Guest Blogger Amber Miller ~ on Dialogue

Amber Miller has sold four books to the Heartsong Presents line of Barbour Publishing. A born-again Christian since the age of seven, her faith in Christ has often sustained her through difficult experiences. She seeks to share that with others through her writing. She's also a freelance web site designer, who lives with her husband in beautiful Colorado Springs with their vivacious puppy, Roxie.Read more about her at her web site

When I first began writing, I used to think I’d be better suited to scripts and screenwriting, as it didn’t require so much description, scene-setting and details in the background. Conversation and talking have never been a problem for me. I’m outgoing and I love people. And I pay attention to others when they talk. It’s fascinating to study the turns of phrase, the combinations of words chosen, and the overall picture you get when you hear someone speak.

As I progressed and studied to improve my writing, I realized I could blend my love of dialogue with the scene happening around the conversation for a total experience.

Writing realistic dialogue does not come easily to everyone. Done well, dialogue advances the story and fleshes out the characters while providing a break from straight exposition. It’s one of the most powerful tools at a writer’s disposal. But, nothing pulls the reader out of a story faster than bad dialogue. It takes time to develop a good ear. Take a look at the following tips and pitfalls. Knowing them and putting them to use can make a huge difference.

Character Conversations -- 10 Ways Dialogue Can Define Your Characters

Readers get to know your characters in five different ways. Description, internal thoughts, dialogue, action and reaction.

Dialogue is a key component. It can make or break your characters and mean the difference between allowing the dialogue to carry the story or falling back on narrative that might bore the reader.

Although I don’t consider my first book to be an excellent example, several readers have written reviews that have referenced the way the dialogue carried them into the story and whisked them away into the historical timeframe of Colonial America. I generally use other author’s books for study in craft, but these comments gave me pause.

Dialogue is critical to the success of your story. Most of your readers don’t want to read paragraph after paragraph of narrative and description. In fact, a good majority skim through it if it lasts for more than a page so they can get back to the dialogue and action. Now, some stories or scenes call for narrative, but try to avoid an overabundance of it, if at all possible.

For dialogue, there are 5 key components that you want to avoid:

1. Stilted language – where the characters words don’t sound like natural speech.

2. Filler – a conversation that doesn’t move the story along or shed any light on your characters.

3. Exposition – having your characters wax philosophic on the plot issues or repeat something for the readers’ sake.

4. Naming – using the name of another character in the scene to identify them.

5. Overuse of dialogue tags – exclaimed, cried, mumbled, whispered, etc.

Each of these can kill your dialogue in a hurry and make your reader toss your book across the room because they see right through these lazy techniques. Alfred Hitchcock once said that a good story was "life, with the dull parts taken out." Keep this in mind when revising dialogue.

And now for the tips:

1. Observe real people and real conversations. Quite often, you can discover some creative and fascinating dialogue by listening to how people in real life talk. Skip over the parts that are distracting or detract from the overall focus of the conversation and get to the meat. When you apply the styles you observe to your characters, you’ll be surprised as how they naturally give away integral components of their personalities and lives.

2. Limit the interchanges to one thought per character per dialogue segment. If you try to jam too much into a piece of dialogue, you risk losing your reader and impeding the flow of your story. Now, if your character happens to be a rambler, then by all means, let that person go from thought to thought. But, otherwise, keep it simple and basic.

3. Make certain there is a difference in style, pattern and word choice between your characters. Try reading a sequence of lines out loud. If you can’t tell them apart by dialogue alone, your readers won’t be able to either.

4. Vary the dialogue with action. Too often, writers use dialogue tags like I mentioned above. The overuse of them will draw the reader right out of the story. And using “said” too often will draw attention to the tags, not the dialogue. Throw in character or action tags to break up the stream of conversation. Describe gestures, facial expressions, movements, or even inner thought if you’re writing in tight point-of-view. (That last one is an entirely different lesson.) This will offer insight to a character’s thoughts and personality depending upon what they do.

5. Let your characters talk to each other as if the reader weren’t there. When it feels like a character is talking directly to the reader, saying or explaining something simply for the reader’s sake, it pulls the reader out of the story. The same goes for two characters that are explaining things to each other they already know or saying things that will bore the reader, because the reader already knows it. Assume your reader is intelligent and will infer what’s necessary from the story. If you’ve done it right, you won’t have to explain anything, and the reader will be pulled along on the wave of the conversation in a smooth manner.

6. Do your research. One of the fastest ways to take a reader out of the story is to use styles, word choices, grammatical patterns and phrases that don’t fit with the setting or time period you’ve established. Get to know your characters well. Interview them and write down their social station, their ancestry and background, their motivations, and their preferences or opinions. Know the language styles of the time period or location and get it right. But on the other hand, avoid stereotypes if you can. Not only will this bring out more about your characters, but it will add authenticity to your story.

7. Watch your tone. Characters are just like people. You wouldn’t speak to a stranger in the same way you’d speak to a friend or loved one. Characters won’t either. Be careful with the attitudes conveyed through dialogue in these two different circumstances. You can show feelings for people when you use the right tone and words.

8. Throw in some subtext. People are curious creatures. They don’t often, and sometimes rarely, say what they mean. If you want your characters to come across as real and natural, they’ll do the same thing. This works especially well when one character is angry over one thing, but doesn’t want the other character to know what it is. So, he or she gets angry about something else to cover up the truth. The anger is still there, but the other character doesn’t fully understand the reason for it.

9. Allow for the element of surprise. Have you ever read a story and been surprised by something a character says? This is an excellent way to keep the reader turning the pages. If your dialogue becomes too predictable, the reader won’t need to continue. They’ll be able to skim and know where they conversation is headed. So, let your characters act out of character. Just make sure they have a legitimate reason for doing so, or your reader might get mad and slam the book closed.

10. End the conversation well. Don’t leave your reader or your characters hanging at the end of a dialogue exchange.

There are a wealth of other tips and tricks of the trade you can employ to make your dialogue stand out and your characters jump off the page. I could expound on examples of good and bad dialogue, punctuation, short or incomplete sentences, dialect and so much more. However, this brief article is only meant to introduce you to some of the methods you can employ.

This list is only a jumping off point and a place to start. Once you get into it and grasp the importance of real dialogue for real characters, you’ll be able to layer in many other facets that will bring your story to life.

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Thanks for dropping by and sticking with me to the end. I hope you’ll pick up one or both of my books that are available now and get lost in the world of Colonial America. If you’re a lover of history or historical fiction, I’d be honored if you chose my books to read, and doubly honored if you wrote me to tell me what you think about them. Good or bad. I enjoy all types of feedback. It helps me grow as a writer and be able to differentiate between what works and what doesn’t.

Oh, and I can be reached through my web site. I’d love to hear from you.

~Tiff (Amber)

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