Writing dialogue

[Linxe Termoil]

^^That being said (and I'm sure at least half of it was nonsensical) I would TOTALLY read a story consisting entirely of signing and miming and I'd totally stalk anyone that pulled that off; just point me in the direction...

 

Not quite what you were looking for but it's the closest thing I could find, I read this the other day and actually kind of enjoyed. http://library.gaycafe.com/nifty/gay/highschool/quiet-boy/

 

And now that you said that, I'm almost tempted to try it, as an author and a person, I never really thought about what it would be like to not have your hearing or to not be able to communicate with the "norm" of society. Now that I have started to think about it, I'm finding it kind of daunting, and am tempted to go take some sign language classes. Definitely interesting.

 

Jon

[myself_i_must_remake]

i agree with CR as well.

 

the number one annoying criticism i hear is saying that teenagers are written too smart, and when people try to write teenagers using slang and what not, they often ruin it and make the teenagers sound cardboard.

 

i have two interesting takes on this i think:

 

a. disney channel effect.

 

the disney channel has a number of horrible shows with horrible dialogue featuring characters that speak like alleged real world children/teenagers/young adults might.

 

no one actually speaks like they do.

 

EXCEPT...

 

people like my sister who grow up watching it thinking that it's authentic, teenager speak.

 

so there is an upcoming generation that sounds like complete assholes. thanks, disney.

 

b. you are what you pretend to be.

 

my friends and i growing up always used "typical" teenager phrases in kind of a making-fun-of-them way, but they became part of our every day speech to the extent that i don't know if anyone could tell, including ourselves, that it was or had started off as a joke.

 

i forgot who said it, but someone had mentioned using gonna, m'kay, doin'... all that stuff.

 

i've heard specifically not to do that for much the same reason i've heard not to use too many adverbs, especially not with dialog tags (another HUGE problem on this site.)

 

the word choices and idioms should tell the reader how the speaker sounds. not little phonetic things like chopping the terminal 'g' off of gerunds. if you think about it, most people don't pronounce a lot of words correctly, especially when they're running them together, but you notice people don't show that in dialog. instead, they only point out the things that are strange to them, like chopping the 'g,' by writing them out like that.

 

example:

 

i can imagine someone, trying to capture the sound of dialog, writing, "i'm gonna lose weight this year."

 

have you ever noticed that when people say "this year," that they usually pronounce it "this shyear?" i notice it all the time, but you'd never see anyone write that out.

 

same thing with goin' and gonna and all that stuff. (m'kay might be all right.) it's kind of an amateur way of hammering into the reader what the character should sound like, when in reality the reader will probably use context and knowledge of the character to have him sound like that anyway.

 

in summary: spell out your words normally. the reader will do the rest.

 

i guess a note on how i grew up (since i am still young.) we used to have phrases that came and went usually relating to events that happened. teenagers are opportunistic in their use of language as kind of a show-off device.

 

another example:

 

after 9/11 everything had to do with the attacks in some way (i mean verbally.) if something collapsed it happened twin towers style. if you walked into the cafeteria and there was salt or sugar on the table, it was anthrax. unexplained television broadcast: terrorists.

 

so i think in stories that it is effective to show teenagers playing with events. even in my language classes we would mess around with foreign words until some become everyday speech.

 

what else...

 

syllable chopping is the new things.

 

"dece" "jeal" "naush" (for nauseous.)

 

okay i'm bored typing this now.

[J_Ross]

example:

 

i can imagine someone, trying to capture the sound of dialog, writing, "i'm gonna lose weight this year."

 

have you ever noticed that when people say "this year," that they usually pronounce it "this shyear?" i notice it all the time, but you'd never see anyone write that out.

 

same thing with goin' and gonna and all that stuff. (m'kay might be all right.) it's kind of an amateur way of hammering into the reader what the character should sound like, when in reality the reader will probably use context and knowledge of the character to have him sound like that anyway.

 

in summary: spell out your words normally. the reader will do the rest.

I'd agree... I actually almost agree. But not quite. This year does end up sounding more like thishear, and it would definitely be a mistake to use 'thishear' in dialogue, but it's a lot different from 'gonna', imo. 'Gonna' as opposed to 'going to' sometimes works a lot better. It sounds better... and reads better in dialogue at least. It's less formal. Also, when speaking aloud, 'thishear' is an accident. People don't mean to blend the words together it just sounds that way because of the last letter of 'this' and the first of 'year'. Gonna... is done almost on purpose. It's not something that just comes out while people are trying to say 'going to' like 'thishear'. Gonna is not just the way that 'going to' sounds when people say it. It's a word that people actually use when speaking informally. And it's common enough, even in writing, that most readers aren't going to stumble upon seeing it. And everyone knows what it means.

Edited January 12, 2009 by J.Ross

[Razor]

Please for the love of all that is good, USE CONTRACTIONS/APOSTROPHES IN DIALOGUE!

