As a minimalist writer myself, I have always loved dialog. To me, the spoken word easily and quickly conveys information that could otherwise take many long, boring paragraphs to relate. As a young reader, I used to pay particular attention to exchanges of dialog, because I found they moved the story quickly and effortlessly.
When I grew up, I realized I had been minimalizing dialog as well, because it is, can be, and should be so much more.
First of all, dialog does move stories along quickly, relaying a lot of information in a short space. The trouble is that for the writer, at least, it’s not effortless. Dialog is a powerful tool that can, with a few short words, convey information, bring characters to life, and move the plot. Every exchange of dialog should, in fact, add to characterization or forward the plot. Both is good.
It should also read like a normal conversation. This doesn’t mean that we want to see endless stammers, nor does it mean you should hang apostrophes at the end of your -ing verbs. (“How’s in hangin’?”) We do these things, yes, but most of us do it subconsciously, and reading dialog that way can be distracting, unless there is a particular character trait you are trying to draw out.
A normal conversation does, however, include evasions, beating around the bush, playing off of each other’s word choices, banter, jokes, asides, and most of all — nonverbals.
Something like 90% of communication is nonverbal. When you write a line of dialog, the surrounding narration isn’t there to slow it down the pace, it’s there to expound and clarify.
“Hi,” Jake said.
What do you mean? Is jake happy to see you or sad? Angry? Is he shy? Did he whisper it or shout it?
“Hi.” Jacke’s face split into a wide grin.
“Hi.” Jake kicked a rock on the ground, refusing to meet her eyes.
“Hi.” Jake clenched his hands into fists, wondering if he could do anything to avoid a scene. He had hoped she wouldn’t notice him.
As with everything else, it comes down to character. You are describing a section of dialog from a character’s viewpoint. What does he think? How does he feel? What does he see and how does he interpret other character’s non-verbal cues when they speak?
It’s not enough to write down what they say. That gets you maybe 1/10 of the story.
Try this: The next time you have a conversation with someone, pay careful attention to what you hear and see. How much of your understanding of the conversation comes from the words? How much from facial expressions, gestures, and tone? Afterward, write down as much as you can remember of the conversation (exact wording is not necessary). Don’t just write down what was said, but what you each did. You can share your interpretations of what the other person said, as well as the intentions behind what you said. (This is not something you need to share with that person, although if it is a close friend or family member, and you feel comfortable, you could show them what you wrote and ask whether you interpreted their responses accurately. You may be surprised what you find out.)
I am commenting specifically because I read a novel that abuses this sound advice. You do not have to add non-verbal inflection for every word uttered/thought. If the character has a shiver down her spine while talking to the bad guy reading about it 20 times in a single chapter will not make it more creepy, just annoying.
First, nothing irritates me more than a lot of unnecesary dialogue tags and descriptives that slows the pace of dialogue. Let the characters engage in conversation. Keep it relevant, yes, but also fast-paced and as uninterrupted as possible.
The story “details” should exist primarily in the main narrative. You suggest you don’t like excessive narrative at the expense of dialogue, and that’s fine on the surface. However, you then go on to argue that the story should be about 90% narrative.
What you seem to be saying is that more narrative and less dialogue is fine, so long as that narrative is mixed into the dialogue.
This would make dialogue dreadfully broken and ineffective, in my opinion. I’m a big fan of “he said” and “she said” and then just let them speak. The LAST thing I want to see as a reader is interrupting that comversation to explain every little nuance. If the words spoken by the characters do not accomplish that task, the writer has not done her job.
Thanks for the discussion, and the opportunity for me to weigh in.
Clarification: I said that 90% of communication is nonverbal, but did not specifically say or imply that 90% of a story should be narrative. In fact, I tend toward lots of dialog myself because I think it moves the story along faster. I was just illustrating the fact that spoken words can’t and don’t say everything.
Bear in mind, too, that I’m writing this for the minimalist writer. That is, someone who doesn’t tend to use enough details or description. The person with a skeletal story, in some cases barely held together by enough information to be understood.
The “right” way to write dialog is very complex, highly and I could write a book about it (but I don’t want to 🙂 ). I was attempting, in this post, to share one angle of a complex subject, one that shows why words are not always enough.
There is definitely a balance to strike between narrative and dialog! Too much narrative can slow it down. On the other hand, I have to disagree that dialog should be left completely alone with only “he said” “she said” tags. In fact, I don’t like “said” tags much at all. Whenever possible, I try to complete the scene with short action tags. I say short because I don’t want to weigh down the narrative with long sections of stage directions in between. And sometimes, there really isn’t anything to say but “he said,” but action tags, IMO, move the story forward much more and provide more information that simply the name of the speaker. I like every word to count. “Paul said” tells me one extra thing about the dialog. “Paul grinned” tells much much more, and with the same number of words.
We do want the words to speak for themselves. I do not usually like dialog tags that attempt to modify or further describe what has already been said. This is when I say an author should “trust his dialog.” Tags or narration should always add more details, things we can’t get from the words. For example:
“I win!” he said, gleefully. — UGH! Duh. He won. I assume he was happy about it. You have told me nothing and utterly wasted three words.
“I win!” He might have sounded happy, but something in his eyes suggested otherwise. — Oh, now that’s interesting. Why might he not be happy about winning? We have added something to the story, expanded the dialog. This isn’t something the words can convey, only the eyes — the nonverbal.
People don’t always say what they mean. If dialog is written in such a way that all it does is convey information to the reader in a rapid-fire manner, then at worst it may be an “As you know, Bob” conversation. At best, it may be pretty shallow, without insight to characters or the subtle nuances that make the spoken word such a powerful tool in story-telling. Because it isn’t always about what’s said — sometimes it’s about what isn’t said, or about a lie. The possibilities are endless.
I think this response may now be longer than my actual post, so I’ll cut it off here. 🙂