writer’s digest - the 7 tools of dialogue.pdf

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January 25, 2011

by James Scott Bell

My neighbor John loves to work on his hot rod. Hes an automotive whiz and

tells me he can hear when something is not quite right with the engine. He

doesnt hesitate to pop the hood, grab his bag of tools and start to tinker. Hell

keep at it until the engine sounds just the way he wants it to.

Thats not a bad way to think about dialogue. We can usually sense when it

needs work. What fiction writers often lack, however, is a defined set of tools

they can put to use on problem areas.

So heres a setmy seven favorite dialogue tools. Stick them in your writers

toolbox for those times you need to pop the hood and tinker with your

characters words.

#1 LET IT FLOW.

When you write the first draft of a scene, let the dialogue flow. Pour it out like

cheap champagne. Youll make it sparkle later, but first you must get it down

on paper. This technique will allow you to come up with lines you never would

have thought of if you tried to get it right the first time.

In fact, you can often come up with a dynamic scene by writing the dialogue

first. Record what your characters are arguing about, stewing over, revealing.Write it all as fast as you can. As you do, pay no attention to attributions (who

said what). Just write the lines.

Once you get these on the page, you will have a good idea of what the scene is

all about. And it may be something different than you anticipated, which is

good. Now you can go back and write the narrative that goes with the scene,

and the normal speaker attributions and tags.

I have found this technique to be a wonderful cure for writers fatigue. I do my

best writing in the morning, but if I havent done my quota by the evening

(when Im usually tired), Ill just write some dialogue. Fast and furious. It

flows and gets me into a scene.

With the juices pumping, I find Ill often write more than my quota. And even

if I dont use all the dialogue I write, at least I got in some practice.

#2 ACT IT OUT.

Before going into writing, I spent some time in New York, pounding thepavement as an actor. While there, I took an acting class that included

improvisation. Another member of the class was a Pulitzer Prizewinning

playwright. When I asked him what he was doing there, he said

improvisational work was a tremendous exercise for learning to write dialogue.

I found this to be true. But you dont have to join a class. You can improvise

just as easily by doing a Woody Allen.

Remember the courtroom scene in Allens movie Bananas? Allen is

representing himself at the trial. He takes the witness stand and begins to

cross-examine by asking a question, running into the witness box to answer,

then jumping out again to ask another question.

I am suggesting you do the same thing (in the privacy of your own home, of

course). Make up a scene between two characters in conflict. Then start an

argument. Go back and forth, changing your actual physical location. Allow a

slight pause as you switch, giving yourself time to come up with a response in

each characters voice.

Another twist on this technique: Do a scene between two well-known actors.

Use the entire history of movies and television. Pit Lucille Ball against Bela

Lugosi, or have Oprah Winfrey argue with Bette Davis. Only you play all the

parts. Let yourself go.

And if your local community college offers an improvisation course, give it a

try. You might just meet a Pulitzer Prize winner.

#3 SIDESTEP THE OBVIOUS.

One of the most common mistakes aspiring writers make with dialogue is

creating a simple back-and-forth exchange. Each line responds directly to the

previous line, often repeating a word or phrase (an echo). It looks something

like this:

Hello, Mary.

Hi, Sylvia.

All ArticlesWrite BetterThe 7 Tools of Dialogue

The 7 Tools of Dialogue

Stick these seven dialogue tools in your writers toolbox for those

times you need to pop the hood and tinker with your characters

words.

rs Digest - The 7 Tools of Dialogue http://writersdigest.com/article/master-these-seven-to

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My, thats a wonderful outfit youre wearing.

Outfit? You mean this old thing?

Old thing! It looks practically new.

Its not new, but thank you for saying so.

This sort of dialogue is on the nose. There are no surprises, and the reader

drifts along with little interest. While some direct response is fine, your

dialogue will be stronger if you sidestep the obvious:

Hello, Mary.

Sylvia. I didnt see you.


I need a drink.

I dont really know what is going on in this scene (incidentally, Ive written

only these four lines of dialogue). But I think youll agree this exchange is

immediately more interesting and suggestive of currents beneath the surface

than the first example. I might even find the seeds of an entire story here.

You can also sidestep with a question:

Hello, Mary.

Sylvia. I didnt see you.


Where is he, Sylvia?

Hmm. Who is he? And why should Sylvia know? The point is there are

innumerable directions in which the sidestep technique can go. Experiment to

find a path that works best for you. Look at a section of your dialogue and

change some direct responses into off-center retorts. Like the old magic trick

ads used to say, Youll be pleased and amazed.

#4 CULTIVATE SILENCE.

