Anon #1 - I have trouble writing parts that arenât dialogue. i feel like my writing is almost all dialogue. I dont know how to just write whatâs happening in between, like large paragraphs where nothing is being said???Â
Anon #2 - Any tips for how to write parts without dialogue? I seem to excel at writing dialogue and getting the plot rolling, but I canât have my novel be 95% dialogue, can I? I seem to use dialogue as a crutch and Iâm not quite sure how to use⊠actual words.. and sentences⊠?Â
When I first started writing I also had too much dialogueâit read like a half-finished script. The storytelling suffered, the characterization suffered, and it was annoying to read (some genres and writers can get away with large amounts of dialogue, but as per my previous post itâs best to know the rules before you break them).
There was no quick, easy fix for this, and unlike you smart people I did not research or ask how to fix it. I just started paying attention to the ways dialogue was framed in my favorite books, TV, and movies.
Things I Learned About Dialogue
Dialogue needs to be broken up by the other senses. People rarely sit still and expressionless while speaking. When we talk our other senses do not suddenly stop working, nor does our mind stop thinking.
Recall how youâve kept yourself entertained in waiting rooms, lectures, and long conversations. You daydream, go over mental shopping lists, curse that noisy thing in the background, focus too much on strange blemishes on the other personâs face. We almost never give people our âundivided attentionâ even when we mean to.
âHow long did they make you wait?â
I look down as the catâs tail sweeps across my knees. âNot very long.â
âWell, it felt likeââ she sputters as the wind blow her hair into her mouth and moves it back behind her ear, ââit felt like forever. Mom was going ballistic.â
A horn honks down the road, and while she bitches I watch the neighbor kids come rushing across their lawn with backpacks bouncing to get in the car. I remember what that was like. Kinda miss it.
âI mean if you canât run a business well you just shouldnât.â She fumbles with her lighter, having already planted a cigarette between her teeth like she does when sheâs frustrated. âOh, would you look at that. Already chipped a nail.â
Dialogue is often unnecessary when describing characteristics or emotions. If your characters are actually talking to the reader instead of each other then that dialogue might need to be cut and that information related to the reader in some other way.Â
âYou are my mother.âÂ
âYes, son. And your father died six years ago.âÂ
âIndeed, in a car accident. We miss him so much.â
You save on dialogue and clutter by just using one line of inner monologue or various context clues to let the reader know whoâs who and whatâs what (i.e. showing instead of telling).
Likewise, instead of dialogue like, âKaty, the pretty secretary, is really unhappy todayâ use non-verbal cues to show Katy is pretty and unhappy.
Katy trudged into her office and sighed as she sat down, her purse hitting the desk with a clunk, her unbrushed hair lacking its usual enviable lustre.Â
Dialogue is not the only way to communicate. In real life, and in films/theater with good acting, much of the communication is through body language and vocables (e.g. grunts, scoffs, sighs, snorts).Â
Visual and physical cues can also convey ideas whether intentionally or not. Sometimes just different forms of eye contact, like that knowing look from your friend across the room or that glare from your mom after youâve said something in public, are all thatâs needed to understand a scene.
Miguel looked at Elise. She raised her eyebrows. He frowned. She rolled her eyes and turned away. He sighed through his nose and went back to reading his book.
Dialogue cannot be trusted to describe a setting or scene. Every character has their own perception of their surroundings. Witnesses to a crime are notorious for having conflicting accounts of the same event. Some see details others didnât, some lace their stories with unintentional bias, and others simply have a unique point of view based on their life experiences.
Therefore, you have to use your own descriptions of what a place looks, sounds, and feels like in order to let the reader know thatâs actually what itâs like. No two of your characters should agree on all aspects of their environment and circumstances even if they are experiencing it together. If one thinks the sky is blue and beautiful today, the other sees the storm clouds on the horizon.
People were screaming and running in all directions as the alien spaceship flew calmly overhead. A woman fell down in the street.
âSheâs been shot!â someone shouted.Â
The woman had actually slipped on someoneâs personal belongings that had been abandoned with haste.
âTheyâre shooting at us,â shouted another person.Â
People started scrambling for cover. One man fired his gun at the shipâs hull, having no idea how close the ship actually was or where the bullet might come down. No one helped the woman who had fallen and twisted her ankle, and she was left alone on the deserted pavement.
Some scenes wonât need dialogue at all. Your speaking characters likely wonât inhabit every scene in your book. Even in first person POV, there needs to be another character to bounce dialogue off of, and if your character must talk to themselves it will likely be inner monologue.
The storytelling itself, the meat of the book, has to come from the author. Yours is the main voice in every scene that decides the outcome. By speaking only through your characters you limit yourself and your story. Shut them up once in a while so the reader can listen to you.
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