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Part vi. The Dialogue Pitfalls to Avoid

Dialogue is a powerful device in fiction. You can use it to convey information, to show relationships between characters, to express emotion, and to move the story along. Characters use it to say what they think, to persuade others, as well as to hide the truth.

But there are pitfalls to avoid when writing dialogue.

Empty Chitchat

Take this conversation between two characters:

"Hi, Tanya. Nice day today," Greg said when he ran into her in the parking lot.

Tanya said, "And I thought the rain would never stop."

"Are you going to visit your Mom?"

"She's expecting me."

The author might have written this thinking: 'I need to tell the reader that Tanya is going to visit her mother. I know, that's boring information. Maybe it will be more interesting if I put it in dialogue.'

But the result is dull, insignificant dialogue that conveys a bit of information that would be better just summarized.

See what a difference it makes when the dialogue, conveying the same information, also shows a character who is off balance?

"Hi, Tanya. Nice day today," Greg said when he ran into her in the parking lot.

"Is it? I hadn't noticed."

"So it's that bad, is it? Your Mom?"

"I'm on my way to see her right now."

If you find yourself writing empty chitchat:

• Try deleting it completely.
• Try deleting it and inserting a one-sentence summary (In this case: When Tanya saw Greg in the parking lot, she told him she was on her way to see her mother.)
• Try rewriting the dialogue with conflict or emotion, like in the second example above.

If dialogue doesn't move your story forward or show the reader something about your character and her relationships with others, get rid of it. It's pretty much guaranteed that readers will simply skip over a dense paragraph of dialogue that does nothing more than deliver information.

Adverbs with Attribution

Often writers want to make sure the reader gets the emotion they want the dialogue to convey, and so they improve something that's already perfect by adding an adverb to the attribution, therefore ruining it.

"Mr. Orleans? Who the hell invited you?" Brandon said angrily.

"Why, Mr. Orleans. So you decided to grace us with your presence," Mrs. Brown said haughtily.

The additional adverbs–angrily and haughtily–are unnecessary and redundant. The adverbs tell the reader what the dialogue has already shown to the reader.

Sometimes, very occasionally, an adverb works well with attribution. But inspect every one you use to make sure it's really adding to your storytelling rather than repeating something you've already shown.

Going On Too Long

Dialogue is best when it's kept relatively short. If you look at a page of your book and there's a half-page chunk of a single character talking, you probably have a problem.

Here are some ways to address the problem:

• Break up the dialogue with action.
• Break up the dialogue with snippets of setting.
• Instead of a monologue, have two characters talk back and forth, and add conflict to make it more interesting.
• Summarize parts of the dialogue.

Every so often you will have a scene where it makes more sense for a character to speak, uninterrupted, for a long time. But unless it's dramatically compelling, you won't want to put the entire speech into the novel. Skip over parts and summarize others or you will probably lose your readers.

Who's Talking?

Have you ever been reading along–one character says something, then another replies, then another, and somewhere along the way the writer stops telling you who's talking and you lose track and have to backtrack to figure out who said what?

Here are some ways to make it clear to the reader who is talking:

So, whenever it might be confusing to your reader, be sure you have provided some kind of cue about who is talking, either in attribution, in accompanying action, or in the dialogue itself.

Dialogue Clichés

Like stereotypical characters, some words and phrases keep coming back and have become stale from so much use. They've become so familiar that many times writers don't realize what they're saying–or worse, what their characters are saying.

Avoid clichés like the following:

• "Try me."
• "We've got to stop meeting like this."
• "Did I just say that out loud?"
• "It's just a scratch."
• "You say that like it's a bad thing."
• "Stay here." "No, I'm coming with you."
• "Shut up and kiss me."
• "Not on my watch!"
• "(S)he's behind me, isn't (s)he?"
• "We've got company!"
• "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."
• "You look like shit."
• "It's not what it looks like."
• "If you touch one hair on his/her head..."
• "Don't do anything stupid."

These are only a few of the many clichés that you don't want to use. It may be argued that it is okay to use clichés in dialogue because people speak that way. Readers may understand clichés and relate to them. Writers frequently use them to express comedic, witty, sarcastic characters in novels, but by avoiding clichés, your work will seem less tired and your dialogue will be more unique.

Too Much Dialect

Writing dialogue in dialect can be a useful way to show the reader your character's background. It can be quaint or romantic. It can tell the reader a great deal about the character without any narrative to describe her.

Like I've mentioned in previous parts, used cautiously and sparingly, dialect can enhance your novel. But when it becomes overdone, dialect is tedious and boring, not only for your readers to read but even for you to write.

There's no reason to repeat a character's dialect in every line of dialogue. If the character is from the Southern United States, she doesn't need to end every ing word by cutting off the g. If you write it that way a few times, the reader gets the picture.

The same thing can be said for using the Irish brogue. Once or twice is fine, even in historical novels. Continuing to use it every time the character speaks would be like repeating the character's description in each paragraph. It is unnecessary and can distract the reader from the story.

A "Writing Your First Novel" tip:

Curse words pepper the dialogue that comes out of real people's mouths; even suburban housewives can get truly pissed and utter the f-bomb. If you do put profanity in your dialogue or internal dialogue, write it realistically.

Please give this part a vote if your eyes were opened to something new.