What makes good dialogue?
It has to sound right. By that I mean that it has to sound true to your ear. I don't write history based period pieces--I write modern thrillers and mysteries. I've found that when we speak, we use a lot of contractions. I love Michael Connelly's books but every now and then Harry Bosch will say a sentence that sounds too formal--stops me in my tracks. I've looked into the character to see if there's a reason for it and I can't.
Grammatically correct ain't necessarily good dialogue.
Another thing we do when we speak is we use a ton of cliches. Chuck Logan has told me more than once that part of his writing regimen is to attack his first draft, hunt down all of the cliches, and kill 'em. It must work for him. He has 8 novels published and over the years has gotten great reviews. But we talk in cliches. All the time. Without fail. Without exception.
Oh, and we don't use full sentences a lot of the time too. Writing dialogue drives my Word '07 spelling and grammar checker nuts. I'd turn it off if my spelling and typing skills were better.
On the subject of regional dialect, like southern accents, I think it's very easy to go overboard. It's very easy to sound fake, too. Approach dialect and regional accents with caution. If your character is from Maine and you're from Jackson, Mississippi, you might want to have someone from the northeast give it a read early on.
Conversely, if you set part of your book in, say, Jackson, Mississippi, you damn sure better have a few y'alls in there or your reader ain't gonna believe you.
For those of you who haven't had a chance to read any of my work I'm going to show you a couple of samples that include some dialogue.
This is from FERRIS' BLUFF:
Back at the Travers’ house, Ace climbed the three steps to the back porch stoop and caught himself, not sure what to do again. He felt like he should knock on the door, but he was renting a room. Knock? Just go in? Knock?
“You don’t have to knock.”
He hadn’t seen Val sitting inside the small screened back porch. She sounded put out, like he’d interrupted something. Ace eased the screen door open and went over to where she had her chair parked. She was reading a book and hadn’t looked up, even when she’d spoken to him.
“Its, ah, confusing,” he confessed.
“No it isn’t. You rent a room here. You can come and go as you please. If you’ll be out after nine, Mom will give you a key to use.”
Ace sat on the small wicker loveseat next to Val’s chair. He noticed that she tensed up when he did. “Sorry, it’s just…I’ll get used to it. Whatcha’ readin’?”
“T. R.”
“T. R. what?”
Val sighed theatrically and looked up at him with her eyes, not raising her head from the book in her lap. “Theodore. Roosevelt. Biography.”
“Cool,” Ace said.
“Mom’s inside,” Val muttered and went back to Roosevelt.
Ace sat there for a minute, trying to think of something else to say to the studious child. His daughter had never been so serious, but then again, she hadn’t been stuck in a wheelchair.
A familiar pain threatened to settle right behind his eyes. He pushed the memory of Diana back into its compartment. Shoved it in deep and locked the don’t-go-there box. It was too nice a day, shotgun ambushes aside, to dredge it all up now. He wanted to sleep through the night. Should he go with a wheelchair question? Would it piss her off? She looked pretty pissed off already.
“She’s crying,” Val said, still not looking up.
“What’s wrong?” Ace asked. Val shrugged. “Maybe I should go see.”
“Maybe you should just leave.”
Ace winced at the bitterness in Val’s voice. “You don’t like having to take in boarders, do you?” He wanted to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder but he was pretty sure she’d bite him if he did.
“I shouldn’t have said that.” Val turned the page quickly but not fast enough. Ace saw the small teardrop.
He wished she would look up from the damn book. Valerie Travers wasn’t the only sad soul on the planet, or even on the damn porch for that matter. “You know what, kid? I don’t much like having to be a boarder. I’m going in.”
I think this is a pretty good mix of dialogue and supporting action. Harry Bosch might have asked Val 'What are you reading'. Ace wouldn't.
Now, as to the question of the use of the word 'said' versus the two thousand synonyms...sometimes 'said' is enough. Sometimes you'll want to be a little more descriptive as to how something was voiced, but again, it's easy to go overboard. And sometimes you don't have to say a dang thing, but be absolutely certain your reader won't be confused over who is saying what.
Now, this excerpt is from my current project. I'm trying to write a novel in the YA genre (a first) and its being written in first person (another first). This is an exchange between the main characters in the book and introduces Deke.
