sentence length advice. I have a basic idea about how my male protagonist will speak, slowly, and angrily. I'm still trying to figure out their personalities, but I liked your advice about writing in, what was it, cant? Dialect? I will admit, I love the Yearling, how they wrote in the Florida accent. It reminded me of home.

[moderntimes]

Cant or dialect or whatever, this has gone away in the past couple of decades. It's now considered trite and annoying (which I often find if it's overused). The Yearling notwithstanding, and you only need look at Dickens or other 19th century Brit writers and see the brogue for Irish and, sadly in the USA, black fake dialect.

As I would recommend, a little goes a long way.

Better to say "Ernie's southern drawl was so strong that I had to wait a week before he finished a sentence." (for humor, or just) "Ernie spoke with a thick southern drawl." And maybe then toss in a couple of phonetic examples, but don't overdo it. First, it can be demeaning to others who are from the deep south, or wherever, Ireland, you name it, and second, it's darn hard to write in an "accent" or brogue or cant and it's doubly hard to read it.

[aparsons]

Thanks for the advice. I'm reading Lovecraft now and some of the dialogue is written in cant.

[moderntimes]

Most any 19th century or early 20th century writer may sometimes lapse into almost a blatant racist-style dialogue from a black or "dreaded Irish" or Cockney character.

It's pretty much frowned upon in modern fiction. Cant or dialect or whatever is very hard to write, because the printed words are just an estimate of how the dialect sounds and almost as difficult to read and "hear" as dialect in the reader's mind. A little goes a long way, and most of the time, dialect or brogue or cant is not recommended. Not only is it difficult to write printed words which "sound like" the cant, but it often leans toward racist tendencies.

[aparsons]

Are you referencing books like Tom Sawyer? I don't remember them, but I do remember hearing some scandals about them.

[Alexa_Fernandez]

Read King's essay a while back. I will agree it's a good read.

When I have dialogue, I use the character's names at first, and if there is a lot of back and forth, I drop it after the initial names are introduced. There are other ways to sneak in who is speaking without saying what they said, and that's where you have a lot of freedom to show the reader more descriptive prose.