The Frustrated Writers Autopsy Room

The art of writing has died in you. The cause of death? From asphyxiation by overanalysis and theorization, and from malnutrition by plain old procrastination. You don’t become a writer by thinking about it and talking about it. Writing is an art as much as the playing of a musical instrument. To play the violin takes years of practice, and one must go through those early learning phases where awkward cacophonies gradually give way to beautiful music. If you are like me you wasted years with non-practice while secretly believing that one day you would pick up the dusty violin and apply your musical theories to the strings. No chance. And even reading widely and thoroughly will only enable you to string words together, not generate truly original works.

I believe that people who talk about doing things generally don’t do them. But that doesn’t stop writers from talking about writing. For such is the desire to create, to bring a work of art, characters, a story, into existence from nothing more than the confusion of notions sloshing around the old mush-melon, that we never abandon that moribund dream.

I don’t really feel so defeated about writing. There is always hope. Maybe if we talk about it long enough we will, like the premature corpses in the morgue, twitch a finger connected to a bell, and be revived to a second chance.

So let me ask the first question. What is the theory behind good dialogue? I once used to position myself in public places so that I could hear realistic conversations. I found out that “realistic” dialogue is predominantly *boring * dialogue. What I was after was “believable” dialogue, meaning that it is compelling or riveting but devoid of any air of contrivance. How do you accomplished or aspiring writers approach dialogue? Do you *become * the character? Do you create the character and turn them loose with their own voice?

Help me dissect this carcass one last time. Don’t be bashful, all opinions are welcome. Really, how much damage can you do in a post mortem?

I think that you create the character and turn them loose but I guess that identifying in some way with the character might help. Or if not, being affected by the character in some way seems like it would help, whether it be infuriated by them or feeling pity for them.

I’m not a very good writer though, but I can read like a son-of-a-bitch.

You’re only mostly dead.

I suspect you (and I) are suffering from something Robert Sawyer (Canadian SF writer) refers to as ‘imposter’ syndrome. If you’ve had something published you’re thinking that you’re only as good as your last book. You wonder if you can put out again. If you’re an unpublished, novice, like me, you know deep down that nothing feels so right as placing one word after another. You love writing and yet in the eyes of the public you are nothing but a dreamer until you have something in print. Oh the pressure!

Procrastination is part the creative temperment, although it’s not universal. Stephen King and his ilk seem to spit out books like well-oiled machines. Anyway, sitting down, doing the work, forcing yourself does get the job done. I think you just have to relax; don’t worry if you end up tearing up what you wrote yesterday. They’re just words. Some writers swear by establishing a routine and sticking to it. This is impossible for me. I’m trying to do this writing thing while raising four young kids on my own, keeping up the inside and outside of my home and fighting a rather messy divorce. My day is one long series of interuptions and distractions. I’ve had to squeeze writing into the wee hours of the night or do it in 10-minute sittings… Occasionally I have the whole house to myself, no calls, kids, dates, messes to clean; I place my fingers on the keypad and my mind goes completely to mush.

I do tend to babble don’t I?

Ahem. Right. For dialogue read Elmore Leonard. The man was recently touring Canada, in other words, Toronto, and I went to see him do a reading and interview. I was positively brimming with writerly inspiration afterward. The tips! The advice! Let your characters talk. Trot them out and if they can’t talk either give them bit parts, cut them or try changing their name/ sex/ occupation until they do say something interesting. It’s all between those ears of yours.

“Nurse, send in the next patient please.”

[QUOTE=Ex Machina]
So let me ask the first question. What is the theory behind good dialogue? I once used to position myself in public places so that I could hear realistic conversations. I found out that “realistic” dialogue is predominantly *boring * dialogue. What I was after was “believable” dialogue, meaning that it is compelling or riveting but devoid of any air of contrivance. How do you accomplished or aspiring writers approach dialogue? Do you *become * the character? Do you create the character and turn them loose with their own voice?

[QUOTE]

I dunno. I just write it and it sounds natural. It comes easy to me, and when I read bad dialogue I don’t understand why it’s so. In Writing Mysteries, the author of an article on dialogue writing mentioned that good dialogue is how it sounds in our heads when we’re thinking of it later, not how we actually spoke it. I have to be careful, or I’ll use dialogue as a crutch to avoid writing the stuff I struggle with.

Write some dialogue here; maybe we can figure out where your problems lay.

This is mostly what I do. I have the character in mind, but what I put down on paper is whatever my mind knows but hasn’t told me, so to speak.

