Talking about Talking (What I know about dialogue)

In the post I made offering incomplete stories and outlines for adoption, I noted that most of them contained unattributed bits of dialogue, because that’s how I write my rough drafts. That happens for a few reasons: it makes a good notation device because I can probably remember the scene and story based off of that; it lets me check out the emotional flow of the story without having to get the whole thing written (since I’m a big believer that character interactions should carry an emotional storyline;) and when I come up with something funny or heartfelt it’s usually a line of dialogue, so this way I don’t forget it.

There’s both some cause and effect in this. I truly believe that dialogue is the most important part of 90% of the fics out there. There are exceptions, of course, but usually they’re intended to be exceptions-- people don’t just happen to write a fic about two characters where there’s no dialogue or it’s unimportant, and often those fics are impressive because that’s a huge limit to place on yourself. But dialogue is the most natural way of “showing” character interactions and relationships; what characters say to each other and how they say it shows how they feel and how that changes as they talk.

For the most part, dialogue comes to me naturally. A scene plays in my head, and I write down what the characters say. But I’m also picky about dialogue in the fics I read, so I do think about what makes it work, and what’s wrong when it’s not working. I thought those thoughts might be useful to some people, so I decided

Dialogue is kind of a funny thing in writing, the “rules” are relaxed; grammar can be mangled, words can be used incorrectly or inefficiently, sentence fragments or run on sentences are all a-okay… as long as it reflects the character talking. To that end, knowing the characters you’re writing and writing dialogue go hand in hand.

One thing I’ve always found useful is to slightly exaggerate the voice of the character you’re writing. If they would have a limited vocabulary, make sure they don’t use words that are really specific. If they have an accent that changes the sound of words or their usage, that’s important to make clear. This might seem like just “how writing is,” but I can illustrate because in fanfiction we have a point of comparison.

On the show, the writers can get away with making character voices less clear or obvious, because we can hear the literal character voices. A line of dialogue doesn’t need to “sound like Rainbow Dash” because Ashleigh Ball is going to say it and it will literally sound like Rainbow Dash. So, if you read the transcripts, the characters don’t really talk like themselves that much, because so much comes from the cadence, tone, and inflection in the actual show.

In books and stories, we have to convey the same voice with words, so we have to use word choice and sentence structure to make people hear the difference between Rainbow Dash and Rarity. Bad Horse put it best a while ago, in response to a comment I gave him: “Point being that writing dialogue that a character might say might be realistic, but it isn't as good as writing dialogue that a character might say, and no other character would.”

Now, the other side of this coin is that you don’t want to go to the other extreme. Too much of a written accent, over-using catch phrases, or over-emphasizing vocabulary differences can make a character feel like a parody of themselves (and, in the case of accents or intellectual vocabulary, make your story harder to read.)

I find the happy medium in combining these things for each character and trying to use different ones in each line. For example, Rarity has a kind of catch phrase in using “darling” as a pet name, she uses upper-class language and some sprinkled British-isms (shall instead will, for example,) and she has an extensive vocabulary (she uses words that often surprise me for a kids show.) Using any one of these things in every line she has, or worse, all three, will make her sound like a joke. But alternating them between lines, with some more neutral lines thrown in for good measure, will result in a Rarity that sounds more “Rarity-like” than the show (so that we can hear her in Tabitha St. Germian’s voice) but not like some rip-off of Rarity that’s trying extra hard to be “real.”

Accents are a little different, in that they should be consistent, but the key there is to use as little of one as you can while still mimicking what the accent sounds like. Personally, I’m against using “Ah” for “I” in the Apple’s accent, because I feel like drastically changing the spelling of the word makes it something that people need to translate, which makes reading harder. And that goes for anything else where the word doesn’t retain most of its original letters (with the exception of “ya” for “you,” which is common enough in English that it’s regularly used in things like the title to Trade Ya, making it more recognizable.) There’s no right way to write it, but this is a place where less is more.

This brings me to another important subject in dialogue, one that’s separated from characterization. Timing. The time it takes for the character to say something, where they pause is especially important in comedy, but it can be equally important in other kinds of conversations between characters. There are a lot of jokes out there that aren’t as funny if a character doesn’t pause for a second before delivering the punchline. At the same time, pausing for a second before saying “I love you” back to another character can totally change the meaning of the response.

