Write Better Dialoge by Deborah Sutton

Fictional dialogue is a strange beast.
It has to sound real and natural in the reader's mind, but in reality it's nothing like the live, everyday dialogue that we all use.

For a start, much of the talking that people do in everyday circumstances is more to establish communication and friendly relations than to further our interests or help us achieve our goals.

You meet someone in the street and it goes something like this:

“Hey, long time no see. How're things?”
“Not so bad, you know. Mustn't grumble. How're you?”
“Yep, okay thanks. Miserable weather isn't it?”
“Oh, dreadful. Nothing but rain. And it's been so cold.”
“I know. More like winter than spring. I never know what to wear these days.”
“Nor me. One minute it's freezing and the next it's gone all muggy and close.”
“I just wish the rain would stop.”
“Ah well. The garden needs it I suppose.”
“Yeah. Saves on watering.”
“Must dash. Doing a bit of shopping for my daughter.”
“Me too. I'm just on my way to work.”
“Nice seeing you anyway. Take care.”
“And you. Bye for now.”

What did that exchange achieve? In real life it achieved quite a lot.

It enabled two people who haven't seen each other for a while to remind each other of mutual acquaintance and show concern for each other (How are you? Mustn't grumble.) They quickly get onto a comfortable subject where they can both agree on one thing (Miserable weather. Oh, dreadful.) and therefore mutually sympathise with the bad things and find common ground in the upside (Garden needs it). They're both on important errands so they can quickly part without giving offence and with the satisfaction of having had a little moan to a person who feels the same way. Both are uplifted in a small way, and the parting is positive (Take care. And you.)

Everyone has this sort of encounter every day, and we all need them.

Our words are mostly meaningless. It's small talk. But never underestimate the importance of small talk. In real life our small dialogue is our reaching out, our point of contact with other humans, our finding common ground and our chance to give and receive the warmth of a friendly smile.

But in fiction we need to find another way of giving our characters these little but important lifts in life. In fiction there is no place for the kind of dialogue shown above.

Why?

Because fictional dialogue needs to have a purpose that's directly relevant to the story being told. Every single line that your characters speak must address what's happening in the story.

Dialogue has a heavy workload in fiction. It must fulfil one or more of the following functions:

Move the story forward.
Show situation.
Expose character.
Reveal conflict.

And each of those functions must be performed within the boundaries of the story. If you take the above dialogue you might argue that those two people need to meet that day so their meeting needs to be in the story. Okay, I'll accept that. But their dialogue must the relevant to the reason 'why' they need to meet.

The weather and the fact they're both in reasonably good health probably isn't the reason why. So you need to ask yourself what relevance to the story this meeting has, and either include it directly in their conversation or hint at it very strongly.

In short, this meeting must be so important that the story can't go forwards without it. If you can remove the meeting and still write the story, then removing the meeting is what you should do.

Fictional dialogue always has a job to do that is bigger than the actual words exchanged. Make sure it does that job and you won't go far wrong.


About the Author

Deborah Sutton is a writer and professionally qualified creative writing tutor, published in both fiction and nonfiction.

http://www.deborahsutton.co.uk