McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Dialogue - Observations and Thoughts...

<< < (2/2)

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: Sara Dennis on February 02, 2007, 04:18:23 PM ---
--- Quote from: Kali on February 02, 2007, 11:35:13 AM ---:
 - And the oldest saw of all when it comes to writing dialogue, read it out loud.  Listen to yourself say the words.  Do you sound like you wanted the character to sound?

--- End quote ---

This is the gem of all gems. Do this. You may feel like a fool for reading out loud, but it's so important. If you trip over words or feel like there are too many syllables for the situation, odds are good the reader will too.

--- End quote ---

On the other hand, you can overdo this.

Try taping [ or otherwise recording, yeef, my age is showing - see, clue about character in casual dialogue right there in in a single word use ] casual conversation with real people, and then play it back and listen to it. It will be full of umms and ahs and pauses and repetitions and sentence fragments and the general cumulative effect, while perfectly comprehensible spoken, is unlikely to be something that, if it were transcribed accurately, any reader could bear with for any length of time.

Speech and written dialogue are not exactly the same thing.

( This is presuming that you're not actually writing for the stage, or some context where it is all going to be spoken; of that I have no experience, and on it I have no opinions worth the sharing. )

Sara Dennis:

--- Quote from: neurovore on February 02, 2007, 09:51:52 PM ---On the other hand, you can overdo this.

Try taping [ or otherwise recording, yeef, my age is showing - see, clue about character in casual dialogue right there in in a single word use ] casual conversation with real people, and then play it back and listen to it. It will be full of umms and ahs and pauses and repetitions and sentence fragments and the general cumulative effect, while perfectly comprehensible spoken, is unlikely to be something that, if it were transcribed accurately, any reader could bear with for any length of time.

--- End quote ---

You're right. Casual, unplanned conversation usually does have pauses and such. What we were suggesting is to read your own writing out loud. If you haven't put a lot of pauses and ums on the page, this shouldn't be an issue. :)

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page