As writers, we have some limited control over how fast people read things and where they pause. This comes in two major ways: the number/length of the words you use, and punctuation.

When it comes to number and length of words, fewer or shorter words are going to make people read it faster, which will feel like the character is speaking more quickly. This is where accent comes in, when we combine words it can change how quickly they’re read: “Gotta” reads more quickly than “Got to,” “y’all” reads more quickly than “you all.” But this isn’t limited to accent, having a character like Twilight or Rarity say “agreed” is faster than “I agree.”

This extends to dialogue tags, as well. If a character is responding to something quickly, don’t put the tag in front of it, and if it’s part of a quick exchange consider not tagging it at all. If you must tag, just use said. On the other hand, if you want to draw out what the character is saying, long and descriptive tags give the words more heft, and make them feel like the character is thinking about them more.

The other way of controlling timing is with punctuation. That’s among the things punctuation is for, actually, it tells readers where and how long to pause. But dialogue is a place where people will let you play with it to get the right timing for a line. People understand that if Pinkie is talking in one long run-on sentence, it’s her excitedly barreling through the thoughts, or that if Twilight responds with a phrase with a period between each word, she’s saying something very slowly and clearly.

So that’s how to control your timing. In order to know when you need to control it, imagine the character saying the line, or read the scene out loud as you have it written down, paying attention to punctuation. Are characters pausing in the spots your punctuation is showing? Are the jokes getting lost under a bunch of words? Cut the words from the dialogue and tags. Is the emotion feeling terse and rushed? Add words to those places, even Big Mac can have a detailed and descriptive tag added to give his “nope” more emotion behind it. If a character is pausing in a weird place, or hesitating before they say something, there’s punctuation to show that. Don’t be afraid to use it, even if it’s incorrect in a technical sense.

Since I touched on dialogue tags, let me talk about them for a second. Common wisdom is to limit yourself to said, asked, and a few others. This is to avoid something known as “said bookism,” where authors get… fanciful with their dialogue tags: “she expressed,” “he insinuated,” “she acknowledged.” This often happens because authors get nervous using the same words over and over again (this problem is also the cause of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome, where people use description in the place of names) This is annoying to some readers, because dialogue tags are supposed to blend in. All they’re doing is letting you know who’s speaking. But an unexpected word calls attention to itself, often unnecessarily.

At the same time, words mean things, and sometimes you don’t mean that she said something, you mean that she acknowledged it, or admitted it. There are connotations there that imply tone of voice or even body language, and if your goal is to let people hear the conversation the way you hear it in your head then using the right word can help you.

The solution here is two parts: First, don’t be afraid of said. If the connotations of the dialogue are clear enough, use said. The only reason to use anything else is if the line itself could be interpreted in different ways, and the situation and actions around it can’t differentiate between them. Second, when you don’t use said, use a short, simple replacement. “Agreed” is less conspicuous than “acknowledged,” “shouted” is better than “exclaimed.” If you do use a longer tag, it had better be because it exactly expresses how the line was said, and this should not need to happen with most lines.
So far, this has all been technical stuff about how to write what you want the characters to say. The next part is about what you want the characters to say.

Showing and telling works differently in dialogue. In narration, showing and telling is an stylistic choice. In dialogue, it’s another part of characterization. Different characters will come right out and tell you different things about how they’re feeling. It’s perfectly valid and in character for Rarity to announce and detail the depths of her despair to anypony within ear shot, and if nopony is around she’ll tell Opal; Twilight might be more hesitant and only tell one of her friends privately; and getting Pinkie to verbally admit that she’s sad and explain why is like pulling Gummy’s teeth. Exposition works the same way: Rarity will happily tell everypony about her latest crush, Twilight has no problem explaining the history of the ruins they’re exploring. The opposite wouldn’t always hold true.

There are some things that almost any character will tell. If they’ve been thinking about their love for another character for the whole story, they can go ahead and let loose with a nice speech about it at the end. The point of showing, rather than telling, is to let the readers experience the feeling of something rather than telling them to feel it-- the other character would probably rather just be told, since they don’t have access to narration.

