Dialogue is one of the hardest parts of fiction to write. This is because there is a disconnect between story dialogue and real dialogue; the “fidelity we seek in dialogue is always an illusion” (Fred Stenson, Things Feigned or Imagined, Banff Centre Press, 2002). Real dialogue contains pauses, small talk, and rabbit trails, but story dialogue must advance the plot.
Dialogue Provides Background Information
Dialogue can be a good place for characters to “fill in necessary background information that will throw light on the whys and wherefores of their behaviour and attitudes and the reason for telling the story” (Betty Millway, “Design Your Dialogue,” The Canadian Writer’s Guide, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1997).
However, be careful to keep this realistic. A character isn’t likely to say, “I hate her because she’s prettier than I am.” This could be revealed by the character’s attitude towards the other character, by snide comments about looks, or in other clues that allow the reader to put together the character’s motivations and reasons.
Another pitfall to avoid, as Camy Tang says, is “the info dump.” Don’t have one character telling another character something that both characters already know, simply because the reader needs to know this. Again, a good idea is to plant clues for the readers to piece together, instead of giving them an overload of information.
Dialogue Is About What Isn’t Said Too
Characters can reveal as much by what they don’t say as by what they say. Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants” is almost entirely dialogue. A man and a woman are sitting at a cafe near a train station. While they attempt to make small talk, both of them are avoiding the reason they are waiting for the train: she is pregnant and he wants her to get an abortion. Their dialogue conveys their disagreement, her uncertainty, and the facts of the story.
Dialogue and Narrative
How much dialogue and how much narrative is in a story will depend on the story. Dennis E. Hensley says that “novelists try to keep a fifty-fifty balance between dialogue and general narrative” (How to Write What You Love, Waterbrook Press, 2000). Millway, on the other hand, recommends “twenty to thirty percent” and mentions that the target market for the story “might have specific requirements.”
Instead of aiming for a number, decide what is appropriate to the story and to the plot. Is too much narrative slowing the story down? Is too much dialogue giving the narrator no room to explain things? Is one character dominating the conversation? This will vary between stories. “Hills Like White Elephants” is mostly dialogue; other stories are more narratives sprinkled with bits of conversation. As you read these stories, see what works for each story—and why.
Millway suggests thinking of a movie, where some scenes are simply action, others are geared more towards talking, but both serve to move the plot forward and keep the viewer interested. She says that in “all events, however inconsequential or otherwise as far as the characters are concerned, you will have created an opportunity to tell through your characters, overtly or by implication, some item of interest or importance to the story’s development and, therefore, to the reader.”
So, as you read fiction and revise your own, focus on how the dialogue moves the plot forward, both in the information that characters give and in the information they don’t give. Then begin focusing on how dialogue reveals character.
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