Look at this cat and tell me what you think she is saying. (It's one of my four cats, Patch, sitting at the bar in my house, by the way.) I imagine her saying, "What'll you have?" or something similar."What'll" because it is colloquial, improper English, for "What will." People rarely speak in proper English, unless they are giving a speech or something similar. The quote also gives the cat a motive. She has a job to do, tending bar, and to accomplish that motive she first has to find out what drink you desire so she can properly make it. Additionally, it implies that there is someone on the other side of the bar, listening, or not listening, or most accurately, half listening, because that is what people do most of the time, even in conversation. That person may answer right away, or they may hesitate, think, or finish a conversation with someone else before answering. We each have our own motivation and half listen to each other to achieve our own motivations while we deal with the other person's problems are to see how much we have to help them to achieve our own goals.
Is that a pessimistic view of the world? Perhaps, but one that I think is still pretty accurate. As human beings we must negotiate with each other to gain what we want and need. Ideally, there should be give and take. So now the question is, how do we capture that plurality of motives in conversation on the page in a work of fiction?
One aspect of fiction where I seem to excel is writing dialogue. Some of the short stories I've managed to get published were virtually all dialogue. Furthermore, when I receive a personalized rejection, more often than not, they mention that the dialogue was good and seemed natural. While there may be other areas I still need to work on, I do seem to write good dialogue. Therefore, I thought this may be a good time to share what I know about creating good dialogue.
There are three things to remember with writing good dialogue.
1. People rarely, if ever, speak proper English. I assume this is probably true of speakers of other languages as well. We use figures of speech, idioms, slang and often try to appear witty to others. When someone does speak proper English in a normal conversation, we would think of that person as stuffy, uppity, pedantic, arrogant, or other unflattering adjectives. In fact, most people don't even speak in complete sentences. We get distracted, have other thoughts to convey, or just don't have the time.
2. Each character should have their own motivations, and their dialogue should reflect that. Yes, all the time. This is a work of fiction after all. This moves the plot and creates the type of conflict and tension people like to read about. Dialogue can move the plot in this way just as well as the actions, perhaps even better than the actions in many cases.
3. People don't really listen to each other. Have you ever just listened to two people having a conversation. Try it some time. People half listen, but again, are distracted by what was said earlier, or what we want to say, or by, wait, was that a squirrel? We don't have time to listen, so we end up half listening. Watch a Neil Simon play, or a film adaptation, or read one of his plays. He's really good at this aspect, in my opinion.
For another example (okay, one that's not as good Neil Simon, but still . . .), consider the opening conversation to one of my published short stories, "Paranormal Experiment," which was published in parAbnormal Digest some time ago. Rights have reverted back to me at this point.
“What’s wrong, Linda?” Eric asked his translucent girlfriend as she sat on a large wooden box in the college physics laboratory. He placed an opaque hand on her see-through shoulder in a comforting gesture.
“I’m just not sure I want to go through with this. I mean what if something happens to me?”
“Awe, come on babe, don’t you trust me? I mean what can happen? You’re already dead, right?”
“Don’t call me babe! You know I hate that.” She stood up, threw her arms down, and turned away, her faded white dress flowing in the motion, the long belled sleeves trailing behind her. “And how can I forget I’m a ghost and you’re not when you keep reminding me.”
The very opening line asks what is wrong, implying conflict from the very first line. We learn Linda is a ghost by her description. Her motivation is that she is in love with Eric, who wants to experiment on her, and is unsure how far she wants to go to show her love for Eric. Eric's motivation is that he wants to be a famous scientist by conducting the first experiments on a ghost, one which he just happens to be dating. It also seems that Eric is rather a jerk, calling her "babe," a slang term, which she doesn't like. It even seems he may be using her to accomplish success in his career. The final lines add the underlying wedge to their relationship, that she's a ghost and he isn't. (Don't worry, Linda gets her revenge in the end by killing Eric, so he has to give up science, and they live happily ever after . . . as ghosts.)
So I hope I have helped you come up with great believable dialogue. Please feel free to use these tips to your advantage. Just remember, people don't speak proper English, everyone has motives, and nobody really listens to one another. Now get out there and write great dialogue!
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