MESSAGE BOARD TOPIC #7

[Comicality]

Within every romantic story written, there is a certain relationship between the two main characters. And occassionally outside characters as well. In order to make them believable, there has to be a three-dimensional feel to them and their individual personalities. One of the biggest ways to bring this across is with dialogue.

 

There are very few stoies that can be carried without it in some form or another, and it really does wonders when bringing out the strengths and weaknesses of your characters. So the question for this week is....

 

=How do you create and write out meaningful dialogue in your stories?=

 

What goes through your mind while trying to build a conversation between two people? How do you keep it from sounding choppy and mechanical? How do you keep everyone from sounding the same? And are there any times when you have TROUBLE with dialogue? Maybe it's harder to write something romantic, or harder to write something angry, or sad, or just typical everyday banter. Some folks have trouble with humorous conversations. Whatever your thoughts and feelings are on writing dialogue...share it with us! Both readers and writers alike are dying to know!

 

The board is open!

[Taima Matsumushi]

I guess I'm lucky in that I have a pretty good ear for dialogue, most of it comes naturally to me. I usually spend a long time coming up with individual characters in my head, fleshing out their personalities as completely as I possibly can (with the aid of a pretty nice Character Description template I made). If I spend enough time on a character (usually several weeks to a month or two), I can memorize their personality, ideas, and speech patterns to the extent that I can conjure up their "voice" whenever I need to write for them. It's not easy, and it's time consuming, but it's totally worth it in the end, because then dialogue comes naturally, and unless two characters have similar personalities, they never end up sounding the same.

 

However, I have a difficult time when it comes to very extreme emotions, such as horror, love, or great anger. One thing I try to do when it comes to horror is think of what I would say in a situation like that, if anything, and above all avoid the temptation to a.) make jokes about it, or b.) descend into hyperactive swearing. After writing for a while, I've found that the reason it's hard to write dialogue for characters in horrifying situations is because it's hard to know what to *say* in those situations. If it's hard for you to know what to do when you seriously try to put yourself in your character's shoes, chances are good that it's hard for the character to know what to do as well.

 

Maybe it's my fault for hanging around too many drama queens, but I have the hardest time when my characters need to express anger without sounding cliche or terribly unrealistic. What I usually do for cases of anger is read the conversations to myself out loud (this is a VERY good idea for editing dialogue in general, btw), and if it doesn't sound natural, I change what sounds wrong until it fits.

 

Love, I have an easier time with. Generally, it works pretty well if I put myself in their shoes (filtered through their personality and voice, of course) and let the dialogue play itself out. More often than not, it comes out awkwardly (not always in a bad way), and the characters have a hard time expressing their feelings to each other for quite some time. I don't think this is a bad thing at all. In my experience, most relationships (especially prospective homosexual ones in which the sexual orientation of one or both of the people involved is not necessarily a given) tend to be very nervous, awkward affairs until the two people finally work up the nerve to grow into a relationship. In my current novel, Talents, two of my characters are openly gay, and I've found it to actually be a bigger challenge to write for them than any story about closeted guys I've written.

 

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EDIT:

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What am I, a plague or something? I seem to kill topics as soon as I post in 'em... Sorry Comicality...

Edited February 19, 2004 by Taima Matsumushi

[underthehoodster]

I've been writing Perry and Jesse for well over a year now, and because it is told in the first person, it is largely propelled by dialogue. The main characters have well defined personalities. That doesn't mean they're always predictable, just that when they feel, say, or do something, it comes from a consistent place. In some ways, the characters have become so real that they seem to motivate their own actions more than I do. They compell me to follow certain plot lines and certain character interactions. This follows through with their dialogue. It comes naturally from their feelings and internal thoughts. I tend to use a lot of stammering and 'inert' sounds to convey confusion and hesitation...well...uh...like...er...

 

I do read the dialogue aloud to myself to see if it has a natural flow. Some of the characters have obvious little turns of phrase. Some use more vulgarity than others. There is a difference between males and females, older and younger people. Most of my characters are young and I do listen to the way kids talk (including my own). That doesn't always work for the story, but I at least try to suggest it. If I really transcribed the way kids talk these days, every other word would be 'like'!

[Comicality]

As far as dialogue is concerned, I really do agree with what the both of you have said. It's true, the characters do have a voice of their own, and once they exist as real people in your mind, they begin to act and react as individuals. They guide me into what feels like a natural conversation, and I try not to go against that too much.

 

I have some trouble writing everyday chatter sometimes, trying to make it somewhat interesting when there are parts of the story that I'm trying to 'get to'. For example, I might have two events that I want to happen in a certain chapter, and after writing one of those events out...I usually have a hard time trying to naturally build up to the 'next' event. You know? (I hope that makes some kind of sense) I try to put as much trust in the characters as I can as far as dialogue goes, but sometimes I have to give it a little push in order to get through it.

 

Anyway, easily put, the more you concentrate on character, the easier the dialogue. They do all the talking themselves. Hehehe, The Eggman ("A New Life") and I usually joke about the fact that our characters are like tempermental actors most of the time. I ight have something in mind, and it's like they'll turn to me and say, "I'm not gonna say that. My character would never say something like that!" So I have to change it. It can be fun figuring them out though sometimes.

 

Thanks you guys for adding to the board. I let the topic stay up for another week to hopefully get more info on it. ::Shrugs:: Who knows, maybe next topic.

 

ps- Don't worry Taima! Hehehe, it's not you. Some folks are just LAZY! J/K Glad to see you put your two cents in though. Keep it up!