One of my editing clients posed this great question:
Do you have any thoughts about when to write dialogue and when to just say “they talked about this or that” or “she told him about the project”?
Why yes. Yes I do.
Every time you use narrative as a substitute for dialogue, you’re telling. Dialogue is showing, and therefore is mostly to be preferred. Here’s why:
- Dialogue is a form of action. Two people saying things to each other are in action, however mildly.
- Like all forms of action, dialogue reveals character. It can demonstrate fixed traits like class, education, and sense of humor, or transitory states like mood. All of these are better SHOWN via dialogue than explained via narrative.
- Dialogue can be revelation: if Character A first learns something important when Character B says it, the reader experiences greater dramatic impact in “hearing” the actual speech than in learning about it in narrative.
- MAYBE: To provide a break from the tennis-match feeling of a long dialogue. BUT: breaking dialogue up with gestures, movement, or thoughts is better. And scaling back long conversations in the first place is probably best.
- MAYBE: To relate something that was said before the story started: Her mother had told her that every good dinner started with chopping an onion. BUT: look how much livelier this is: “Mom liked to say, ‘Every good dinner starts with chopping an onion.'”
- When the story requires a character to repeat something that the reader has already witnessed. “She recounted her walk in the woods, and by the time she got to the appearance of the wolf, they were spellbound.”
So here’s a quiz. Which is better, A or B?
A: “Good morning,” Lani said. “Oh, hi, Lani,” Sal replied. “Let’s get to it, shall we?”
B: They exchanged greetings and got to work.
Trick question. B is marginally better than A, but they’re both pretty valueless. Do real people greet each other on arriving at work? Sure. But it’s unlikely to be relevant to your story. Consider just starting the scene later.
Write whatever you need to write in your first draft, but remember that in the finished work, virtually everything on the page needs to be a stone in the story edifice—a setup or a payoff, serving a structural story purpose. The goal is to construct that edifice with as little mortar as possible in the form of exposition, transitions, excess scene-setting, OR chit-chat.
And that means that the answer to this kind of A or B question will often wind up being C: Neither.
LOL. When I got to the quiz, A or B, I immediately thought, “What crappy examples. That’s not like Anne.” And then I read the next paragraph. Trick question. You’re so mean! And funny. Great post.
Ha ha! I’m afraid I didn’t dig very deep for that. But it’s fairly typical of first-draft writing, even my own sometimes.
I’ll use narrative when the reader has already heard the information. I use it to change the pace of my story, so I will use narrative to move it along and dialog to slow it down. Also just to break up a long dialog I put in narrative. When I write I don’t tell the reader everything that happens and every word that is spoken. I may reveal to the reader what characters said later when it may create a surprise or turn, so I would use narrative to keep some information unknown to the reader.
Telling the reader everything that happens and every word that’s spoken is pretty typical of early drafts and/or by early writers. In my view, it’s okay to write it. The trick is editing it out later.
My habit is to not give readers more than they need. I love to hold back.
Is there a meeting at the Great Baking Company Aug 18?