Talk
to Me - Writing Believable Dialogue
Mia Zachary copyright July 2001
All
excerpts and examples are the work of the author unless otherwise
credited
Setting
it Straight
Nothing irritates
readers more than a historical character using modern phrases or a
modern hero who sounds Victorian. These are called anachronisms
and if you write more than one genre, they're hard to catch.
Sir
James Hewitt, knight of the realm spoke quietly. "From that
day ever more, all those who witnessed the event did recount the tale
with much embellishment, and thusly he came to be the Storm
Lord."
"I
never expected you, St. Meghan, Martyr of the Megabytes, to quit your
job." Julie shook her head in wonder.
"Especially not to become a flesh-eating lawyer."
Hook,
line and zinger
I love to begin each
new scene and end each chapter with a great one liner. You can use
either narrative or dialogue for this, as long as you capture the
reader's attention and curiosity. I think dialogue works best because
it's like walking in on a conversation in time to hear the juicy bits.
"I
just had sex on the beach. Wanna try it?"
"Jazz
is back in town. All hell's going to break loose!"
"Elise Foster. I'm his mistress, with a capital 'M'."
Get
Real
You wouldn't want to
directly transcribe all of the shlurring, mispronouncings, over-
talking, grunts and sighs, long.. pauses and other messy, boring stuff
in a real conversation. Dialogue is not real-- but it has to sound
natural.
"Anyway,
where was I?"
"You
were telling me--"
"Oh,
yeah. Grew up in Austin, Texas; I'm divorced and I once had sex in a
stalled elevator for two hours."
"You
, um, were stuck for two hours.. or had sex for two hours?"
Was
that curiosity he heard? Alex turned his smile up a notch.
"Sex for two hours. Impressed?"
Tag-
you're it
I personally don't
use dialogue tags. You'll never find the words, 'she said' or 'he
said' in anything I write. I prefer to show the reader what the
character is feeling instead.
"How
are you doing, Mary?"
"Fine,
Just fine. Great, in fact." She offered her friend a brave
smile.
"You
don't have to pretend with me." Jane leaned forward and gently
placed a hand over Mary's to stop her from shredding the paper napkin.
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