During September I'll be sharing some notes here on my blog from my "The Art of Writing Dialogue" workshop that I've presented to many writing groups. I presented the first three lessons on Mechanics, the nitty gritty little details of writing dialogue, week before last. Last week and this week I'm discussing The Big Picture, using character traits, conflict, and emotion to infuse a real-life feel into dialogue, to make it pop off the page. The goal is to drag readers by the throat right into the book. Here are the sixth, seventh and eighth of ten "rules of thumb" for The Big Picture. Come back next week for the last two and some recommended resources!
6. Business: Make the facial expressions, actions and gestures of the characters during a dialogue work for you. Set a goal to minimize the need for simple dialogue tags by replacing them with business that illuminates character traits, reveals conflict and describes emotion. An interesting way to flavor a dialogue is to make the unspoken thoughts and emotions the opposite of what’s being said.
Always give your characters something interesting to do or think about while they’re having a conversation. And that ‘something interesting’ should have emotion and conflict tied to it. For instance, instead of just eating a meal together, have one character serve the other a dish she hates. She knows that her friend knows she hates that food, so she wonders through the whole meal why he served to her and just pretends to eat it.
7. Conflict: Every piece of dialogue in your story should contain conflict of some sort. The conflict can be external and obvious in the speech and actions of the characters (they disagree about something, they’re working together to solve a problem or escape a danger, etc.). Or it can be internal, embedded in the emotional subtext (he's lying to her, she doesn't like him). But it has to be there. Dialogue illuminates character, but only if you give your characters something interesting to talk about, and that means conflict.
8. Emotion: Every piece of dialogue needs to be infused with emotion. Show that emotion by using facial expressions and gestures as well as speech to expose what the characters are feeling versus just tagging the speech verbs with adverbs. Get to know your characters well enough that you can visualize what they look like and what they’re doing while engaged in conversations.
Here’s an example from the first book in my RM Outdoor Adventures series, Deadly Currents, with the business revealing character, conflict and emotion removed. Just the dialogue and basic description of actions are left. See how flat it reads.
The two of them watched the coroner, her assistant, and two Sheriff’s deputies carry the body up to the roadbed.
Gonzo swept aside a chunk of hair the wind had blown into his face. “Bummer.”
Mandy nodded.
“Hey, it’s not your fault. If anything, it’s my fault.”
“No, Gonzo. He was alive when he left your care. He died under mine.”
A shadow fell over her. She looked up and saw Steve Hadley.
He knelt. “Mandy, a death is hard for any of us. It was an accident, pure and simple. You could do no more than follow your training. If that wasn’t enough, then it was meant to be.”
Mandy nodded again.
“Hey man,” Gonzo said to Steve. “Thanks for handling the wife. After Dougie walked his passengers downstream to the road, and the wife saw the EMTs working on her husband and screamed, Dougie looked at me like, hey buddy, you’re in charge of this trip, so this is your scene. But I had no frigging idea what to do.”
“Who does?” Steve said. “You just deal with it the best you can.”
“I’d rather have a Boy Scout blowing chunks right on my Tevas than have to comfort some lady who’s gone all hysterical. At least I knew his son, Jeff, some. Though I couldn’t do much more than say I was really sorry, dude.”
“Yeah, thanks, Steve.” Mandy said. “I probably should have said something to her. I know that’s the worst part of the job, when someone...”
Here’s the whole passage, with the business revealing character, conflict and emotion put back in (see the italics). Can you better see both the internal conflict (Mandy’s guilt that a man she tried to save ended up dying) and external conflict (she and Gonzo argue about whose fault it is). Do you feel more of what Mandy’s feeling? And what the non-POV characters, Gonzo and Steve, are feeling?
The two of them silently watched the coroner, her assistant, and two Sheriff’s deputies carry the body up to the roadbed.
Gonzo swept aside a chunk of bushy dark blond Rastafarian dreadlocks the wind had blown into his somber, sunburned face. “Bummer.”
Mandy nodded. Bummer indeed.
He shot a worried gaze her way. “Hey, it’s not your fault.”
He picked up a pebble and half-heartedly tossed it aside. “If anything, it’s my fault.”
“No, Gonzo. He was alive when he left your care. He died under mine.”
A shadow fell over her. She looked up and saw Steve Hadley, his well-muscled frame backlit by the sun.
He must have seen the devastation she felt in her face, because his expression softened. He knelt and put his hand on her knee. “Mandy, a death is hard for any of us. It was an accident, pure and simple. You could do no more than follow your training. If that wasn’t enough, then it was meant to be.”
Mandy worried her lip. Did she? Did she follow her training? Should she have done something different? Something better? Her throat constricted. Rather than expose her emotion by croaking out a response, she just nodded again.
“Hey man,” Gonzo said to Steve. “Thanks for handling the wife. After Dougie walked his passengers downstream to the road, and the wife saw the EMTs working on her husband and screamed, Dougie looked at me like, hey buddy, you’re in charge of this trip, so this is your scene. But I had no frigging idea what to do.”
“Who does?” Steve said. “You just deal with it the best you can.”
“I’d rather have a Boy Scout blowing chunks right on my Tevas than have to comfort some lady who’s gone all hysterical. At least I knew his son, Jeff, some. Though I couldn’t do much more than say I was really sorry, dude.”
Mandy gulped down the knot in her throat. “Yeah, thanks, Steve. I probably should have said something to her. I know that’s the worst part of the job, when someone...” She couldn’t say dies, not yet. And the thought of trying to console that poor woman while Mandy struggled with her own resurrected grief had frightened her to the core.
Notice how the word "silently" conveys a hint of reverence? Also notice how I inserted some description of Gonzo's hair and skin and Steve’s muscles. Gonzo’s worried glance and the pause while he tosses the pebble show he cares about Mandy but expressing that is awkward for him. Steve’s softened expression and his hand on her knee show his concern. Mandy’s thoughts, the knot in her throat, and the question left in the reader’s mind at the end about her resurrected grief reveal more of her character.
Some other things to note that tie back to previous lessons are: Gonzo’s unique speech patterns (bummer, this is your scene, no frigging idea, blowing chunks), Steve more formal language that shows he's the boss (follow your training), the whitewater rafting-specific terms (downstream, Tevas). And lastly, did you notice how many dialogue tags are in that long passage of dialogue? Because of the business that worked hard for me, I only used "said" twice.
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