 

Not one single freakin' person I know puts a "g" on the end of all of their -ing words. Also, when is the last time you heard a person say "can not/will not/I am/she is/they are" or any other such whatever, excluding an instance where added emphasis is desirable?!?!?!

 

It makes me froth at the mouth when I see that written. Drives me absolutely up a wall, can't stand it, and if I'd just read something you wrote and a quote contained such things and you're not a journalist (thus quoting exactly what a person really did say and the only POSSIBLE reason for that to exist inside quotation marks)... I would likely hit you if I were able.

 

 

 

Though funny story!!! When I was little, I read all the Boxcar Children books; silly, incredibly simplified, insanely quick-reading mystery books aimed at children. I first saw the word "dunno" in these books and didn't want to ask what it meant because I never asked what words meant (except when I asked my mother), I would just look them up or use context clues. I had no idea what the hell they meant by "Dunno, blahblahblah." until I finished the second book and I figured it out. Childhood blond moment... don't make fun of me... it wasn't in the dictionary... THAT'S CHEATING AND WE DIDN'T HAVE DICTIONARY.COM BACK THEN!

[kitten]

Please for the love of all that is good, USE CONTRACTIONS/APOSTROPHES IN DIALOGUE!

 

Not one single freakin' person I know puts a "g" on the end of all of their -ing words.

 

I disagree with this. Or at least it must depend on where you live. Where I was brought up, missing the g like that would be considered almost 'ethnic' and certainly lazy. My teachers and even my (very working class) parents would have been horrified and would have immediately corrected me if I'd not pronounced the g. Furthermore, missing the g just sounds downright ugly... "I'm goin home" - YUCH!

 

Also, when is the last time you heard a person say "can not/will not/I am/she is/they are" or any other such whatever, excluding an instance where added emphasis is desirable?!?!?!

 

I totally agree with this, and it doesn't seem to matter where you live. Such contractions are normal, they sound 'right' and not 'lazy' speech.

[Bondwriter]

I'll agree with lesfeuxetc. & Kit and disagree with the sharp one. I'm utterly annoyed by contractions and "phonetic" spelling. Trying to characterize someone with and accent or else doesn't work for me. The example coming to my mind is Hagrid in Harry Potter. They're all Brits (or almost) in the series, but he's the only one with this annoying accent. When he has too much dialogue, it's REALLY annoying.

 

As for teen, I got the same criticism from my friend/editor Nicholas H. about the characters in my Boarding School story. No way they're gonna say "gonna". I'm not too good at dialogues in general, and when not in my mother tongue it's worse.

The issue is they come from a rather posh background, and they're Brits. I thought at one point of asking for a special dialogue editor, well versed in British public schools. I eventually decided to try to have as little dialogue as possible. And after reading Stephen Fry's The Liar, which takes partly place in a public school, I decided that one of my characters, who acts as the leader had to use as complex a vocabulary as possible. This sets a contrast.

 

I remember using way more than 800 words when being a teenager, and yes we had phrases, that have long been outdated.

 

One thing is that JRoss' little dialogue by his sister should be saved and submitted to teenagers in 2020, and will certainly be unintelligible. I didn't understand much myself.

 

As Graeme said many times, dialogues create the illusion of reality. If you ever manage not to experience TV/ radio for a few months, and then watch a movie, you'll realize how unnatural it sounds. Because dialogues/ speech in the media are conventions, not a reflection of reality.

[J_Ross]

I think the 'gonna' 'wanna' 'goin'' thing definitely depends on where you are. Here, where I live, I hear the words every day. So, I don't think the words would be out of place in a story set around here. But it would annoy me to see the words written in dialogue in a story set in a British boarding school...

 

Also, while I don't mind 'gonna' 'wanna' or even 'whatcha' I definitely don't like cutting the 'g' off of the end of words, though it's not something that really throws me out of a story. That's the part of what lesfeuxdemonc

Edited January 12, 2009 by J.Ross

[Cynical Romantic]

It needn't be a debate. I think the trick is to think about your characters and how they are likely to sound, and then use a light touch. Don't use every single contraction, slang or accent in the dialogue because it makes it hard to read and it's annoying. Don't write everything out in the Queen's English either, because nobody speaks like that. Find a balance - add in a few words of slang or a few contractions here and there, on a consistent basis, just to give a flavour for your characters and their dialogue, and then write the rest out properly for easy readability. If you're not sure if you have managed to strike that balance, enlist some beta readers.

[LongGone]

I prefer to get around the problem by not focusing on dialect so much, and just giving each character a unique voice that reflects his or her personality. It's like when a character speaks with a thick accent. It gets annoying to read after a while if all the dialogue is written with a thick southern drawl or cockney accent or whatnot. Just throwing in a few words to lend the story some flavour, and then continuing in regular English, will give the impression of a person speaking a certain accent without overdoing it.

I totally and completely agree. This is what I do. I speak American English. I write stories in both American and the Queen's (British) English. But I don't feel the need to pepper my dialogue with all the little details (though I do know them). You don't want your audience to stop and notice what you're writing in dialogue -- you want them to feel it and experience it. I might throw a 'cor or something in now and again but it's not an ongoing thing.

