Young Writers Society

I always find myself drawing out the conversations that my characters have. I don't really think it takes away from the story, but I find that some of it might be a little useless. I just kind of get carried away with it all.
There's just a lot of things I really want to use. Maybe I could slim it down some?
Should you just get to the point of what they're talking about? Or have some sort of playful banter? In most of the books I read, the dialogue doesn't seem that long, but it is. I think I just might think I wrote too much.
Who knows!
I've read the Dialogue 101 that Sam posted, but it didn't explain all that much. Or at least, not anything I got. For the most part, it was just about not to do it.
Thanks in advance for the advice. I seem to be asking a lot of questions lately...I'm just really into my story. A little bit too much. It's the first story I'm actually serious about. Of course, you guys didn't need to know that. OKAY, I'm rambling. I'll stop now. See what I mean?

We're here to help.

I'd only include the relevent dialogue. If there is something serious being discussed, but then the topic changes to something less serious for the rest of the conversation, I'd include the relevent dialogue and glaze over the irrelevent dialogue with a transition.

This is rather technical, so let's give you an example. Say we have a bunch of sisters in a car, they are heading to a party. Our protagonist is discussing the important stuff with her friend, when suddenly the topic changes to something unimportant.

I'd glaze the unimportant stuff with a transition, like this. "They spent the rest of the trip talking about the upcoming party, until they arrived."

This transition advances time so we don't get bored with irrelevent dialogue. Does this answer your question?

Yes, it does. Thank you so very much. Maybe I'm just paranoid...when I went back and reread over what I wrote, it didn't seem like there was that much.

In my opinion, there is no such thing as too much dialogue. I feel I could read a novel with 98% dialogue and love it. Some of my favorite authors have pages of pages of dialogue with very little interuption. I suppose it could be a problem if you're using dialogue too much like "I am now going to move over here" type stuff. But overall, talking through characters is better than talking through narrators.

Brian

Griffinkeeper wrote:We're here to help.

I'd only include the relevent dialogue. If there is something serious being discussed, but then the topic changes to something less serious for the rest of the conversation, I'd include the relevent dialogue and glaze over the irrelevent dialogue with a transition.

This is rather technical, so let's give you an example. Say we have a bunch of sisters in a car, they are heading to a party. Our protagonist is discussing the important stuff with her friend, when suddenly the topic changes to something unimportant.

I'd glaze the unimportant stuff with a transition, like this. "They spent the rest of the trip talking about the upcoming party, until they arrived."

This transition advances time so we don't get bored with irrelevent dialogue. Does this answer your question?

Mostly, I agree with this.

But I have to say, that there is more room for quote "irrelevant" conversation in longer pieces than in shorter pieces. So if you're working on a novel say, you could definately include some of that and it would (if used correctly) lend itself to the establishment of characters/timelines.

I'm definitely no expert on dialogue, but in my opinion the worst is when it drags to no conclusive end.

By this I mean:

"Sarah, what's up?"

"Hi, Sal. Well, I went to the movies, than I drove to the mall and got my nails done and permed my hair. After, I went to a local rave but I didn't drink, so don't worry. How about you?"

"Cool. Well, I just got off the phone with my mom and she's doing OK but I hope the virus passes. I went to the hospital the other day but Mom was sleeping," Sal said.

OK, that was a really bad example but I wrote it as a very rough example. Notice how dreadfully dull the dialogue was? It just rambled without any precise direction. Who cares that Sarah went to the mall and had a manicure or her hair permed?

But the rave and alcohol being served was partially important in that useless shpeel. It signifies Sarah has absolutely no desire to drink but Sal has probably worried for her safety in the past. This portion of the dialogue between the two characters was important because it sheds some light on Sal and Sarah's character. We also learn Sal seems mildly concerned for his sick Mom, which can be touched more on.

But the whole manicure, movies and hair perming thing - that's an example of when dialogue becomes unimportant and should be disregarded since it never influences the character's profiles.

I'm not entirely sure if I helped but I tried.

Okay... pretend you're in drama and everything, and you find a character who has one line. Yes, only one line. Is this character important?

Yes. That one line will help out the story.

So there is your dialogue. Dialogue is so important that when a word is uttered, the speed of the story increases. However, you have to be careful of what you talk about.

When you use dialogue, it is mostly to contrast characters. For example, if I had several character with similar viewpoints, I wouldn't bother writing dialogue for them, because you can probably guess it anyway. But, let's say I have two characters with contrasting viewpoints. Then I would use dialogue as a tool to highlight their differences. Why? Because with differences comes conflict, and conflict is good.

So make dialogue important. As for using too much dialogue? I don't agree that, if the dialogue is important, you can use too much of it. However, I will say that you have to support it. For example, what is the character doing while he is talking? How is the other character reacting to those words? Describe.

So yeah. We love dialogue.

What Griffinkeeper said.

Although ...

Griffinkeeper wrote:I'd only include the relevent dialogue. If there is something serious being discussed, but then the topic changes to something less serious for the rest of the conversation, I'd include the relevent dialogue and glaze over the irrelevent dialogue with a transition.

Just remember that the parameters of "relevant" dialogue are pretty subjective. Exposition, character development, thematic exploration — it all depends on what you qualify as necessary. Keep it as realistic and interesting as possible, and we'll love you for it.