What NOT to Do

Last night, I sat down to watch the remake of the original movie for the series The Waltons.  I do love me some Waltons, doncha know.  I've seen every episode of the series multiple times.  And with the way entertainment is these days, I wasn't so sure I wanted to watch this remake.  But there was nothing else on, so I waded in.

It was bad.  So bad.  I mean, we watched it all (Hubs joined me about halfway through), but it was not good.  The acting was bad.  Most of the time, it was like they were reading the lines instead of acting the characters.  But this blog isn't about acting.  It's about writing.

And the writing was bad.  The dialogue was bad.  Good god, people.  Did you even think about how people talk to one another?  Especially how people talked to each other in 1933?  Some of the slang for today would not have been slang then.  I wish I could remember some of the instances, but I don't.  Trust me, they were there.  Glaring.  Spotlight right to the eyes.  

And it wasn't like writing the script would've been hard.  The movie followed the original plot for the most part.  They could've used the original script for petesakes.  Geez.

And whoever researched the historical period should be slapped.  1933... Virginia.  A black police officer?  Come on.  Really? And considering, it was post-Depression, so why the hell was everyone dressed so nicely?  Oh, sure, they put Mary Ellen in overalls, but they were nice overalls, like they'd been bought recently for her instead of the hand-me-down ones she would've been wearing.  And all the other children were so nicely dressed they looked like they were sporting their go-to-church clothes instead of the cheap, raggedy play clothes the children of a poor mountain family would've been wearing.  Everything should've looked well-worn, like they'd been passing the clothes down for years and making everything else by hand.  Hell, even when the dad was laying in bed in his long-johns, the damn things looked like he bought them online last week.

Did they even bother to watch the original movie???  They could've made it all so much better if they had simply followed the formula that worked so well it spawned a hit TV series that lasted for NINE YEARS.  (Okay, so maybe they should've stopped after Richard Thomas left, but that's just my opinion.)

Anyway, if you're writing a period piece or anything else, pay attention to how people talk to each other.  Pay attention to the period you're writing.  Otherwise, you'll leave your readers like that movie left this viewer... irritated and wanting to write a scathing one-star review.  

People Don't Talk Like That

I started reading a book the other day and within a few pages, DNF'd that sucker.  The problem was the dialogue.  It was stilted and wooden with loads of 'as you know' stuff where the author used the characters to supply backstory without any reason for them to be talking about the past.  

People don't talk like that.  And they don't converse that way.

I realize sometimes it's hard to see where your dialogue might have gone wrong.  (And as such, I hope I never present dialogue to my readers that's anything like that.)  For me, though, writing and reading is like listening to someone talking in my head.  Basically, it's all dialogue up in there.  So, when the dialogue goes wrong, it really sticks out.

If you're not like this, a basic way to figure out if your dialogue has gone wrong is to read it out loud.  If you find yourself tripping over stuff, it's because the way you've written it isn't the way people generally talk.  If it sounds wooden and hollow, it is.

Your mileage may vary if you're writing high fantasy.  People don't talk like that anymore either.  Still, even then, there should be a flow to the words.  Read Shakespeare aloud.  (Which, imo, is the only way to really enjoy Shakespeare if you're not actually at a play.)  Shakespeare's old stuff, but he's still relevant because he had the ebb and flow of human conversation down.  If you're worried about reading Shakespeare, read the newer fantasies of Brooks, Butcher, Farland, etc.  They do good dialogue.

Of course, the book I was reading was YA.  I think that only made it worse.  People don't talk like that.  Teens definitely don't talk like that.  It's been a while since I was a teen or had a teen, but I don't think the general drift of teenage conversation is towards more formal and stilted.  (Would that it were sometimes.)  It was also paranormal, which made the stilted dialogue even worse.  Ebb and flow is key there, folks.  

Ebb and flow is key everywhere.  Any well-received book of any genre has an ebb and flow to the dialogue.  Hell, there's an ebb and flow to the whole damn thing.  If the reader is tripping and stumbling and trying to make the writing make sense in their heads, they're going to put the book down.  Or throw it against the wall.  And never pick up another one by that author.  None of wants that, now do we?

Anyway, I'm probably the last writer to go to for advice - since my sales are dismal - but since I'm also a prolific reader, you should probably take note.  A little.  Maybe.  Do yourself and the world a favor and make your dialogue sound more like the way people actually talk.  K?

If you're a writer, do you read your stuff out loud?  From a reader standpoint, can you think of any writers who do dialogue especially well? 

Dialogue Issues? Read It Out Loud

I started a book Saturday night.  As you know from Friday's post, I'd been looking for a suspense to read.  I thought I found one.  The premise was awesome, the few reviews it had were mostly five-star, and the live look in was pretty good, so I laid down my $2.99. 

