Dialogue Don’ts: Write Right! Annoyance #3

Write Right!

How to write your way and have readers clamoring for more:

Dialogue Don’ts

Hello, Word Lovers!

The other day, I reviewed my list of 80 things writers do that make readers want to scream. I started with just 13. The list has grown as website and online readers and writers group participants have chimed in with their annoyances. I realized I needed to take the time to categorize them. Surprise! The annoyance category that appeared second-most frequently (behind grammar and composition errors/poorly written, unedited writing)? Problems with dialogue writing and content.

[A quick aside about spelling. Writers ask whether the word should be spelled dialogue or dialog. Modern usage is simplifying the spelling of many words, so these writers are wondering if they should drop the “ue” because it’s old-fashioned. The answer is: we could. It’s not wrong. But, according to language experts, in both American and British English, dialogue is the preferred spelling when referring to conversations. Dialog is used in computer language. A dialog box is that small window that appears on a screen where you can input text or select a command.]

So let’s dialogue about dialogue.

Types of Dialogue Don’ts

Our readers pointed out annoyances they’ve found in three different areas in both external dialogue and internal monologue.

• Content: What the dialogue actually says and how it relates to who’s saying it.
• Style: How it’s written and generally presented.
• Dialogue Tags: Those phrases that tell readers who is speaking and sometimes how they’re feeling.

Content

Unrealistic or Inappropriate Dialogue

Many of our readers were annoyed by dialogue that rings false.

• Characters use words or phrases someone of their age, economic status, gender, race, ethnicity or education would be unlikely to use. Dialogue inappropriate for the character’s age received frequent call-outs. “Six-year-olds don’t quote Shakespeare or famous philosophers,” said one reader. At least most of them don’t.
• High-brow dialogue spoken in grammatically correct complete sentences also drew ire. “Nobody talks that way. Not even professors when they’re away from the classroom. Certainly not folks from the Ozarks,” said another. I might add I can’t think of any professors who spoke that way in the classroom. Most of them wanted to appear cool. They used as many idioms and shortcuts as the students did.
• Characters wax eloquent about subjects they’re unlikely to know much about, particularly when the author hasn’t set readers up for their puzzling expertise and it appears out of the blue.
• This irritant of mine is shared by several readers. It’s inappropriate and sometimes obnoxious jokey, clownish, cutesy, sarcastic or smart-alecky dialogue, particularly when it appears in serious or sensitive situations. To be sure, the author may want an emotional response from readers. But the attempt at humor falls flat.

Boring Dialogue

The character takes readers through a long, boring slog of self-centered internal monologue that seems to go on forever. Often, these are info dumps in disguise, ego trips, puzzling self-flagellation, or “poor, poor me” pity parties that bring the story to a halt and exasperate readers.

Repetitious or Endless Dialogue

• Characters use the same words, idiomatic expressions, and phrases over and over again, make the same points, or have the same arguments too often throughout the story.
• The dialogue exchange goes on too long. It often contains trivial and banal exchanges (“How are you, Susie?” “Fine, thanks.”), without a break for action, description, or reflection.
• Overuse of the speakers’ names. “Well, Mary, I guess you’re right.” “Of course I am, John. How many times do we have to have this argument?” “Mary, I’ve had enough. Do what you want.” “I intend to, John….” There are only two speakers, and they already know each other’s names. Why would they keep using them?

Style

• Characters all sound alike. It’s hard to tell who’s speaking, because all the characters say the same things in the same way. In one series, all the characters call their near and dear ones “darling” or “my darling.” Really? Demographic and regional differences don’t come into play.
• Characters all sound like the author or the story’s narrator. The author has made his or her ideas, beliefs and feelings known throughout the story, and the characters all reflect this. Or the tone of the story is that of a narrator reading it aloud in a monotone. This tendency comes out most strongly in dialogue, when very different characters seem to speak in one voice.
• Characters don’t speak in a consistent voice. Their dialogue style or content changes without cause or explanation in different chapters or scenes. Things they say may not make sense in the present context.

Dialogue Tags

Your grammar teacher might have called these “attributions.” They’re those little phrases that come before, in the middle of or after the actual dialogue to tell readers who is speaking. So they “tag” the dialogue to a certain character. “Why can’t I?” asked Billy. “Because I said so,” said Dad.

The basic rule about dialogue tags is: If it’s clear from the context of the dialogue and the story who is speaking, you don’t need a dialogue tag. If it’s not, you do.

Our readers often find dialogue tags or the lack of them annoying.

• Unidentified speakers: dialogue goes on too long without identifying the speaker. If there’s anything annoying while reading a book, it’s having to go back to the last dialogue tag and count the exchanges in order to figure out who’s speaking. It’s maddening. It’s even worse when dialogue tags aren’t used at all or only during the first exchange.
• Too many tags: Almost every exchange ends in “Joe said” or “asked Jane.” The words themselves and/or the context tell us who’s speaking, so all those interruptions aren’t necessary. The effect is like walking along the sidewalk trying to reach your anticipated destination and having someone constantly pushing you off into the street.

Controversial Dialogue Tag Conventions

Two dialogue tag practices are controversial. Some readers hate them and some insist on them. Generally, there’s a lack of understanding among some writers about why two particular writing rules are accepted practice and when it’s okay to step away from them.

He said. She asked.

“Said is Dead!” proclaims the latest meme, with its cute little gravestone and skull around the words. “Read below for a list of 5,280 words you can use instead of ‘said’! Be creative! Drop that boring verb into the grave you see right here!”