I have a feeling that my writing style, overall, is very much different from most other people. As such, my advice might be of little to no use to you, Ex Macina. When I write, I sit down and I write and it all comes out in one sitting or one night (the latter is much less common than the former). This means that to an extent my length is limited (longest piece I’ve produced in the past year was 20 pages done in four sittings), but it also means there’s a continuity with it that you sometimes don’t get when you have someone editing and re-editing and removing and adding until their finished product is nothing like the original. Any of my longer OPs here (and one or two of my posts) are at most third drafts and more likely first drafts. What I emailed to you, Rooves, was essentially just stuff that came out as I went along.

The hardest thing for me about dialogue is making people sound different. I tend to have everyon sound the same when they’re talking, and when you have characters who are so diametrically apart from each other, that can make for some really boring dialogue. I guess my best advice is to know your characters. Have them experience inner dialogue. Once you’ve got their voice, their mannerisms … things that make their way of expressing things … then you’re ready to expose them to others without so much of the worry that it’ll turn into boring dialogue.

Like 'punha, my most common problem with dialogue is making characters sound too much alike–and, all too often, too much like me. When I find myself falling into that trap, I assign voices. Character X may sound like one of my friends, or an actor, or just be a baritone; Character Y sounds like someone else. Then I try the dialogue again, while trying to hear it in my head in the different voices and accents. It helps me keep them separate. If I’m really having trouble, I’ll speak the lines aloud in different voices and accents; if I keep slipping into the same voice for different character’s parts, the speech styles may be too similar.

Using a friend’s voice this way can be tricky–you have to be careful not to let your friend’s personality influence the character too much. The main reason I do it is to keep my own speech out of it; a moment of “Whoa. Pat would never say that.” is usually enough to make me notice that the line is something that I would say.

I second the person who recommended Elmore Leonard. Also, back away from the Mamet. Only pain lies that way.

Here is a tip my screenwriting prof gave me that improved my dialogue immensely (and I like to think I was pretty good to start): The best dialogue is involuntary. The characters are talking not because they want to, but because they need to. Something is rising in them and they need to get it out, and they might not necessarily say it right the first time, and until they can get it out they might frustratingly talk around the edges of what they mean - passive aggression is your friend in writing dialogue - until something makes them finally spit it out.

As you write each scene that needs dialogue (I assume you write prose fiction, but scenes still apply) think about these things:

  1. What does the main character want or need?
  2. What do they risk by expressing that need? What do they gain?
  3. What does the other character(s) need?
  4. How is she going to react when she finds out what the main character needs?
  5. What’s the most precise and pared-down way of getting that across? People don’t speak in essays. Example:

Version 1:

“I went by the school today.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Ran into your son.”
“Really.”
“He said to tell you hello.”
“Great.”
“He looked pretty bad.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I dunno. Something.”

vs.

Version 2:

“I stopped by the school today, and ran into your son. He didn’t look good. I think you should talk to him about his drug problem.”
“I stopped trying to talk to him about it ever since that Saturday in April at his mother’s funeral, you know, when he shot up in the hearse. How are you going to talk to a kid like that?”
“You should do something about it before it’s too late. Do you want to find him dead in the street someday? It will be on your conscience.”
“It will be on his conscience. Do you think I didn’t try with him? You’re not exactly stepmother of the year, you know.”
If you’ve painted a good picture of the characters up until this point, which passage is more compelling to you?

Good dialog is not “realistic” – in the sense that it is an accurate representation of how people talk. It tends to be much more direct and with few of the pauses and repetitions that happen in real life.

Basically, I let my characters bounce off each other; when one says something, I pay attention and think what the other character would say. I can’t really explain how I do it; it comes very easily and naturally to me. The people are only saying what is logical for them to say.

I tend to prefer to write (and read) dialog. Here’s an example of a published story of mine; it’s mostly two people talking.

ex machina,

Magdelena has given you some excellent guidelines. Stop eavedropping in the grocery store, bank line ups and forget party small talk. Listen to your characters. If they can’t speak, they are not fully developed in your mind. Work with them.

I would also add that the prose surrounding dialogue and the dialogue itself should work off each other. Watch repetition.

Post a tibit of dialogue and prose for us and perhaps we can help you with the specifics.

PS: I want to thank you for starting this thread. Writers are so alone. Novice and experienced writers reading each other’s work and commenting is a great way to break a block and move forward. I may call on your help in future if I may… maybe tomorrow…