I didn't 'look in' far enough.  When I started the book, everything was fine.  Then I got farther in where there was actual dialogue.  OMG, so bad. 

Ugh, I tried to recreate a sample of the bad dialogue this morning, but I couldn't do it.  It was so wooden, my brain was revolting against it.  And I refuse to copy the exact verbiage here.  Just trust me on it when I say it was bad.

Do the world a favor when you're writing dialogue, folks.  Read it out loud.  You should be able to hear whether it's the way people actually talk.  Think about conversations you've had.  And if you're a hermit, go somewhere public and listen to other people until you have an idea of how a conversation should flow.  Restaurants and coffee shops are awesome for this. 

Once you've done this, go back and read through the dialogue you've written.  Does it sound natural? 

Personally, I write a lot of my stuff - including this blog - in a conversational tone.  So I've got a lot of practice.  Plus, my thought processes are like a running conversation in my head.  And I still make mistakes.  That's what an editor is for.  She catches me when I've written crappy dialogue. 

And yes, there may be a time when you have a character who actually is wooden.  It could add flavor to the scene.  But they can't all be wooden.  And the wooden character cannot be your MC.  Bleh.

The dialogue had other flaws, as well.  I'm pretty sure the author didn't have a firm grasp on using the Enter key between sentences in the dialogue.  One character talks and then the other character talks and then the first character talks... all in one paragraph.  "Sort of like this," said Mary. "And it was really bad," said John. "But worse than this." "I can see what you mean," said Mary. "When it all jams together it's kind of hard to tell who's talking." "Exactly."

Gah.  Typing that hurt my brain.  Almost as much as reading it probably hurt yours.

Dialogue shouldn't be that hard - to write or to read.  Like I said, the key to it is reading it out loud.  And if you do and you're still not sure, read it out loud to another human being.  If at any point you find yourself thinking 'People don't talk that way', then you need to change it.

Now, you might find yourself wanting to argue, saying 'but I write Fantasy' or SF or historical or whatever.  The words of your world may be different, but the conversational flow should probably be about the same.  Because no matter what world you're writing, your readers are HERE.  Their brains will tell them whether the people of Ogreville or Epsilon Twelve or Jolly Ol' England are speaking naturally or coming off as wooden.  You don't want readers to decide your dialogue isn't worth slogging through.  Right?

Just my opinion, of course.  I know I put that book down and I won't be buying any more of that author's novels.  Which is really too bad.  Again, they all sound interesting, but I can't afford to waste any more of my money on the chance he fixed the problem in the other two.  (And this was his second book.  I can't imagine how bad his first book was.)

Do you read your dialogue out loud?  I used to do it all the time. Now, I only do it if I'm reading over a scene and it doesn't feel right.  Nine times out of ten, it doesn't feel right because the dialogue is off. 

But maybe that's just me.  What do you think?

OMG, The Dialogue!

I was reading a book the other day by a new-to-me author.  The premise sounded interesting and the plot was doing a fair job of holding my interest.  Unfortunately, I had to DNF the book.  The dialogue... OMG, the dialogue... It was bad.  Like an example of bad dialogue in a 'how to write' book.  People don't talk to each other that way and after a while, I had to close the book to save my sanity.

Then I was working on the edits for Blink of an I - a novel I initially wrote early in my career.  And OMG, the dialogue!  It was bad.  I could hear the characters talking to each other in my head and realizing people don't talk to each other that way - not even way in the future after the world has fallen apart.  And I swear I must've used every dialogue tag in the Big Book of Dialogue Tags.  'He exclaimed', 'she hissed', 'he sneered', 'she whispered', 'he choked'... And I was all like 'who wrote this crap... oh, it was me'.

So, when I noticed this yesterday morning, I went back and re-edited the 45 pages I had already done.  So bad. So much dreck.  Bleh.  It took me all day, but it's fixed now.  And I'll scour the remaining pages to make sure as I edit along, I fix what seems bad.

Anyway, if you aren't already reading your dialogue out loud, do so.  If it sounds unnatural to you, then it will sound even worse in your readers' heads. 

"But, but, but," you say, "my book is set in Victorian England (or 2351AD or a million years BC or on Tahiti or in Jamaica or wherever/whenever) and they talk different."  Sure, they do.  But you'll find that no matter where or when your characters are, there will be a rhythm to their speech and there will be things they'll say or won't say, or natural ways they'll talk that will fit and feel right to your readers. 

Always work toward dialogue that will feel right to your readers.  The goal is to keep them reading, not to make them DNF a book for any reason.

So, anyway, Blink is on its way to being fixed.  There's a lot of work ahead and I still have life stuff I need to attend to, so I'd better get cracking.  Have an awesome weekend, and don't forget to watch that dialogue.  ;o)