The Power of Dialogue

Which is more powerful, the passage with dialogue or the passage without? You be the judge!

Passage #1
One day the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and told him that he was a mighty warrior. But Gideon didn’t understand why he would say that and so Gideon questioned the angel. In reply, the angel assured Gideon that the Lord was sending him to save Israel. None-the-less, Gideon doubted his own abilities and felt that he was the weakest person God could choose for such an important task. The Lord assured Gideon, though, that he would go with him.

Passage #2
When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

“But sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.”

The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

“But Lord,” Gideon asked, “how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

The Lord answered, “I will be with you.”

(From Judges 6:12-16, NIV)

-contributed by Nancy I. Sanders

Dialogue About Dialogue

What can I say that hasn’t been said by our Wordsmiths about writing great dialogue?  Honesty, I’ve learned more about dialogue  listening to the seven other members read their manuscripts and comment on mine, than I have from ANY how-to book, hands down!  Books are necessary but (News Flash!) they can’t interact with you!  You need to dialogue about your dialogue. (o;

We have of eight pairs of listening and discerning ears. As we read our manuscripts aloud, each God-given, uniquely creative brain processes the information in a different way.  Every member has her own distinct insight on what is read.  All may agree overall on the status of a manuscript, and yet one or two may add something else to the mix that’s entirely different.  Each time, I come away having learned something about my dialogue—that little thing that can make or break your book!

I soak in the different dialogue styles as I listen to my friends read. This soaking, learning process has made my own dialogue writing for a chapter book finally “click”!  Thanks, Wordies!

Most of us know that people are trained to recognize counterfeit currency by touching the REAL thing hundreds of times. They don’t concentrate on the counterfeit.  They concentrate on the real thing so many times, it becomes easy to recognize the stuff that’s no good.

To me, dialogue is much like that.  How do we recognize the real, natural, believable dialogue in our own writing? By hearing it and reading it over and over again. By soaking in GOOD dialogue until you’re saturated with great examples. Before long, you’ll notice the unrealistic, unbelievable dialogue becomes easier to identify. 

If you’re struggling with writing great dialogue, get with a good group and dialogue about your dialogue. Learn to identify the real, the believable, and the natural in your own writing.

Sheryl Crawford

Learning to Dialogue

Back in the 1980’s, when I was a returning student at San Bernardino Valley College, I also obtained a job there as an English tutor, mostly to students who did not speak English as a first language.  It often was a challenge to try to explain to them that the written word is different from the way we speak.  And when you consider the idioms, slang expressions, etc. they were learning (and which they usually couldn’t use in their essays), it could be quite a hurdle to overcome.

I was also starting my writing career at that time, and this experience caused me to think a lot about dialogue.  Whether my stories were for children or adults, I wanted the dialogue in them as true to life as possible.  However, I soon realized, from what I was learning and from reading my manuscripts aloud, that including ALL that transpires in a conversation is not necessary, or even wanted.

For instance, when people meet, the flow of dialogue usually goes something like this:

“Hi there, how are you?”

“Hi!  I’m fine.  What about you?”

“Oh, I’m doing ok. “

“So, what’s new?”

“Oh, not too much.  You?”

“About the same.  But I am planning a trip to Hawaii in a few weeks.”

“Really?  That’s super!  But I thought you said you were afraid of flying.”

Now, we finally get to the focus of the story, one of the main characters has a fear of flying.  It may, in fact, develop into a very interesting story about why this person is afraid to fly and what brought her to her current decision.  But most readers will never make to that point when they get bogged down by all those unnecessary sentences, even though that’s probably what would happen in real life.

How much better to pull the reader right in with something like:

I waved to Louise from across the street.  When we met, she told me she was planning a trip to Hawaii.  Hawaii?!

“But aren’t you afraid of flying?” I asked.

This short beginning contains action and gets right to the heart of the problem, and the story.  Now we want to know:  Is this true?  If so, what’s the reason behind the trip?  How will she cope with spending more than five hours flying over the Pacific Ocean? 

The above is just one small example of the differences between spoken dialogue and written.  Only when our characters’ dialogue is fresh and interesting, when it’s free of wordiness and keeps the plot moving forward are our stories ready to be submitted.  This is a daunting, time-consuming process, yet when we continue to work on our dialogue, we create stories that readers will love and won’t want to put down!

 Marjorie Flathers

Search for the Essence

 When I first began writing, I sat around in malls and coffee shops, wearing dark glasses and a trenchcoat with the collar turned up, and eavesdropped on conversations.

Well, not really. I didn’t have a trenchcoat, and I think eavesdropping on strangers can get you in a lot of trouble. But I did wear the dark glasses so that I wouldn’t appear to be staring at anyone. And I did sit in malls and coffeeshops, an open notebook on my lap,  jotting down bits and pieces of half-finished conversations. Things like,

                        Do you know what he said to me?

                        I’ll never be that size again!

                        If I could just get on that cruise ship to Greece . . .

                        I’ve been waiting for her to make the first move

                        What’s that scent you’re wearing?

                        I’ve told her and told her not to . . .

                        She borrowed my best sweater and spilled . . .

                        Hey, you don’t want to believe anything he tells you.

                        No, I won’t change my mind, not even if . . .

I thought at first that dialogue means writing everything – every boring word – that comes out of a character’s mouth. I soon discovered that bits and pieces – the revealing bits and pieces – are the heart of communication. Condensation is the key. It’s a little like writing poetry, in which we search for the essence of a thought, a feeling, a vision.

In dialogue, when you eliminate all the extraneous baggage, you end up with what’s important, what’s revealing, what makes a conversation real. Not a word by word repeat of what was said. But real. There’s an important difference.

Try this. Turn on a recorder and tape the conversation at the dinner table. Then try to transcribe it in a notebook. You will find yourself recording lots of ers, ums, I wonder ifs, and have you heard abouts. That’s an accurate replay of dialogue. It’s the way we talk to each other, and we decorate our sentences with adverbs galore. But it’s not the kind of dialogue you want to put on the printed page.

You want the essence of the words to speak out, to clarify, to show place, character and plot without getting all messed up with unnecessary verbage. Sure, we will never speak to each other this way. We’ll continue wagging our tongues, interrupting each other as we go, and enjoying every minute of it. That’s conversation, and it’s what humans glory in. But it’s not dialogue.

For a fine example of tight dialogue, read Marilyn Sach’s Bus Ride. The entire book is written in dialogue that shows setting, action, and character development. I pick it up and study it now and then just to remind myself that it’s the essence that counts!

Contributed by Marilyn Donahue

Dialoguing

“What’s the topic for the Wordsmith’s blog for June?” a curious blogger asked.

“It’s dialogue,” Catherine answered.

“Dialogue? Why is that important?”

Catherine thought a moment then said, “Dialogue is a way to carry your story along. Your characters come alive by their words.”

“Oh, I see,” said the curious blogger. “Instead of writing what a character thinks, you give life to their words so they speak for themselves.”

“Exactly. But dialogue needs to feel natural, as if you were having a conversation with your characters. I find it helpful to make my characters respond to the situations in my mind, and then I just type their words onto my page.”

“Sounds like something I need to try,” the curious blogger uttered. “I’m looking forward to this new topic.”

And I hope you will, too, as you read our Dialogue posts throughout this month!

Contributed by Catherine L. Osornio