When people accuse a story of having “tell-y dialogue,” they usually mean that characters are talking about things they wouldn’t normally talk about that are supposed to tell the reader how they feel. It would be unusual for Applejack to randomly tell her brother how much she loves farming. If the author wanted to make it clear that Applejack does, in fact, love farming, they should probably show it.

But you can use dialogue for that, too! Applejack might not tell Mac that she loves farming, but it certainly would be in character for her to be cheerfully talking about plans for planting a new field, or developing a new apple hybrid. In romance fics, I’ve talked before about “conversations about stuff” that show the pairing interacting in the way a couple would over something ordinary, rather than just talking about their relationship.

The key with these showing conversations is not to let them overstay their welcome. Give people a good scene to understand the emotions involved, but end it before it turns into fluff or filler. Of course, tolerances for fluff vary depending on the person and the emotions involved, so this really depends on the kind of fic you’re writing, but it’s something to keep in mind if you find yourself writing a scene that’s supposed to show that Applejack and Twilight are in love that’s a whole chapter long.

That’s about it, but I’ll finish off with one final trick I use: if there’s a conversation you need in a fic, and you can’t figure out how the subject would come up, start off with the characters talking about something else. Actually, any dialogue can benefit from this, conversations shift and turn around all the time, and as long as it’s not meandering (unless that’s what you’re going for) a subject shift will feel realistic and get you to where you want to go.

If you need for the mane six to talk about their dating history, rather than the tired “truth or dare” cliche, try having them talking about gifts they’ve gotten, and have one of them bring up a gift from an ex. If you need Rainbow Dash to let slip to Applejack about the crush she has on Rarity, start the conversation about exercise routines and have Dash know more than one commonly would about how Rarity keeps in shape.

Obviously you don’t have to do this, characters sometimes go to other characters to talk about something, and talk about that thing. But in that case, you probably know how to bring it up (however the character would bring it up.) If you don’t know how it would come up, it’s probably something that they wouldn’t normally talk about, so talking about something else first just makes sense.

And that’s everything I can think to say about writing right now.

Don't forget about GhostOfHeraclitus' offer: a $50 donation to me entitles you to a blog post on a subject of your choice from him, in addition to one from me!

Thanks to my October subscribers: Ultiville, Jake R, Kiro Talon, Singularity Dream, bats, Merc the Jerk, nemopemba, diremane, First_Down, sopchoppy, Not Worthy, jlm123hi and stormgnome. If you want to see your name in links, or get other fabulous prizes, check out this post for information on how to subscribe: Subscription Info.

Comments

[MrNumbers]

Another master class!

Always refreshingly welcome.

[Super Trampoline]

Here's a suggestion: Perhaps when you do long blogs like this, put a table of contents at the start listing the major points you're going over. It would make lazy people like me who just came home from a forty mile bike ride more likely to read it.

[KiltedKey]

I could not agree with this any more, Bookplayer.

I would rather haphazardly write a poorly spelled, half incoherent character dialogue torrent than complete sentences that make me lose that dialogue banter that I once had. I don't even need to write down who is talking ninety precent of the time. Simply putting the dialogue down, I'm able to remember who said it. It's the stories that have dialogue that really resonate that attract me. Perhaps we both think alike, in which it plays out on film in our heads, and we simply translate it, and can fill in the pieces later if we don't get them all at once? Seems like it.

Our goals in capturing canon characters is to make it seem that their voice actors are who you hear reading the dialogue as you read our stories. If we fail in doing that, we've failed as writers. Might we have extra leeway, depending on genre and maturity rating? Absolutely, but that suspension of disbelief can only go so far.

I entirely agree with you and accents. I've drastically toned down what I write and consider an 'acceptable' Applejack. Maybe it helps that we know what she really sounds like, bjt people can absolutely butcher her. Just like people can make Rainbow be a bit too much punk/90's skateboarder. "Dude! Awesome! Radical!" She's more than that. Rarity as well doesn't throw about being a mid-Atlantic accent to the point of crushing a scene unless she does it on purpose. Not everything needs to be stupendous, divine, exquisite, or marvelous. It can be well. Enjoyable. She's a large ham, but it's not her all the time.

I always make sure anything I'm writing is being read as if it was from a script. Adjust as needed for maximum impact.