“Well don’t tell him that. Boy’ll get a big head,” she chided me.
But Deshawn Kendrick already had a big head. In fact, everything about him was big. He stood well over six feet with shoulders nearly as wide as a doorway. His hands were big enough and strong enough to palm a greasy bowling ball. I’d seen him do it. He was coal black like his father, and the gentlest person I had ever met. A little goofy, but then all of us had our quirks. Life in Dodge had that effect, even though the Kendricks were relative newcomers.
“Our secret,” I assured her as the last chords tailed off.
“Well, come on in,” She said and gave us a knowing smile. “I’m counting on y’all to get him over this latest foolishness, and right quick, please.”
What now, I wondered.
When we clumped into his room he bowed to us and said, “Asalaam ‘Alaykum.”
Ivy bowed and replied, “Wa ‘Alaykum ath-Thalaam.”
Deke raised his eyebrows, surprised, and said, “Close enough, my brother. Very good.”
Tandy said, “Huh?”
Now I knew what Miss Mae had been talking about. Our pal Deke was having one of his fantasies. He was wearing a kind of smock, a long shirt anyway, over board shorts. He’d tortured his hair into clumpy dreadlocks that snaked out from the edge of a knit beanie.
“I have decided to embrace the Muslim faith, brothers and sister. I have been reading the holy Koran. I am enlightened. Peace be unto you.”
Tandy squinted and pursed her lips, head cocked to the side, and said, “Since when?” He’d been perfectly normal at school.
“Since two-fifteen.”
“Uh-huh.” I did the math. “So in two and a half hours you’ve decided to become a Muslim.”
“Yes, my brother.” He held up a magazine. “The prophet’s truth is in here.”
“No.” Tandy said.
“How much of the Koran have you actually read, Deke?” Ivy asked.
“Wait a minute.” Tandy held up her hands and turned to Ivy. “How the heck did you know the part of the thing, the salaaming?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged and tapped his temple. “I’m a fountain of trivial knowledge? I heard it before?”
“Give me a break.”
“How much have you read, Deke?” Ivy persisted.
“Not much, it is true,” he tapped the magazine, “but enough to know that I must cast off my infidel name. Henceforth you may call me Ibrahim Ali Muhammed—or just Ali for short.”
“No.” Tandy said.
“Got a prayer rug, Ali?” I asked sarcastically.
Deke looked off to the side. Frowned. No rug.
“Gotcha,” Tandy said.
“Look, this is all great fun, Deke, but you cannot convert to Islam,” I said.
“Why not, my brother?”
“Because there are no, and will never be, any truly great Muslim guitarists,” Tandy said.
He looked off to the side again and then came back with, “Cat Stevens?”
“No.” Tandy said. “Cat Stevens was okay, but he was not a great guitarist.”
“More of a strummer,” I added.
“Give it up big guy.” Ivy said. “We love you the way you are.”
“Yeah,” Tandy said. “And who wants to pray five times a day? You don’t even go to church. And I know you don’t listen to The Widge.”
“This is true, my sister.”
“One word, big guy,” Ivy said, going for the kill. “Bacon.”
“And pork chops,” I added, twisting the knife.
Deke paused while the religious fervor seeped out, but he wasn’t giving it all up. “I kinda dig the brother and sister thit, though. Can I at least hang on to that?”
“It’ll be annoying,” Ivy pointed out.
“What else is new,” I said.
Deke unbuttoned the smock and wriggled out of it. “I’m keepin’ the beanie too.”
“Fine,” Tandy said.
And with that the episode passed. Deke was once again a lowly infidel teenager just hangin’ with his friends.
Couple of things to note. Ivy, if you missed it, has a speech impediment. Part of his thing is to try to avoid the letter 'S', so he sometimes phrases things oddly...but not always, especially if he gets excited. I've found in this book I used the naked 'said' a good deal more than in other books. It might be because of the first person POV, and it might be because of the narrator's personality.
That' all I got for now. I'll appreciate any of your thoughts on this topic. Be sure to leave a post when you visit the blog.
More later, brothers and sister.
I agree with you on the dialogue. And yes, people do use cliches. That's why they're cliches. I only use then in dialogue (I hope).
ReplyDeleteLiked your piece from the WIP. And I liked Ferris's Bluff.