Author Topic: Dialog help...  (Read 2026 times)

Offline Lord Rae

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 3787
    • View Profile
Dialog help...
« on: January 07, 2011, 12:38:19 PM »
I'm having huge issues with dialog. I'm writing something that is set in an alternate world roughly technologically equivalent to the beginning of the Industrial revolution. Basically only the barest traces of technology but magic does play a strong role in things.

My problem stems from knowing how to make the dialog sound. It wouldn't work to make the dialog modern ala the Dresden files. And it wouldn't work to have everything sound like a reinterpretation of classic British theater.

Basically everything I come up with sounds too formal and just bad when I read it aloud or in my head. And I'm having trouble coming up with more than a few "spoken" sentences per page. Everything is just happening without much dialog because of this and I know it is a problem.

Just wanted to know if anyone had any suggestions on how to make myself better at spoken conversations when I'm writing. I don't talk all that much in real life and this may be my problem. I'm not that quiet or antisocial. I do talk. Just not as much as most of the people I tend to hang out with.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2011, 12:40:38 PM by Lord Rae »

Offline reg varny

  • Participant
  • *
  • Posts: 36
    • View Profile
Re: Dialog help...
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2011, 01:32:32 PM »
Have you read Howard? His dialogue is as dynamic as his prose without being cumbersome and archaic.

Offline Starbeam

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 5722
  • Twitter: @stellamortis
    • View Profile
    • Stella Mortis
Re: Dialog help...
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2011, 01:52:36 PM »
Don't worry about it sounding too modern or archaic, formal or informal, or anything like that.  Just write conversation that sounds natural.  You can always go back and edit out anything anachronistic or modern-slangy.  That's one of the pluses with writing--you can always go back and fix it later.
"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." Ray Bradbury

Offline LizW65

  • Posty McPostington
  • ***
  • Posts: 2093
  • Better Red than dead...
    • View Profile
    • elizabethkwadsworth.com
Re: Dialog help...
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2011, 03:03:07 PM »
One of the best aids in writing dialogue is just to listen to people talk.  Also, having a clear idea of who the characters are is helpful, as character helps to inform the way people speak.  And as Starbeam said, you can always go back and edit later--at that point, reading your dialogue aloud can be very helpful in making it sound more natural.

If this is a first draft, don't worry so much about making the dialogue sound real; just get it written down in some form and use it to move the story along.  If you're having trouble getting any dialogue at all into the manuscript, you can do things like change some of your narration to dialogue, e.g.:
"I wondered what the man in the black trench coat was doing in the alley at that hour" can become, "You see that man over there, the one in the black trench coat?  What do you suppose he's doing in the alley at this hour?"  And so on!
"Make good art." -Neil Gaiman
"Or failing that, entertaining trash." -Me
http://www.elizabethkwadsworth.com

Offline JMThomas

  • Participant
  • *
  • Posts: 19
    • View Profile
    • The Caffeine Curve
Re: Dialog help...
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2011, 02:48:58 AM »
If you write it in the language you're comfortable with, you'll get the idea out and find the perfect words for it later. (I know how hard that is.  Trust me.  I have to scroll to the bottom of my document every time I open it to keep from going back and nitpicking over my own writing.  I had to set up deadlines and then my boyfriend had to threaten to lick my eyeball to get me to keep to the deadlines and not keep revising - because, really, who wants their eyeball licked, am I right?)

Another alternative is to take a break and hit the library, or alternatively, Netflix.  I'm writing a story set sort of in the same time era as you mentioned, and I find Charles Dickens to be very helpful in getting my diction in the right frame of reference.  There are things that might be off here and there, but a good few read-throughs by people you trust will alert you to anything that sounds too false.  Reading/watching an adaptation (most particularly reading) will immerse you in that time frame.

For instance, have you read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke?  Aside from being a gobsmackingly good read, Clarke writes it as thought it had been written during the Napoleonic Wars, so it gives that weight of historic accuracy to it and grounds the fantasy plot within real events and authentic language.  Alternatively, Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon series is far more modern in its language and plot structure, but the historic details (even when they deviate from true history) are so sharp and precise that it gives the same weight to the story, just at a different angle.  Either book feels like an alternative slice of that era of history, but use different tools to accomplish it.

So it depends on what you're trying to achieve, really.  Do you want it to feel like a book that could have been written back then, and later "found" by you?  Or do you want it to be more cinematic in scope, modern in its faster paced plot and witty dialogue? There's lots of different ways to go about it, so you have a lot of wiggle room.