That makes sense, our author thinks. Why would I want to write “she said” when I could have her shriek or bellow or whimper or cackle or — everyone’s favorite – HISS! (Your exercise of the day is to say something while hissing. No cheating, now! You have to hiss WHILE you’re speaking.)

Why indeed? Why do famous authors and respected writing pundits and creative writing teachers insist that most of the time, said and asked are all we need in our dialogue tags?

Remember the purpose of a dialogue tag? Isn’t it to let readers know who’s speaking? Shouldn’t we want to do that as quietly and unobtrusively as we can so readers can continue to follow the dialogue and stay enraptured by our characters and story?

Those humble little verbs, said and asked, do just that. They tell us who’s speaking and step out of the way. Most of the time we don’t even notice they’re there. And that’s what we want. Every time we read a dialogue tag, we have to exit the dialogue and move out of the story world. We don’t want to do that for any longer than necessary. Usually, we catch the speaker’s name and skip right over “said.” Mission accomplished!

So now we can save those high drama tags for high drama happenings, where they’ll contribute to the drama. “Help! I’m drowning!” she said. Weird! So is, “What in the $%&^ is that &#$@* Bob doing in this @#*%^ house?” asked Steve. “I’ll kill him!” Now you can bring out your big guns, like “screamed” and “roared.” From time to time we can throw in a few “whispereds” or “snickereds” if they fit. But most of the time, “said” and “asked” get the job of identifying the speaker done and dusted just fine.

Adverbs in Dialogue Tags

Old Steve is sure mad because Bob is in the house. So if the best verbs to use in dialogue tags are “said” and “asked,” shouldn’t we just write, “What is that [expletive] Bob doing in this house?” asked Steve angrily?

We could. But doesn’t that still sound tame? It’s kind of weak, isn’t it? “Roared” gave us his tone and volume as he spoke, and that helps. Couldn’t we add something to that? Remember that old saw “Show, Don’t Tell”? Now we’re talking!

Action Beats

An action beat is a short sentence or phrase that shows what a character is doing before, during or after dialogue. It can be a physical act, a gesture, a movement or a facial expression.

Along with “said” and “asked,” action beats are a dialogue writer’s best friend. During a dialogue exchange, they can tell us who’s speaking, let us know how they’re feeling, move the plot along, show the relationship between the speakers, and provide drama and action. All this in only a few words, right there along with the dialogue. They can be used in place of dialogue tags to break up the speech/attribution pattern, too.

“What in the $%&^ is that &#$@* Bob doing in this house?” Steve clenched his fists. His face turned red. He slammed his palm on the table so hard the teacups jumped. “I’ll kill him!”

The author is showing us how Steve is feeling and what he does as he reacts to Bob’s being in the house. Isn’t that more powerful than telling us that Steve spoke “angrily”?

New or young writers are sometimes confused because they think those experts they want to emulate are forbidding them to use adverbs. Ever. “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs,” said Stephen King. Of course, these pundits are exaggerating for emphasis. They don’t mean writers should never use adverbs. What they want us to look out for is that verb+adverb construction that feels weak because it’s telling us how someone or something looks, feels, reacts, etc. instead of showing us by using action and strong, evocative verbs. So instead of “She ran fast,” how about “She raced”? Or for “He smelled terrible,” we could say, “He stank.”

For more on this, please read my blog, Breaking the Rules – Annoyance #1.

So How Can We Make Our Dialogue Shine?

We can

1. Make sure each character has his and her own, unique voice. It’s a voice that works for the character’s age, experience, expertise, economic and demographic identifiers. It’s appropriate for the time (historical fiction writers beware!) and place. And then make sure to use that voice every time the character speaks. It won’t sound like the other characters, and it won’t sound like us — the authors. That’s a surefire way to get readers identifying with this character, whatever his or her role in the story.
2. Use search and replace to ferret out repetitions and overused words and phrases and choose different words.
3. Make sure every character speaks the way he or she would in real life. Just leave out the boring stuff and the “uhs, ums and stumbles.” We don’t need a transcript of every word spoken during the conversation. We just need the content that’s necessary to advance the story.
4. Identify long passages of dialogue or internal monologue and break them up with action, action beats, interruptions, descriptions, etc. so readers have time to breathe and think about the dialogue they’ve heard. Make the dialogue succinct and vibrant.
5. Be very careful with humor. We’ll be talking about humor in a future blog. But in dialogue, if you’re not writing humor or comedy, use it sparingly. Make sure it’s appropriate to the situation. Be sensitive – one person’s joke can be another person’s insult. And please, no more than one jokey, clownish, sarcastic, smart-ass main character per book! These characters usually work best in secondary roles, where they make comments designed to annoy the MC or other characters and cause everyone – readers included – to roll their eyeballs. Of course, we want to show our characters have a sense of humor and playfulness, and dialogue is a great way to do this as long as the time is right.
6. Use “said” or “asked” alone in most dialogue tags. Save more dramatic or specific tags for high-octane or specialty situations and use them sparingly.
7. Avoid adverb descriptions of verbs in tags, opting for an action beat or stronger, more evocative verbs.

Many writers agree dialogue is one of the most difficult elements in fiction to write. But it’s also one of the most fun. Write it well and we’ll have our readers right there, hanging on to every word our characters say.

Share your thoughts, word lovers. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE TO THIS WEBSITE so you’ll be the first to know about more writing annoyances that make people want to scream.

May the Words Be with You.