Post by NORI on Jul 17, 2013 19:56:54 GMT -6
How to write fiction: DBC Pierre on convincing dialogue
by DBC Pierre
What characters say to each other in a book will make or break it. Their dialogues not only move the story along, mask and unveil truth, slow or quicken pace, cause or dampen conflict; they make the work credible or incredible.
And as if that doesn't already sound hard enough – they must also make us forget we're reading them.
A few basic laws govern dialogue and, once applied, their effect will be immediate. If you're beginning to make your characters speak, I promise these basics will help.
Unnatural is natural
Our programming as listeners and readers creates a need for technique in dialogue: these are two different things, as you'll discover when you try to write what you hear. At first I couldn't understand why the conversations around me wouldn't translate verbatim to a page; but a refraction effect applies, sentences strangely bend, like light hitting water. The first law then: natural speech looks unnatural when written.
Record someone's speech and you'll hear how peppered with reversals, repetitions and omissions it is. In its quest for meaning, the brain filters these out, delivering us a clean, packaged concept, which is great – until you try to write it. The way around this is concision. As an exercise, start with the dialogue you want to write, then remove every third word, or cut the sentence by half; cut it until the meaning no longer survives, then add back the few words which return the meaning you want.
You'll be surprised by how few words a sentence needs to do its job. Readers will fly through dialogue, it's one of the great pleasures of reading and one which puts them at the heart of the action – don't slow or stop them, except by design. Tight dialogue may look curt at first, but let it rest overnight then look again; you'll see that in the reading brain, economy is natural.
Show, don't tell
You might be sick of this catchphrase, but it's a rule which applies particularly to dialogue, as this is where you will show things rather than tell them. Where it might be easier to describe an action or setting in prose, the reader will become more involved in your work if your characters expose things through dialogue and action. For instance, this might be an interesting piece of prose:
Then there was Barry, wearing his usual sour face. Rather than complain of the cold, or put on a jumper, he had a habit of drowning his food in salt, as he said this stimulated the body's temperature-regulating mechanisms. Of course it was because he simply liked salt but was ashamed to admit it after warnings he'd received about his health. Still, he usually froze at dinner to prop up this facade.
Now note how engaged we become when we see the tale unfold through dialogue. This exchange says all the same things:
"Pass the salt," said Barry. Mother frowned at this and he didn't meet her gaze. "Not a crime, is it?" he mumbled, "a bit of salt? Against the cold?"
"If I thought it'd cheer you up I might pass it," she said. "Or you could just get a jumper like the rest of us."
"They say chillies regulate body temperature," chimed Silvia. "And tea."
Dan finished a mouthful, leaning back: "Tea regulates by making you sweat. He's hardly going to sweat. Lucky if he's any fluids left, I've filled the shaker twice already."
"Not a crime, is it?"
"Ask Doctor Brice. Ask him after you've popped a vein."
Beat around the bush
One element of spoken dialogue which we aim to preserve is indirectness. If you listen to how we speak you'll note much of what we say assumes that we know each other. More than this, much of our speech is just a cover – for barbs, for questions, for things we don't want to deal with directly.
This is all good in writing. It draws readers in because it not only seems natural, but makes them eavesdroppers, it gives mysteries to unravel, suspicions to confirm, which are as rewarding in books as in life. Your character Richard, for instance, in life or in a book, would never come out and say: "Nell, I hold you and your absences responsible for the pressures on our marriage." Instead, we would guess it from an exchange like this:
Nell clattered downstairs: "I might be late home."
"Could've sworn I left it around here."
"Feel free to ignore me."
"Works well enough for you."
Let it flow
Flowing dialogue has to be balanced with letting readers know which character is speaking; but dialogue with too many "he said"s and "she said"s is irritating. It's a perennial challenge to clearly identify who's speaking without lumbering the exchange with repetitious words. While the beginning of a dialogue should firmly show who speaks and who answers, if the conversation continues you will need some new tools to keep it natural, unobtrusive and rhythmic.
One of a new writer's first responses can be to substitute other verbs for "said". While you can get away with a certain number of basic substitutions, they quickly wear thin. There are more elegant ways to identify your speakers.
First, don't put all your attributions at the end – try breaking sentences with them:
"By the time I left the pub I could barely see them," said Richard.
"By the time I left the pub," said Richard, "I could barely see them."
Try shifting attributions around to find where they fit best. Better still, attribute with action; take the opportunity to show what Richard is doing as he speaks:
"By the time I left the pub," Richard lifted the blind: "I could barely see them."
Tag your voices
Perhaps the sharpest tool in the armoury, one that removes attributions altogether, is the speech tag – this is one of the grunts or tics we agreed to eliminate at the beginning. Across the length of a story readers come to know a character by the style of their speech, by idiosyncrasies. Everyone has their habits, whether beginning replies with "Hmm" or "But" or "Well", pronouncing things a certain way, or having a characteristic pause.
The key here is to pick one or two for each main character, and lead their sentences with them. Don't overuse these tags, wait until you're at full stretch to attribute dialogues – but then, with a tag each, your characters can chat at some length without needing to pause for a "said Richard".
Don't worry if the tags seem awkward at first – add them to mark for yourself who's speaking; they'll develop and become more subtle as your characters settle into themselves.
Few tools in writing have such immediate effect on the page as these do, fuelling confidence, boosting the work along. We live in the best time for dialogue-heavy books – because it's fast, and we're fast, and it makes us eavesdroppers and ticks commercial boxes if you want to be published. Pace sells and dialogue is pace; you can still make unique, compelling characters, and you can still write a unique work around them – but a reader who falls into good dialogue on the first page of a book is in your pocket.
