Dialogue tips from the Port Authority

Originally posted: February 24, 2020

My writing group was exchanging emails about dialogue, why it flatlines and how it can be revived. Putting words in a character’s mouth - words that sound authentic and are compelling to read - is no easy feat. So the next few posts will be devoted to dialogue.

There are no hard and fast rules for good writing and anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or ignorant. But there are guidelines that will serve you well 75-90% of the time. Note the spread: 75-90% of the time, you can safely defer to the playbook. The other 10-25% of the time, you’re better off improvising or breaking the rules. Caveat aside, let’s begin.

To start, here are The Port Authority’s collected thoughts on good dialogue:

1: Characters should talk to each other, not the reader. Don’t use dialogue simply to convey information that you think the reader needs.

The last part of that sentence is important. Often, what you think the reader needs is quite a bit more than the reader actually needs. Restraint is part of the discipline of writing. Leave room for the reader to use their intuition.

As a manuscript evaluator, I see this a lot: Character A says something that Character B surely already knows. Can the dialogue be prefaced with the phrase “as you know”? If so, delete. 

2. Pay attention to how you and people around you speak. Rarely do we formulate our thoughts in smooth, complete sentences. We speak in fragments, double back, pause, hesitate, um, ah, jump from subject to subject, use slang, drop inside jokes and so on. If two characters are speaking too fluidly they are going to sound like sociopaths or robots. Now maybe your story is about sociopathic robots looking for love in a post-apocalyptic world. If so, as you were. Otherwise, delete.

3. Less is more. Three lines of dialogue at a time is usually plenty. I like to write lots and lots of dialogue in a first draft and then cull it back later. As someone who reads my own and other people’s drafts for a living, one thing I’ve noticed is there is often a gem of a sentence lurking in a paragraph of dialogue. Liberate the gem. Delete the rest.

4. Delete the inessentials (“Hello. Nice weather we’re having. Those Leafs, eh?”). Go straight to the juice. (See #7)

5. The best dialogue has a thrum of tension. Perhaps it’s right at the surface - characters at each other’s throats, airing pent up grievances. But often it’s an undercurrent, a frisson that electrifies some mundane chit chat. Our best teachers are stories. Pay attention to how other writers pull off this trick. Short fiction is a good place to start. The excellent ones are chock-a-block with barbed dialogue.

6. If Character A wants something from Character B (let’s say it’s the answer to an important question), Character B should not oblige. Leave things unsaid. Leave someone wanting.

7. Related: If Character A isn’t quite sure what Character B knows BINGO! Now you’re getting into the realm of subtext. The best dialogue exists on two planes: there are the words that are being said and all the unsaid stuff lurking underneath, the unspoken elephant in the room, ill will or discomfort. All of this non-verbal material is subtext. And subtext is ripe. Subtext is the juice.

8. Imagine a tool box. You’ve got a hammer, a wrench, a tape measure, a couple of screwdrivers, pliers, a drill and so on and so on. In your writing tool box you’ve got narration (a voice in first, second, or third person conveying a story), exposition (background information conveyed by the narrator), time shifts (flashback and flashforward), action and so on. Dialogue is only ONE type of tool.

Where many writers - even published, established ones - go wrong is they forget there’s a whole box and grow too reliant on a single tool. That tool is usually direct dialogue. (Groan) Listen, a Robertson screwdriver is handy but you can’t build a whole house with one. Also, there are other types of screwdrivers! There are other kinds of dialogue too: summary and indirect. Direct dialogue is the easiest tool to use poorly. Summary and indirect dialogue to the rescue.

9. Ideally, dialogue is hard working. Great dialogue does more than one thing: reveals character, advances plot, dials up tension, adds to the mood etc etc. But writing dialogue that multi-tasks is not easy. The good news is, you don’t need dialogue - especially direct dialogue - as much as you think. Circling back to the first point (Don’t use dialogue simply to convey information), sometimes you don’t need dialogue at all. Use a different tool. The reader needs to know something? Give it to them via narration or exposition.

You might have noticed that most of this advice boils down to: delete. In the next four posts, we’re going to pick up our pencils, lick the lead (gross), and get into how to actually write it well, beginning with summary dialogue.