A powerful variation on the sidestep is silence. It is often the best choice, no

matter what words you might come up with. Hemingway was a master at this.

Consider this excerpt from his short story Hills Like White Elephants. A man

and a woman are having a drink at a train station in Spain. The man speaks:

Should we have another drink?

All right.

The warm wind blew the bead curtain against the table.

The beers nice and cool, the man said.

Its lovely, the girl said.

Its really an awfully simple operation, Jig, the man said. Its not

really an operation at all.

The girl looked at the ground the table legs rested on.

I know you wouldnt mind it, Jig. Its really not anything. Its just to let

the air in.

The girl did not say anything.

In this story, the man is trying to convince the girl to have an abortion (a word

that does not appear anywhere in the text). Her silence is reaction enough.

By using a combination of sidestep, silence and action, Hemingway gets the

point across through a brief, compelling exchange. He uses the same technique

in this well-known scene between mother and son in the story Soldiers

Home:

God has some work for every one to do, his mother said. There cant

be no idle hands in His Kingdom.

Im not in His Kingdom, Krebs said.

We are all of us in His Kingdom.

Krebs felt embarrassed and resentful as always.

Ive worried about you so much, Harold, his mother went on. I know

the temptations you must have been exposed to. I know how weak men

are. I know what your own dear grandfather, my own father, told us

about the Civil War and I have prayed for you. I pray for you all day

long, Harold.Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on the plate.

Silence and bacon fat hardening. We dont need anything else to catch the

mood of the scene. What are your characters feeling while exchanging

dialogue? Try expressing it with the sound of silence.

#5 POLISH A GEM.

Weve all had those moments when we wake up and have the perfect response

for a conversation that took place the night before. Wouldnt we all like to have

those bon motsat a moments notice?

Your characters can. Thats part of the fun of being a fiction writer. I have a

somewhat arbitrary ruleone gem per quarter. Divide your novel into fourths.

When you polish your dialogue, find those opportunities in each quarter to

polish a gem.

And how do you do that? Like a diamond cutter, you take what is rough and


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tap at it until it is perfect. In the movie The Godfather, Moe Greene is angry

that a young Michael Corleone is telling him what to do. He might have said, I

made my bones when you were in high school! Instead, screenwriter Mario

Puzo penned, I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!

(In his novel, Puzo wrote something a little racier). The point is you can take

almost any line and find a more sparkling alternative.

Just remember to use these gems sparingly. The perfect comeback grows

tiresome if it happens all the time.

#6 EMPLOY CONFRONTATION.

Many writers struggle with exposition in their novels. Often they heap it on in

large chunks of straight narrative. Backstorywhat happens before the novel

opensis especially troublesome. How can we give the essentials and avoid a

mere information drop?

Use dialogue. First, create a tension-filled scene, usually between two

characters. Get them arguing, confronting each other. Then have the

information appear in the natural course of things. Here is the clunky way to do

it:

John Davenport was a doctor fleeing from a terrible past. He had been

drummed out of the profession for bungling an operation while he was

drunk.

Instead, place this backstory in a scene in which John is confronted by a

patient who is aware of the doctors past:

I know who you are, Charles said.

You know nothing, John said.

Youre that doctor.

If you dont mind IFrom Hopkins. You killed a woman because you were soused. Yeah,

thats it.

And so forth. This is a much underused method, but it not only gives weight to

your dialogue, it increases the pace of your story.

#7 DROP WORDS.

This is a favorite technique of dialogue master Elmore Leonard. By excising a

single word here and there, he creates a feeling of verisimilitude in his

dialogue. It sounds like real speech, though it is really nothing of the sort. Al l

of Leonards dialogue contributes to characterization and story.

Here is a standard exchange:

Your dog was killed?

Yes, run over by a car.

What did you call it?

It was a she. I called her Tuffy.

This is the way Leonard did it inOut of Sight:

Your dog was killed?

Got run over by a car.

What did you call it?

Was a she, name Tuffy.

It sounds so natural, yet is lean and meaningful. Notice its all a matter of a

few words dropped, leaving the feeling of real speech.

As with any technique, theres always a danger of overdoing it. Pick your spots

and your characters with careful precision and focus, and your dialogue will

thank you for it later.

Using tools is fun when you know what to do with them. I guess thats why

John, my neighbor, is always whistling when he works on his car. Youll see

results in your fictionand have fun, tooby using these tools to make your

dialogue sound just right.

Start tinkering.

Learn how to create strong characters, craft believable

dialogue & get the attention of agents with:

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writer’s digest - the 7 tools of dialogue.pdf

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