"Treat him bloody well," said Richard.
by DBC Pierre
What characters say to each other in a book will make or break it. Their dialogues not only move the story along, mask and unveil truth, slow or quicken pace, cause or dampen conflict; they make the work credible or incredible.
And as if that doesn't already sound hard enough – they must also make us forget we're reading them.
A few basic laws govern dialogue and, once applied, their effect will be immediate. If you're beginning to make your characters speak, I promise these basics will help.
Unnatural is natural
Our programming as listeners and readers creates a need for technique in dialogue: these are two different things, as you'll discover when you try to write what you hear. At first I couldn't understand why the conversations around me wouldn't translate verbatim to a page; but a refraction effect applies, sentences strangely bend, like light hitting water. The first law then: natural speech looks unnatural when written.
Record someone's speech and you'll hear how peppered with reversals, repetitions and omissions it is. In its quest for meaning, the brain filters these out, delivering us a clean, packaged concept, which is great – until you try to write it. The way around this is concision. As an exercise, start with the dialogue you want to write, then remove every third word, or cut the sentence by half; cut it until the meaning no longer survives, then add back the few words which return the meaning you want.
You'll be surprised by how few words a sentence needs to do its job. Readers will fly through dialogue, it's one of the great pleasures of reading and one which puts them at the heart of the action – don't slow or stop them, except by design. Tight dialogue may look curt at first, but let it rest overnight then look again; you'll see that in the reading brain, economy is natural.
Show, don't tell
You might be sick of this catchphrase, but it's a rule which applies particularly to dialogue, as this is where you will show things rather than tell them. Where it might be easier to describe an action or setting in prose, the reader will become more involved in your work if your characters expose things through dialogue and action. For instance, this might be an interesting piece of prose:
Then there was Barry, wearing his usual sour face. Rather than complain of the cold, or put on a jumper, he had a habit of drowning his food in salt, as he said this stimulated the body's temperature-regulating mechanisms. Of course it was because he simply liked salt but was ashamed to admit it after warnings he'd received about his health. Still, he usually froze at dinner to prop up this facade.
Now note how engaged we become when we see the tale unfold through dialogue. This exchange says all the same things:
"Pass the salt," said Barry. Mother frowned at this and he didn't meet her gaze. "Not a crime, is it?" he mumbled, "a bit of salt? Against the cold?"
"If I thought it'd cheer you up I might pass it," she said. "Or you could just get a jumper like the rest of us."
"They say chillies regulate body temperature," chimed Silvia. "And tea."
Dan finished a mouthful, leaning back: "Tea regulates by making you sweat. He's hardly going to sweat. Lucky if he's any fluids left, I've filled the shaker twice already."
"Not a crime, is it?"
"Ask Doctor Brice. Ask him after you've popped a vein."
Beat around the bush
One element of spoken dialogue which we aim to preserve is indirectness. If you listen to how we speak you'll note much of what we say assumes that we know each other. More than this, much of our speech is just a cover – for barbs, for questions, for things we don't want to deal with directly.
This is all good in writing. It draws readers in because it not only seems natural, but makes them eavesdroppers, it gives mysteries to unravel, suspicions to confirm, which are as rewarding in books as in life. Your character Richard, for instance, in life or in a book, would never come out and say: "Nell, I hold you and your absences responsible for the pressures on our marriage." Instead, we would guess it from an exchange like this:
Nell clattered downstairs: "I might be late home."
"Could've sworn I left it around here."
"Feel free to ignore me."
"Works well enough for you."
Let it flow
Flowing dialogue has to be balanced with letting readers know which character is speaking; but dialogue with too many "he said"s and "she said"s is irritating. It's a perennial challenge to clearly identify who's speaking without lumbering the exchange with repetitious words. While the beginning of a dialogue should firmly show who speaks and who answers, if the conversation continues you will need some new tools to keep it natural, unobtrusive and rhythmic.
One of a new writer's first responses can be to substitute other verbs for "said". While you can get away with a certain number of basic substitutions, they quickly wear thin. There are more elegant ways to identify your speakers.
First, don't put all your attributions at the end – try breaking sentences with them:
"By the time I left the pub I could barely see them," said Richard.
"By the time I left the pub," said Richard, "I could barely see them."
Try shifting attributions around to find where they fit best. Better still, attribute with action; take the opportunity to show what Richard is doing as he speaks:
"By the time I left the pub," Richard lifted the blind: "I could barely see them."
Tag your voices
Perhaps the sharpest tool in the armoury, one that removes attributions altogether, is the speech tag – this is one of the grunts or tics we agreed to eliminate at the beginning. Across the length of a story readers come to know a character by the style of their speech, by idiosyncrasies. Everyone has their habits, whether beginning replies with "Hmm" or "But" or "Well", pronouncing things a certain way, or having a characteristic pause.
The key here is to pick one or two for each main character, and lead their sentences with them. Don't overuse these tags, wait until you're at full stretch to attribute dialogues – but then, with a tag each, your characters can chat at some length without needing to pause for a "said Richard".
Don't worry if the tags seem awkward at first – add them to mark for yourself who's speaking; they'll develop and become more subtle as your characters settle into themselves.
Few tools in writing have such immediate effect on the page as these do, fuelling confidence, boosting the work along. We live in the best time for dialogue-heavy books – because it's fast, and we're fast, and it makes us eavesdroppers and ticks commercial boxes if you want to be published. Pace sells and dialogue is pace; you can still make unique, compelling characters, and you can still write a unique work around them – but a reader who falls into good dialogue on the first page of a book is in your pocket.
"Treat him bloody well," said Richard.