That's What I Said

I didn't know how to start this or precisely what I would talk about, but after a month and a half's worth of belation, I decided to just start writing my thoughts on dialogue, whether they were wrong or right, and start things off with this disclaimer: I don't really know what I'm talking about. I have no authority or background to tell you how you should go about writing dialogue. But I have opinions and my own way of doing it, so that's what I am going to express here and now. You still retain the right to agree or disagree, as with all things in life. That's all part of the free will God gave each of us. So here we go…

In the last exercise on description, I prattled on and on and then presented the one assignment that was turned in to me and sort of went through it in detail. This time, I've decided to present the one assignment that was turned into me right here at the beginning and go from there. I thought one more person was going to turn in an assignment, which may or may not have attributed to the further delay of this post. This was a person in one my online critique groups that has particular trouble with dialogue, and I thought maybe I could help her out. However, she seems to have forgotten all about it, so I shall go on with just the one assignment that Carol, my one faithful blogger, turned in a long time ago. Again, as always, my apologies for the delay. I asked in the assignment for you to write a short exchange of dialogue between Charlie and his wife, Amy. So here's what Carol so kindly wrote:

Amy walked slowly to the kitchen sink where Charlie stood slumped over the few remaining dishes. “I made the grocery list for tomorrow.” She noticed Charlie slump further over the last remaining plate. “Remember Charlie that you promised to try out this new store. It is only a couple of blocks away,” she said as she picked up the dish towel and started to dry the dishes.
“What’s the matter, Charlie?”
He shrugged and walked away. Amy followed him to the bedroom where he was placing his guitar strap over his head.
“I can’t leave this place,” he sang to an old tune.
“Charlie, you have to someday. Now is the time. You said so this morning,” Amy felt exasperated but wanted to sing along.
He continued to strum as he looked pleadingly into the concern of her eyes. “The pounding of my heart won’t dissipate. I will surely start to puke if I leave this place!”
They burst into laughter.
Charlie hugged his wife with a promise, “I will do it, Amy.” Then they sang the chorus one more time.

The first thing I notice in this exchange is the continuing action following a piece of dialogue. One common mistake that many writers make when two characters are in a very involved conversation is that the world doesn't stop. Things are still going around them. The characters are still doing other things as they talk. Even if they are sitting across from each other, staring into each other's eyes, there are still little things going on. They sink a little further into their seat. They take a deep breath. Their eyes widen in shock. Lots of little things like, 'she said as she picked up the dish towel and started to dry the dishes.' Charlie and Amy are doing the dishes together. Just because they are talking to each other, it doesn't mean that they've stopped working on the dishes. This may sound like a stupid and minor thing to point out, but I've read novels and stories where the action was intense and two characters began talking to each other. After thirty exchanges, I'm wondering what happened to all the action. Weren't they creeping through a haunted forest, trying not to disturb the restless ghosts? Why did he choose this time to explain to the new guy how the forest became haunted? Shouldn't he have done that before they entered the forest? Don't abandon the pace of the story just because people begin to talk. At the end of each dialogue tag, you can insert the little things that are going on, however minor. It helps the dialogue feel more natural. More like you're watching a movie, or better yet, eavesdropping on your neighbors.

So that brings me to dialogue tags and attributions. I never put much thought into it before until I joined a critique group and one of members used colorful and sometimes hilarious dialogue attributions. I believe in 'he said, she said' with little else. He asked. He replied. He answered. He cried. He muttered. Those are all okay, as well. He laughed. He snorted. He chuckled. He murmured. He questioned. He sobbed. We're still okay, but edging towards shaky ground. He intoned. He smiled. He corrected. He offered. He proposed. He breathed. Now I'm beginning to stumble. He inundated. He remunerated. He inflected. He gurgled. He menaced. He delighted. Okay, I've fallen and I can't get up. There are worse ones, but I can't think of them at the moment. These really bad one's are usually followed by even more horrible adverbs or adverb phrases. Eventually I'll get to a post on adverbs. But for now, I'll simply tell you to stay away from them as much as you can. They're hard to get around completely. It's like walking through a field full of dandelions and trying not to kick any of the puffy seed heads. You may get through it okay, but you'll always kick a few and scatter their seeds to the wind. Anyways. Your dialogue will flow more smoothly if you stick to 'he said, she said' or 'Charlie said, Amy said'. The reason your dialogue will flow more smoothly is because readers don't notice the word 'said' as much as the others. If they're asking a question and you've used a question mark, do you really need to use 'he asked'? It's perfectly fine. I use it myself some of the time. Just something to think about. If your character is responding to a question, do you really need to use 'he replied'? The real key is to use as few tags as possible. If only two people are talking and it's quite clear which person is speaking on each exchange, then you can get rid of most of the attributions. In Ernest Hemmingway's Hills Like White Elephants, there are pages of dialogue with no attributions or tags. This is a little extreme and can become difficult to follow, but the more you can get rid of them, the quicker and more pleasurable it is to read.

Now I want to talk briefly about vernacular. We've all read at least one story where a character was from some other part of the country or some foreign land and brought with them a distinct accent. Someone from the deep south or the extreme north, as if the middle part of the country has no accent. Then you've got Canada with its French influence and Mexico with its Spanish. America is made up of people from all over the world and our language, while mostly English, is interlaced with all of these other influences. Even the Queen's English, as I've heard it called in England, has a lot of words derived from the French. But anyways, you have this character with a Southern drawl, and you want to show this Southern drawl in his dialogue, so you start throwing in all these apostrophe's and clipped words and stupid Forrest Gumpesque sayings, as if you really know anything about the South in the first place. What you get is stupid dialogue and an entire region of the country that will never read your work again. I'm from Oklahoma, and I write about characters from Oklahoma. I'm very aware of the Okie accent. But I don't go shredding the language apart to try and show this to my readers. Some of it may slip because of grammatical incorrectness, but by and large, people don't want to try and fight through a characters written accent to hear what they said. If they know your character is from the deep South, then they probably already have an idea how Southern people sound and will give them an accent with their imagination rather than you having to do it. I guess a little bit at the character's introduction is okay, just to let the reader know, but after that it becomes a chore. I'm reminded of Harold Bell Wright's Shepherd of the Hills. I couldn't get past the first page for all the vernacular.

There's much more to say, and I'll try to amend this post later perhaps, but everybody’s here and wanting to play some cards, so I bid you adieu.