Dialogue is a key factor in keeping people's attention. Whether you're writing modern fiction or fantasy, it adds a flavor readers can't resist if done right. It speeds a story up significantly and makes the reader experience the tension within the story.
Dialogue isn't listening to people in daily life talk and putting that down. What we say from day to day is flat, boring, and fragmented. If people were enthralled by ordinary dialogue, the chances are high they wouldn't be reading a book.
Lines like, "Hi, George, how are you doing?"
"Pretty good. I like the weather we've had lately."
"Me to!"
Make sure the dialogue moves the story along. Only give information that helps the story or enriches it some way. Make the reader lean in every time the quotation marks appear.
"Hi, George. Aren't you supposed to be on death row?"
Beware of the temptation to use excessive exclamation points, snappy, witty replies to everything (like in 40's or 60's movies), and accent. It is possible to show dialects from different regions without making hard on the reader. Editors hate that type of dialogue these days. What you can do about the accent is to rearrange the sentence structure (syntax, if you want to impress someone).
On the subject of accent, it is important to find words that your person would use. In Prince Caspian, Miraz asked if Peter needed a "respite." Why couldn't he say "break"? That would be a word his culture didn't use. In the same way Peter said he had a fight, "sorted" instead of "I had it under control." Those differences can make your writing sing. The reader will be able to identify characters just by the way they speak.
Some of the best dialogue is confrontational. Think about it. Stories stem from conflict between the characters at some point. Dialogue is then a boiling-over of that conflict.
"King, you're a disgusting, despicable animal."
"Beware of your tongue, peasant, before I relieve you of your ugly head."
I hope this has helped! If you want, you can practice confrontational dialogue by lambasting me in the comment section.
4 comments:
Nice way to get comments in the last sentence!
Sapphira
Funny. I noticed 'sorted' in PC too, just because it sounded so strange to me, but right coming from Edmund's mouth.
On the subject of dialogue, I listened a bit to a commentary with the actors and director of the first Narnia...That would have been a lot easier to listen to if they all had different accents!
I usually don't notice stuff like that in movies, but I'll listen carefully in the next one I watch!
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