Dialog, Pure and Simple

How to structure real-life-like dialog in fiction...

New writers have difficulty structuring dialog in fiction that reflects the way we converse in real life. Of course, some writers who know what they're doing never intend to reflect real-life dialog, because they have a different tone and value they want to bring to dialog in fiction. But for the purpose of this post, I will talk solely about making fiction dialog realistic.

The three main parts of dialog:

1. What is said

2. Who said it

3. How it is said

There are other elements a writer can bring to her dialog, which includes descriptions and actions of the speaker and listener. These elements include both the speaker and listener's body language and facial expressions.

In fact, pure dialog can be merely what is said and who said it. "What is said" is the part of the dialog that is spoken by a character. "Who said it" is usually called the dialog tag.

But for our purpose we're going to discuss the best way to structure the main three elements: what is said, who said it, and how it is said.

Let me digress a moment and recall a skit from SNL, the scene is narrated by an off-camera speaker. This is not a discussion of dialog, but a discussion of syntax, the way the narrator structured a particular sentence, getting the simple elements of the sentence mis-arranged:

"She walked into the room carrying a silver flask wearing a red dress." The scene showed a woman come into a room, sure enough carrying a silver flask, but the flask was wearing the red dress, not the woman. This is a misplaced modifier, a problem of arrangement.

This is exactly one of the problems that new writers have with dialog structure.

John jumped back when she screamed, "Look out! A snake!"

Unrealistically speaking, John jumps back before she speaks and before he knows what she said; further, we are told how she says what she says before she says it. This disordered dialog also crushes the immediacy of the moment, which is what dialog in fiction should strive to present. The most powerful element of dialog is what is said. The other elements only enrich the dialog, make it clear who is speaking and how the characters are interacting beyond the spoken words.

Failing to make dialog and its parts realistic is a matter of misplaced modification.

The order of real-life conversation is always: what is said, who said it, and how it was said. In addition, listener reaction cannot take place, either, until someone says something.

"Look out! A snake!" she screamed, causing John to jump back. I caution against conflating dialog tags (he said, she said) with describing how something is said, as I did here. Nonetheless, this example illustrates my point. In real life, we don't know a person is going to speak until he does. We don't know how something is said, either, until we hear it.

What is said, who said it, how it is said. This is the most logical and realistic order in dialog. Are there exceptions from good writers to this "rule"? Sure, all the time, but good writers know what they're doing and where to draw the line. As one writer explained to me, in first person narrative, where the narrator is also a character in the book, the narrator/character already knows what was said, who said it, and how it was said. Fair point, but readers don't already know this, and to misplace the order of the three main elements of dialog is still to invite disaster or confusion, or to suck the life out of dialog.

The fourth element of dialog is how listeners react, both physically and verbally

In the re-ordered dialog above, "Look out! A snake!" she screamed, causing John to jump back, we see that as the listener, part of John's reaction is to physically move. But he can also speak in response. "Thanks for the warning, Sis. My head was in the clouds," John said. He watched the snake slithering across the road into the bushes. "I think that was just a garden snake." From here, you can see that the conversation can continue or stop, since the snake is gone and John and his sister can continue their walk—or whatever they were doing. New writers also have one of two tendencies when it comes to dialog and realism. They don't know when to stop the dialog or they try to keep it going and it deteriorates into predictable, unnecessary blab. 

So, now this brings up a necessary question. What is the function of dialog in fiction? Obviously one of the functions is to show characters talking as they would do in real life or in the movies. Novels are like movies, but they have to depend on words, alone to show the action, reveal how characters look and even how they sound.  So dialog provides conversations. But unlike real life, however, dialog in novels should always strive to be relevant to the unfolding story, to provide information in a way that mere description does not; it should not be mundane and meaningless blather, unless the author intends for the characters to be caught in a mundane moment, say, before something happens to shake them out of their doldrums. We can have  dialog about getting a pizza, but to make too much of that idea in dialog begins to kill the power of the story. Quickly move on. 

Also, realize that there are three kinds of dialog in fiction. One is the speech between characters and where we use quotation marks around each segment of what is said and dialog tags for who said it. This is spoken dialog. The second type of dialog is hearsay dialog and a single speaker might be telling of a conversation she has had with someone else..."And so Monica said 'Where do you get such ideas?' and I told her they just come from what I see around me." Notice that what Monica says within the character's recollection (hearsay) is within single quotation marks, and they are shown within the character's speech in the present by double quotation marks. The third type of dialog in a story is narrated dialog, where the narrator simply relates the substance of a conversation, without the formal dialog structure...like this:

John and Mary continued their walk around the edge of the cotton field and he confessed to her that snakes had always scared him on some deep level. But she quickly agreed and said her heart raced as soon as she saw the snake come out of the bushes and slither so close to John. They both laughed but with a slight note of hysteria from either of them.

Dialog punctuation

I don't want to get into the weeds about dialog punctuation, so I'm going to give very short examples and have you concentrate mainly on the marks of punctuation and how they occur in the sample. These marks of punctuation are double quotation marks ("..."), single quotation marks ('...'), comma and period placement in what is said, who said it, and how it is said. There will also be question marks and exclamation points and a few others marks. Read the sample, get the gist of the subject of the dialog, but really concentrate on the punctuation.

    "Hold up a minute, Bob!" Mark said. He spoke louder than normal because Bob was already moving down the street about to disappear around a corner. 

    Bob apparently heard him and stopped and turned. "Hey, Mark. What's up?" Bob said, looking just slightly curious. "I've got to meet Sally at the coffee shop in like five minutes. She told me this morning, 'don't be late, Bob, I'm on a short leash at work,' and of course I respect that, so what did you need?"

    "Miriam wants you and Sally to drop by tonight or tomorrow. Our daughter is in town with her new baby and she wants to show her off. She's leaving day after tomorrow, though, so this is kind of short notice. Can you two make it?" 

     "Sure, love to," Bob said, already beginning to move off. "I'll text you with the time. Probably tomorrow. Gotta run!"

Note in this sample that sentence end marks (periods, exclamation points, and question marks) go inside any quotation marks. In the second paragraph note that Bob is quoting Sally as he is speaking, and so what Sally says is in single quotation marks, because it is a quote, within a quote, like this: "...'...'..."

Oh...there are so many weeds that I could get into even in this simple example of dialog but I won't.

 Next time you read a novel, pay close attention to the dialog.

See if you can identify the elements of dialog (what is said, who said it, how it is said). Determine what order the writer has presented the dialog "syntax." In high school, I worked at an auto parts and tire store and one of my jobs was to mount tires on cars. For years afterward, I would walk down the street and take note of the condition of the tires on the parked cars, including tread depth, the wear pattern, and even the inflation level of the tires. This habit subsided over the years, but it's just the kind of attention you need to bring to your reading. In this case the elements of dialog.

This particular discussion of dialog did not talk about what makes good dialog or bad, other than the function of dialog in a story or a movie is to present relevant information, not useless chatter.

Here are some examples of both good and bad dialog from movies and why the dialog is as it is.