DIALOGUE PART 3
Or: "Who said whatnow?"
The
comments: "Your characters all sound generic/the same." Or "I
can't tell people apart when they're talking." Or "Your dialogue
scenes are eye-gougingly boring."
What they
might mean:
1) Some, if not all, of your
characters talk with a similar vocabulary and sentence structure.
2) Some, if not all, of your
dialogue scenes lack tension.
Let's
pull on our serious pants early this week because we're wading into the deeper
end of the "Dialogue Revision" Pool. This part of my Dialogue Module might require complete rewrites of your scenes or a
literal re-vision of your plot.
To
address Point 1, answer these questions: Do you have more than one
character in your story? Yes.
Do your
characters speak to each other in dialogue scenes? Yes.
Now the
most important part: Are your characters clones of each other. Like, seriously,
clones that were born/hatched at the same time, raised in the same way, want the same exact thing? No?
Ok, then why
do they all sound alike?
Here's
where it can get a little tricky. When you're reading your own WIP, you can hear the characters' voices in your
head. However, the characters' Voices
may all look and sound the same to your readers. (An experienced Beta will
pinpoint this quickly, a casual reader may not, but may feel there's something
"off" about your dialogue scenes.)
The way
to spot it on your own WIP is to take a big chunk of early dialogue and look
only at the words the characters say. Try to pick a chunk with only two
speakers.
Next,
remove the dialogue attribution tags.
Now, can
you easily tell who is speaking which
lines?
If you
can, awesome. If not, tweak the sample. Now would be a good time for those
Character 5x5s from the Character Module!
With the
Character 5x5s (or whatever Character Bible you're using) pick apart each line
of dialogue.
Does each
line reflect the Character's background of education, birthplace, reason for
being in the story? Are you using words the Character would have picked up at
some point? Did you put the words together the way the character would? Did you make the Character sound like a stereotype or a genre trope?
Here's an
example of one dialogue line tweaked to reflect information from four different
Character 5x5s:
"I
want you to steal the next load of slaves and get them ready for the
party."
"Procure
the shipment, would you? And please make sure they're appropriately dressed for
the gala."
"Snatch
the next batch of hodads and paint'em up for the hoedown."
"Reappropriate
the incoming cargo. Tonight, they should look like low-hanging fruit to
besieged peasants."
For your
WIP, check your dialogue scenes for how true you stay to the Characters you
created.
Now let's
look at Part 2: Lack of tension in dialogue scenes.
This is
most likely due to one simple thing, which unfortunately might not be simple to
fix:
Each
Character speaking should have his or her or its own motive for saying what
they say, when they say it.
Buckle
down, pen in hand, and examine an early 2-person scene. Let's call them Bob and
Andromeda.
If Bob
and Andromeda are talking in a scene, that dialogue scene must first fulfill
the basic reasons for inclusion:
Does it:
1) Develop the characters.
2) Move the plot forward.
3) Reinforce/develop the themes.
Ideally,
the dialogue scene must fill all three requirements to justify its existence.
If not, it should be spectacularly strong in two aspects. If only in one, see
if you can work it in another way because it would be the first thing on the
chopping block for me.
Next,
take a look at the scene from your Main Character's perspective. Let's say it's
Bob. Does Bob want something from Andromeda? (Answer should be an easy yes. His
motive should be fairly clear to the reader because his stake in the
conversation becomes the reader's stake in the conversation.)
Now, take
a look at the scene from the secondary character's perspective, Andromeda. Does
Andromeda want something from Bob? In other words, does Andromeda have a stake
in how the conversation ends? This is the sticking point. Finding Andromeda's
motive. Could be as simple as not wanting to talk. Could be as complex as
trying to hide her involvement in Bob's
horse's murder.
Andromeda's
motive must exist and be clear to you, the writer, but doesn't have to be
crystal clear to the reader. In fact, as a reader, most of the fun I experience
with dialogue scenes is trying to figure out why the fuck people don't just say
what they know or what they're hiding, or trying to figure out what they want
from the MC. But it's the writer's job to find the sweet spot between showing
enough of the secondary character's motivation to make the scene interesting,
and showing too much and rendering the conversation too convenient for plot.
In your
WIP, if you find a dialogue scene where tension falls or levels off, make sure
each person speaking has a personal reason for speaking or resisting.
Also, if
you find that some dialogue scenes boil down to a "Question and
Answer" session, see if you can weave what the MC finds out into action,
introspection, internal monologue or narration, or narrative worldbuilding.
Here's
how these two aspects of dialogue come together in your WIP:
Great
dialogue is like a symphony. Each character's voice is a specific instrument,
and each character has a unique part. Even when several instruments are layered
together, you can still hear the violin, the clarinet, the flute or piano. But
it's harder to hear the differences between instruments, and therefore, the
beauty of the piece, if they're playing the same melody at the same time.
Happy Writing and Revising!
J (follow me on twitter! @joanwip)
Coming Up:
More Dialogue
Passive
Verbing
Robert Bevan
Nat Russo
If you'd like my take on a writerly subject, tweet me!
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