If the reader skims the dialogue, thinking "blah,
blah, blah," you have created a plot hole. If you make the reader laugh out
loud or identify with the character or situation, you have them hooked. If your
dialogue achieves something, it is earning its page time.
In compelling dialogue, the course of conversation rarely
flows smoothly. Characters talk about things they shouldn’t, say things they
don’t mean, talk at cross purposes, try to shout each other down, wheedle,
plead, whine, bitch, mislead, and lie.
A conversation can reveal character. What they choose to
say and what they avoid saying speaks volumes. It reveals whether
they are patient and kind or brusque and cruel. A situation may force a naturally kind person to
be brutal or brusque, but they struggle with it.
A conversation can also bring a character back
down from a precipice of anger, frustration, depression, or jealousy. A friend
can calm and soothe and bank the fire.
Use dialogue conflicts to illustrate your protagonist’s progress toward and
away from his goal, to create conflict at scene level, and to reveal change.
Dialogue cues express how the dialogue was delivered. They impart dialect, inflection, pacing, pattern, pitch, quality, tone, and word choice. Over ninety percent of communication is nonverbal. When editing your dialogue, how your character speaks and reacts are as important as what comes out of his mouth.
Each main character should have unique speech patterns, dialects, tics, and word choice. If they are all from the same small town and share the same ethnicity, they will use the same slang, jargon, and colloquialisms. However, you can give each of them a unique voice through dialogue cues.
Is Jane breathy and timid? Is Dick commanding and confident? Is Sally glib and sarcastic?
Cadence is the rhythm of the words, the number of beats in a sentence, the modulation of a voice. Cadence can be soothing, like a poem about sunshine, or intentionally jarring. Shakespeare and Dr. Seuss used iambic pentameter as their cadence. Cadence is mixing long beats and short beats. Refer to the post on Sentence Structure.
Cadence is obvious when you listen to foreigners speak. Spanish is staccato. German is guttural. French and Italian sound fluid, even when you are being sworn at. Japanese and Chinese sound high and nasal. Hindu and Urdu sound lower and nasal. Swedish and Norwegian sound high and bouncy. English can be fast in New York or slow in New Orleans.
A foreigner speaking English
would use a different cadence than an American would. In some languages the
adjective comes after the word. Black cat in French is "le chat noir." "I cannot dance" in German is
"Ich tanzen nicht." The "nicht" would have guttural
emphasis and the modifier comes after the verb. A German unfamiliar with
English might struggle and say, "I dance not." A Frenchman might say,
"the problem impossible." Watch Agatha Christie's Poirot movies. The
actor, David Suchet (a Brit) does an amazing job with the cadence of Poirot's
Belgian-influenced English.
Dialects cue people in to geography. There
are northern, southern, mid-western, east coast and west coast dialects in the
US. There are dialects in every country across the globe. Characters living in
Wales are almost indecipherable to those living in London. Characters living in
Glasgow are indecipherable to those living in Edinburgh.
The debate is whether to spell the dialect phonetically or
not. This method was used liberally in the past. Try reading some of the
classics now, like Thomas Hardy. It is a hard slog for some. Phonetic dialogue
creates a speed bump. Used sparingly and judiciously, you might get away with
it. Write all dialogue this way and you lose your modern reader. It's much
better to illustrate the dialect with cadence, word order and inflection.
"I's got me some a dem," can come across as irritating. It is
better to write, "I got me some."
Dialect is reflected by word choice and word order. It is
more a reflection of education and exposure than demographic or geography.
Whether a character lives in New York or New Orleans, if they are educated they will use proper language more often than not. They may still use
colloquialisms, jargon, and slang, but they will "speak" properly.
There is nothing funnier than seeing a character on television speak properly
then dumb it down or turn on the accent for other characters. This device can
be used for comic effect. It can be used to show a character trying to
influence someone by talking like them. It can be used to illustrate one
character's contempt for another character.
Characters with limited education will use limited
vocabulary, and rely on slang and jargon more heavily. As a caution, dialect
done poorly can be insulting and you risk alienating readers.
You have to decide how sensitive or politically correct you want to be.
The more a character reads and exposes themselves to the
written word, the larger their vocabulary. The more they learn about through
reading or higher education, the easier it is for them to express sophisticated
thoughts. This does not mean their perspective on events will be broader or
free from prejudice. This means they are more likely to express their thoughts
eloquently and pull from resources to support their proposition or refute
someone else's. They may have to limit their word choice when dealing with
certain people. A character may be intellectually intelligent but practically
useless. A character may not be intellectually intelligent but extremely
"street" smart.
Next week, we look at Enunciation and Inflection
Further Reading:
Lying
