I'm currently working on a fanfiction that is mostly dialogue and I don't know how to write it. Everything that I come up with is either too unrealistic or too boring. Are there any tips that you can give me to make writing dialogue easier? Thanks so much! -Hope
Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they'll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back. -John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
My biggest tip, past reading everything you can get your hands on about writing good dialogue, is to IM and eavesdrop a lot. What makes natural dialogue in real life? When you're talking? What's filled in by context/what the other person knows?
That last question is key. Your characters will have that context. Readers, however, will not. That's where narration comes in and fills in the blanks for the readers, so we're not completely lost.
Also, just keep practising! Dialogue is one of the hardest things to do well. Pay attention to everything when it comes to how people communicate, and how that translates into dialogue.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo
Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
Reading your dialogue out loud (or having someone else read it aloud to you) is also a good idea. You'll be able to hear if something sounds unnatural, especially since you're more used to hearing dialogue instead of reading it.
Things to keep in mind about speech and conversation:
1. People rarely say what they actually mean.
2. Every speaker has a goal in a conversation, whether that goal is to get information from the other person, to convince the other person that he or she is awesome (this is sometimes flirting), or something as simple as staving off conflict.
3. People change how they speak depending on whom they are talking to. You talk differently to your parents than you do to your friends. You talk differently to one friend from the other. It's easiest to see the change with word choice. Most people won't cuss up a storm in front of their grandparents, for instance. But what if your goal in the conversation is to convince the other people you're intelligent, well-rounded, educated--perhaps this is a job interview. A successful speaker here most definitely won't be cussing, and will properly use jargon specific to the field, and will use complete sentences and sentence structures that show confidence, etc.
4. A speaker (and listener's!) alertness and knowledge of the situation they're in--fancy college term here is "Discourse"--determines his or her speaking/listening effectiveness. If you have no idea how to speak and present yourself in a job interview, and if your default way of speaking/acting/behaving isn't groovy with the interview way of things, it won't be a very good interview and you probably won't get the job.
5. There is a power structure in every conversation. Every. One. Sometime's there's a social structure to match. Maybe you have this powerful king with a booming voice who's quite the manipulator of words--aka, there's a reason this dude's in a political position of such power. But, just because someone has more power socially doesn't mean he or she has more power linguistically. A peasant bowing before the throne, saying in calm and articulate speech, "I apologize, Your Majesty," and then proceeding to wiggle his way out of the jam he's in can have even more linguistic power than the king. And there's power structure linguistically even when there's no social power structure. Sometimes the power is given, sometimes it's taken, sometimes it's a combination of the two.
I don't fangirl. I fandragon.
Have you thanked a teacher lately? You should. Their bladder control alone is legend.
How I tend to work my dialogue is I, as mentioned before in this thread, read out loud to myself. Or, if that still doesn't quite help me, I just imagine I would say it. I figure how else to make realistic dialogue than to actually phrase it how a person would phrase it?
As I committed my crimes in a darkened room A bird flew by, and saw what I'd done, it set up a nest outside. And he sang about what I'd become...sang so loud, sang so clear. I was afraid all the neighbors would hear.
A way I enjoy to write believable dialogue is to close my eyes and imagine the characters in a movie, and pay close attention to their movements while they speak. Are they getting nervous while they explain something? Do they get angry with someone's offhandedness? How do they react? What does their voice do? Quiet down, get louder?
Is this person of a certain ethnicity? Do they have a word they like to say more than usual? Are they quirky, or foreboding? Keep these things in mind. And like an earlier post said, every conversation in existence has a goal, even if it's just to be friendly with a two word conversation: "Hey" and "Hi".
The one who lights the night and darkness the day with fire and dark...here we are.
Na ddywed mewn galar nad ydynt mwyach, ond mewn diolchgarwch iddynt fod.
