Post by Lady Hammer on Apr 8, 2007 11:43:21 GMT -5
Well, since Bethany trusts my abilities on this subject, I will give you a little lecture on writing dialogue. It's my strong point, so I hope, and I've learned a lot about it by reading some books on writing novels, so I hope I'm chok full of answers. xD
When you're writing dialogue, it's hard to determine when it sounds fake or not, sometimes.
Even if it DOES sound fake, there are ways to cover it up until you get better!
Here's what you do:
1. Get rid of ALL the niceties. Like "Uh, um, well" and all that stuff. I know, I used to do it all the time, too. Believe it or not, even if you want it to seem like your character does this all the time, it takes away greatly from the dialogue. If you're going to show that your character is thinking in his speech, do something like so...
Kireina watched the thief pace around the room, biting his finger like he was nervous or something. Of course, he had nothing to be nervous of, muchless deep in thought of, but regardless, he gave out a long winded 'hmmmm'. Kireina rolled her eyes.
"Loki, you can't honestly be thinking that hard. Are you?"
What taking out niceties does is eliminates any way for the reader to trip up over the dialogue, and clutter it less, and give more opportunity for your description to do what it's supposed to do. Read a nicety cluttered passage:
"Hmm..."
Loki's thought echoed around the room, and Kireina rolled her eyes.
"Um, are you seriously thinking this much about it?"
"Well, yeah," he answered, scowling.
"Well then tell us what you've thought of so far!"
The other voice that chimed in was Rose's, surprisingly. She usually didn't have anything worth hearing to say.
"Uh, well... let's see..." the thief murmured, trailing off once more.
It's icky. I don't like it. While it may not seem like there's much of a difference, there is! A clean, crisp, professional, 'hey look I know what I'm doing!' difference. And that's a good one! No need for unnecessary length when your description can describe what niceties do.
2. Take away all unnecessary tags! Yes! This includes neat ways of saying 'said', 'yelled', 'cackled', 'whispered', 'mumbled', and all that good stuff. Once again, leave this to your description! I like to stick to the good old fashioned 'said', 'asked', and occasionally 'answered', with MAYBE a 'shouted' or 'yelled' in there. SOMETIMES. RARELY. I try not to make a habit of it, because the reader gets more caught up in your vocabulary than the actual dialogue and vocabulary of your characters!
You want to use description before and after the speaking to tell what your character is doing and how they're behaving. With this, your reader can tell how your character says things. I used to use vivid tags all the time worrying that my reader wouldn't get the image that I wanted them to, but y'know what? Readers aren't stupid if you can write well! ;D Also, employ your punctuation! Exclamation marks are there for a reason, but only use ONE. I used to be in the habit of doing the "!?" thing, but I'm trying to get out of it now. Hehe.
"I can't help but think!" Loki said, pulling at his hair. Kireina could see his frustration beaming out of his horrible scowl. Sighing, she took a seat next to the book case.
"Listen," she said, "calm down. I bet you that there's no reason to be so worked up over this. Those men will come through, Loki!"
"No!" The thief wasn't ready to believe her, and, gritting his teeth, he started ripping books from their shelves in fury. "No they won't! How can you trust them? How can you trust this city, Ki? No one knows a damn about anything here!"
3. Don't overuse your tags. It's perfectly okay to leave them out altogether if you know your reader can tell who is speaking. This happens at the stage when the distinct personalities of your readers have been made clear, and it's easy to tell who said what judging by these personalities. Also, when you have just two people talking, it's not necessary to have them all over the place. Here's an example:
"Don't say that about my city!" The furious watchwoman was now glaring the thief in the eyes.
"You'd better take that look somewhere else, Ki!"
"Why? Just what do you think you're gonna do, huh? Hit me?" Loki stepped up to her until she was craning her neck back to look him in the face. Surprised, he saw that there wasn't a single nervous bead of sweat trailing down her temples.
"I'm not in the mood for your shit, Ki!" And then, the watchwoman slapped him as hard as she could, watching as the thief stumbled into the wall, holding a hand to where there was now a small, red handprint.
"Nor am I in the mood for yours!"
