Dialogue is something I love writing though I use it more in short stories (1500 words plus) than in my flash fiction (1000 words maximum).
The Functions of Fictional Dialogue
Dialogue has several functions in stories.
- The way a character speaks shows you something of their social class, level of education, and what they think of others by the attitude that comes through in what they say.
- The character’s background – do they use slang? Do they use figures of speech only the higher echelons in their society would use etc?
- To convey information from one character to another (and of course to the reader).
- To increase the pace of a story. Dialogue between characters usually “zips” along and an author can cover a lot of ground in what a reader needs to know simply by getting their characters to talk.
- In a flash story with more than one character, I can use dialogue to show the attitude of others to my lead character. For example in my story Decisions, one character comes up with “The monkey has talent” in reaction to my lead character’s choice to jump on an alien spaceship rather than be caught up in an end of the world scenario. There is contempt in the one word “monkey”. I’ve shown you the contempt rather than spell it all out via description and only needed one word of dialogue to do so.
- Also the action in the story can be shown through dialogue. One character brings another one up to date with what has been going on. That in turn leads the second character to acting on the information they have now received.
Character Thoughts aka Internal Dialogue
I also like to show readers my characters’ thoughts – you could classify this as internal dialogue and that too reveals a great deal about a character.
For example I could have my character smile at their neighbour yet have them thinking something rude about said neighbour. You as the reader would know my character is being a hypocrite thanks to knowing what they are thinking (though the rest of the story should show you whether or not the character is right to have that attitude).
But the thought/internal dialogue still has to be appropriate to the character and ideally will reveal more of what they are like. Readers pick up a lot from attitude and we show our attitude via words and, to ourselves, via our thoughts, even though usually we would cover that up from everyone else. Our characters should do the same.
What Effective Dialogue Does
Dialogue, in longer stories, breaks up narration and, where it is appropriate to use it, description. (In flash fiction, where I do need description, I’ve pared this back to one line or two depending on what word count I am working towards). And where you have characters, it would be odd not to have them talking at some point!
The type of language used in dialogue can also show you the era in which the story is set quickly and with minimal word count. The odd “thee” and “thou” shows you the story is highly unlikely to be set in the modern era. The dialogue used should reflect the genre of the story (and can be another way of flagging up what the genre is early on).
I avoid using any kind of phrase which could date easily (e.g. something like to the max, which is linked to the 1980s. It would only be apt if I used it in a story specifically set in that time frame).
I usually avoid cliche because they’re boring! I will occasionally use one if it is a useful shortcut to what I’m trying to show you about a character. I will also subvert a cliche if that suits my purposes. (I’ve done this with one of my published stories called Punish the Innocent. You’d usually talk about punishing the guilty of course).
I also ensure my dialogue is appropriate to the character speaking it. So a less well educated character is not going to speak in the same way, say, as one who has had a university education. Dialogue differentiates between characters. What we say and how we say it reflects on us to a certain extent. I can deliberately take and use that to do this for my characters.
Another useful tip in helping your readers to tell different characters apart is simply by what said characters say. You can give Character A a pet phrase to use and have Character B speak in a long-winded way. When those characters appear again later in the story, when the pet phrase or the long-windedness comes up, you will know who the characters are without the author having to spell everything out.
Dialects, Accents, Pacing, and Swearing
This doesn’t come up often for me in what I write but dialect/accent can also be conveyed in dialogue. The trick here is only to give a flavour of the dialect/accent and not overload the story with it. Readers will pick things up from context but you also don’t want too much accent/dialect because you will risk the reader being bogged down by it and then switching off. Saga writers (especially the regional ones) have to watch for this.
You can use dialogue to slow down or increase the pace of the story depending on how your characters speak. A slow speaking character will take their time over what they say. They won’t cut to the chase (and this will show the reader something about them immediately).
Dialogue can also show up other aspects of characterisation. How would a pompous character speak? They’ll use grandiose language, jargon they think the ones they’re trying to impress will know, anything almost to make them seem better than those around them.
Yes, there can be a place for swearing too. I sometimes use moderate amounts of swearing but only when it is appropriate for the characters to do so. (There are some words I won’t use due to personal taste and my faith and I’m not worried about whether these things are Anglo-Saxon in origin or not. I just know these words I won’t use – every writer of YA fiction upwards has to decide at some point what kind of language would be appropriate for their characters and what they are prepared to write).
When my characters swear, it is because they are under stress and the rest of the story would’ve shown that stress building up. I also think it not unreasonable for one of my characters to swear if, say, a dragon suddenly turns up (and yes I’ve written stories like that). It would be odd if the character didn’t swear in those circumstances I think but again this is a good example of dialogue being appropriate to the character and the situation you’ve made them face.
Conclusion
In my flash fiction I often use the first person as I can take you straight inside my character’s thoughts from the start. They are narrating the story to you, the reader, but I still have to make the language they use appropriate to (a) them and (b) the genre of the story. A story communicates ideas and themes via its characters.
I’ve always loved reading dialogue in fiction. When it is well written, it does seem like I’m eavesdropping on a written conversation – and that is how it should be.
The great irony though is dialogue in fiction has to be better than real life. Nobody minds the odd umm, err, repetition etc in fictional dialogue but this should be kept to a minimum.
For real speech we hesitate and dither and go back to a topic we talked about earlier with someone just to name a few of our foibles. Dialogue in fiction removes a lot of that because if we kept it all in, it would be far too boring to read.
Fictional dialogue then represents the perfect speech we aspire to – there has to be a degree of artistic licence here but it should still be gripping to read and move the story on. Anything that doesn’t move the story on in some way should be cut out, meaning there is also no room for dialogue without a purpose. So out with the old editing pen then!
Related Posts:-
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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Excellent as usual.
Many thanks, Lynn.