Straight Talk ©
By Leslie King

Creating realistic dialogue for your characters is one of the most difficult aspects of writing. It is also one of the most essential. Used correctly, it can accomplish the all-important task of moving your story forward, as well as, breaking up monotonous narrative and revealing personality. It is a great way to give each character an individual 'voice' and personality and it helps to keep your work from becoming too author-intrusive.

Unfortunately, like all great skills, forming believable dialogue can be very difficult. There are many pitfalls along the way and crutches to avoid. Things like:

Stilted Language - Instances where your conversations fail to match natural speech patterns. We can often times become overzealous in our use of proper English in our writing. While trying to mold to all the 'Rules of Grammar' and create an educated work, we unintentionally kill our dialogue. As horrid as it is to admit, people just don't speak that way. We say things like uh, um, and er, have accents that cause us to torture words like wishin' makin' and goin' and most importantly, we speak in fragments continually! Ya' know? Don't overuse these traits to the point where no one could understand your writing, but remember - we are a long way from actually speaking the Queen's English!

Too Many Modifiers - Modifiers are words or phrases like: he said, she cried, they whispered, we exclaimed. Yes, we need these upon occasion, we cannot complete an entire conversation in written dialogue without throwing in at least a few, but they do not need to be placed in every sentence. They become annoying to a reader and end up distracting from what you are trying to get across. This can also fall right into the vexing habit of telling us who your characters are continually, prefacing or naming. When you end up writing things like: Leslie instructed, Leslie opined, Leslie directed. Gets old quick, huh?

Fillers - Probably the most insidious and multi-skinned of all the dialogue destroyers, filler can take on many guises. Simply put, it is dialogue, which does not move your story along and does nothing to reveal character personality. One of the most common instances of this culprit is retelling. This happens when you have already established a fact or point in your story and then pound it into the ground by dragging it up again. Instances such as:

It was the worst winter in over ten years. Frigid winds were howling down from the north and whiteout conditions were imminent. Leslie had never seen so much snow.
"We sure are having a bad winter this year!"

Or

"I'll pick you up tomorrow night at 7:00 for dinner."
"Okay, I'll see you tomorrow night at seven, then."

Annoying, yes?

There are many other dialogue demolition examples - don't worry about finding them, they'll find you - trust me. But through fastidious editing, practice and patience, we can eventually master the art of superior dialogue. There are exercises to help us, we just have to find what works for us, and most important, use the exercises that will strengthen our individual weaknesses. Here are just a few that you might find useful:

- Reading Interviews - This is a great exercise if you have difficulty distinguishing language patterns. You don't have to worry about modifiers, and narrative distractions and the unblemished, candid responses are great examples of 'free speech'.

- Reading Plays - This is another great way to help establish patterns in speech. The outstanding thing about this one is that you also get the stage direction, which offers wonderful 'visuals' to work with!

- Study Other Works - Pull out some of your favorite books, and re-read some of the best scenes. Try to read them over noticing only the straight dialogue. See if you can force your mind to block all modifiers, visuals and narration so that you are reading the dialogue itself. Does it flow smoothly, or would it be difficult to interpret without the other noise?

- Straight Dialogue - This one is my favorites and I use it constantly. Once you have your scene plotted, sit down with pad and pen and see if you can create the conversation between characters with straight dialogue. By this I mean NO narrative, NO visuals, NO modifiers. Just one sentence to the next between characters. Write it as if you were transcribing a conversation that you overheard. This is a fabulous way to make sure that your conversations are flowing smoothly. When you are finished, work it into your scene and add all the noise.

Creating inspiring dialogue is a tough task, but with hard work and perseverance, it can be accomplished!

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