Well, there ya have it! Your main employers when you're writing dialogue should be not always the dialogue, but these:
Description
The simpleton tags
Punctuation
And fire these suckers:
Niceties
Vivid 'synonym' tags
I hope that helped! ^^
When you're writing dialogue, it's hard to determine when it sounds fake or not, sometimes.
Even if it DOES sound fake, there are ways to cover it up until you get better!
Here's what you do:
1. Get rid of ALL the niceties. Like "Uh, um, well" and all that stuff. I know, I used to do it all the time, too. Believe it or not, even if you want it to seem like your character does this all the time, it takes away greatly from the dialogue. If you're going to show that your character is thinking in his speech, do something like so...
Kireina watched the thief pace around the room, biting his finger like he was nervous or something. Of course, he had nothing to be nervous of, muchless deep in thought of, but regardless, he gave out a long winded 'hmmmm'. Kireina rolled her eyes.
"Loki, you can't honestly be thinking that hard. Are you?"
What taking out niceties does is eliminates any way for the reader to trip up over the dialogue, and clutter it less, and give more opportunity for your description to do what it's supposed to do. Read a nicety cluttered passage:
"Hmm..."
Loki's thought echoed around the room, and Kireina rolled her eyes.
"Um, are you seriously thinking this much about it?"
"Well, yeah," he answered, scowling.
"Well then tell us what you've thought of so far!"
The other voice that chimed in was Rose's, surprisingly. She usually didn't have anything worth hearing to say.
"Uh, well... let's see..." the thief murmured, trailing off once more.
It's icky. I don't like it. While it may not seem like there's much of a difference, there is! A clean, crisp, professional, 'hey look I know what I'm doing!' difference.
And that's a good one! No need for unnecessary length when your description can describe what niceties do.2. Take away all unnecessary tags! Yes! This includes neat ways of saying 'said', 'yelled', 'cackled', 'whispered', 'mumbled', and all that good stuff. Once again, leave this to your description! I like to stick to the good old fashioned 'said', 'asked', and occasionally 'answered', with MAYBE a 'shouted' or 'yelled' in there. SOMETIMES. RARELY. I try not to make a habit of it, because the reader gets more caught up in your vocabulary than the actual dialogue and vocabulary of your characters!
You want to use description before and after the speaking to tell what your character is doing and how they're behaving. With this, your reader can tell how your character says things. I used to use vivid tags all the time worrying that my reader wouldn't get the image that I wanted them to, but y'know what? Readers aren't stupid if you can write well! ;D Also, employ your punctuation! Exclamation marks are there for a reason, but only use ONE. I used to be in the habit of doing the "!?" thing, but I'm trying to get out of it now. Hehe.
"I can't help but think!" Loki said, pulling at his hair. Kireina could see his frustration beaming out of his horrible scowl. Sighing, she took a seat next to the book case.
"Listen," she said, "calm down. I bet you that there's no reason to be so worked up over this. Those men will come through, Loki!"
"No!" The thief wasn't ready to believe her, and, gritting his teeth, he started ripping books from their shelves in fury. "No they won't! How can you trust them? How can you trust this city, Ki? No one knows a damn about anything here!"
3. Don't overuse your tags. It's perfectly okay to leave them out altogether if you know your reader can tell who is speaking. This happens at the stage when the distinct personalities of your readers have been made clear, and it's easy to tell who said what judging by these personalities. Also, when you have just two people talking, it's not necessary to have them all over the place. Here's an example:
"Don't say that about my city!" The furious watchwoman was now glaring the thief in the eyes.
"You'd better take that look somewhere else, Ki!"
"Why? Just what do you think you're gonna do, huh? Hit me?" Loki stepped up to her until she was craning her neck back to look him in the face. Surprised, he saw that there wasn't a single nervous bead of sweat trailing down her temples.
"I'm not in the mood for your shit, Ki!" And then, the watchwoman slapped him as hard as she could, watching as the thief stumbled into the wall, holding a hand to where there was now a small, red handprint.
"Nor am I in the mood for yours!"
Well, there ya have it! Your main employers when you're writing dialogue should be not always the dialogue, but these:
Description
The simpleton tags
Punctuation
And fire these suckers:
Niceties
Vivid 'synonym' tags
I hope that helped! ^^
