Mississauga Writers Group
June 2015
A Thing of Bits & Pieces
Dialogue – Keep It Natural –
Almost
Dialogue is neither all natural, nor is it necessarily
grammatically correct. To understand this, try an experiment.
Make a recording of a couple of friends having a conversation
(unknown to them), then transcribe it. If you can make sense of
it I’ll be surprised. Next try writing it out in a grammatically
correct style. (It’ll probably come out as boring.) So, take the
middle path. He said, she said is probably all you’ll need.
Make each character have a voice that’s recognisable without
using names.
‘Verbal’ as opposed to written dialogue is as much about
gestures and expressions as the actual words. “He, like, you
see, said he’d, like ...” ‘Written’ dialogue has to be much more
carefully crafted to make sense, identify who’s speaking, and
yet keep it natural.
Too many beginning writers come across as if they’ve
swallowed not just a thesaurus, but a whole damned
dictionary. Never use three words where two will do. Keep
words to three syllables (not always possible, but worth trying).
Don’t use words your character would not use. Winston
Churchill gave an example when he said someone in the British
parliament had told a terminologicalinexactitude – he meant a
lie, but parliamentary procedure forbade the word.
Sure, grammar is important; but its importance pales when we
get into to written dialogue. All those things you were taught
to avoid, like split infinitives, dangling participles, sentences
ending with a preposition, and all the rest of them are fine if
you’re writing a professional paper, and should be
By: Nicholas Boving
Author of the "Maxim Gunn" and
"Frances West" series of
action/adventure books.