Dialogue should be oblique.(Watch Just Like Heaven. The scene after Reese Witherspoon saves a man's life in the restaurant is a great example of two people speaking with each other, but voicing their own agendas, each comment shooting past each character.)
Each character should speak differently.
(Alice in The Last Apprentice has that cute, kind of hick/witch way of saying things that is only her. Delaney did a superb job writing her lines.)
Dialogue should only be used to further the plot.
Nothing worse than a conversation between two characters that is polite, full of echoes, and without conflict. Conflict! Fiction requires it. After all, Alfred Hitchcock did say that fiction is real life without all the boring parts.
I mostly agree, but actually writing dialogue that does this is (as a friend of mine would say) a whole 'nother ball of salami.
ReplyDeleteThe times I don't agree is if dialogue reveals a character's personality. Unless we're privy to their thoughts (and fiction usually just gives us one person's thoughts at a time, if that), then the best way we have of getting to know someone is through their words. So unless that person is talking to himself you really need dialogue!
Having said all that, I'm reminded of a friend who wouldn't allow her students to write dialogue at all because she said it was always too painful to read!
And now, having read your post, I'm wondering, was the dialogue in my story really bad...? (Don't tell me-- I don't want to know!)
Mary, I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said about dialogue. It has to be crafted for a purpose, either to move the plot or tell something about the characters or to set a mood. It can't be there to waste time or give us fluff. And here's one of the many dialogue challenges for the author...to make the dialogue sound realistic while serving its greater purpose.
ReplyDeleteI love dialogue. I feel like most plot, drama, conflict, and interest is revealed in dialogue. If I pick up a book and don't see lots of dialogue interspersed with the paragraphs, I'll likely put it right back down. Nothing holds my interest of speeds the plot along like dialogue. For me, anyway.
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