 

And one of the easiest ways to tell if the story is written by an adult is that the teens in it are usually made to sound pretty dumb. Many teenagers I know are extremely intelligent and articulate, often more so than many adults. It's a generational judgement to assume all teens are dumb.

When doing teens (and that's what I write) I make sure I talk to teens first. I ask them how they might say something. That's why what I write is realistic: because it is. I research the hell out of everything. Speech patterns, geography, weather. Hell, even when a character is on a flight, it's a real flight that operated on a real airline. Nobody will ever look it up, but I know. I'm anal. Sue me. The more accurate you are, the easier it is to get away with an error. If you're sloppy, they'll never forgive you.

 

Teens aren't dumb. There are dumb teens. And dumb adults. I never look down on my audience. When you do that, throw away your pen/keyboard and give it up. I write and if my readers need dictionaries to figure it out, good for them and good for me. Don't make your characters dumb (unless you're writing a dumb character) and don't assume your readers are.

 

Lastly, to comment on a number of posts: contractions outside of dialogue (not in quotes) suck and they irritate me to no end. In dialogue, it's okay to write how characters talk. But, me, you ain't never gonna' see the word gonna'

 

See what happens when you get me started?

 

(And I had to make enough posts to hit 5 so I could even reply here. That's how worked up this thread got me....)

Edited January 13, 2009 by WriteByMyself

[Graeme]

(And I had to make enough posts to hit 5 so I could even reply here. That's how worked up this thread got me....)

And I, for one, am glad to see that you got worked up I'm looking forward to hearing your opinion on other things, too.

 

In case it's not clear enough from my posts above, I essentially agree with what you, Cynical Romantic and others have said.

 

There's a place for stories that use heavy accents 'real world word usage' throughout. If it's a first person narrative, they may even do so outside of dialogue. However, I feel that after a short period of time, most of those sorts of stories get relegated to the history books and classrooms, where students have to analyse how speech patterns have changed....

[DomLuka]

Furthermore, missing the g just sounds downright ugly... "I'm goin home" - YUCH!

 

 

Hmm... I dunno. When I read that, cute cowboys come to mind, so I don't find it offensive.

 

But I suppose the lesson of this entire thread is that dialogue will always vary depending on where you're from and what you hear. Different doesn't always mean wrong.

 

And stone me if you must, but I

[Graeme]

And stone me if you must, but I

[kitten]

(Kit @ January 12 2009, 07:29 AM) Furthermore, missing the g just sounds downright ugly... "I'm goin home" - YUCH!

 

Hmm... I dunno. When I read that, cute cowboys come to mind, so I don't find it offensive.

 

But I suppose the lesson of this entire thread is that dialogue will always vary depending on where you're from and what you hear. Different doesn't always mean wrong.

 

And stone me if you must, but I'm a lover of gonna.

 

"I'm going to go to the park."

 

"I'm gonna go to the park." Seems more relaxed to me.

 

 

Actually, I don't think we really disagree.

 

My specific point was in reference to the post about people dropping the 'g' from words ending in 'ing' and that doing so is a normal part of speech. e.g. doin, goin, wantin, etc. That is both ugly and lazy to my ear. Of course, that may well be the sort of personality you want to give to a character.

 

For me, that is very different from 'gonna', or 'dunno' which (at least to my ear!) are the sort of natural contractions used in normal, everyday speech. Indeed, 'dunno' is often used by characters in my stories!

 

Dunno (don't know) seems natural as it is a worthwhile contraction because it skips several consonants and combines two words, as does gonna (going to). Whether such contraction occurs in normal speech would, of course, depend on the character. They would probably occur in average everyday teen speech, but I'd not expect to hear it as part of a lecture from a university professor!

 

Having no personal knowledge or experience of cowboys, I'd be happy to accept they would say 'gonna' or 'dunno', but would they also drop the end g from words and say say goin, doin, wantin?

 

Kit

[Cynical Romantic]

Kit, Graeme and DomLuka, I find this so-called 'argument' interesting, because you're from the UK, Australia, and the US respectively. So while I think it's more natural for American characters in a story to say "gonna" or "wanna", it's probably less so for English or Australian characters.

 

See? You don't really disagree; you just speak different languages.

[Graeme]

Kit, Graeme and DomLuka, I find this so-called 'argument' interesting, because you're from the UK, Australia, and the US respectively. So while I think it's more natural for American characters in a story to say "gonna" or "wanna", it's probably less so for English or Australian characters.

I think I have to disagree Australians use 'gonna' and 'wanna' probably as much as Americans, but I, personally, choose not to use it in my writing. To me, it doesn't add anything because I use other techniques to help my characters show their individual personalities. You'll also notice that I don't use the 'traditional' Australian phrases of "G'day" and "mate" a lot. They're there, but a lot of the characters don't use them.

 

Another Australian author could use 'gonna' and 'wanna' and I wouldn't think much of it. It's more a personal choice thing than a cultural item.