Dialogue is a part of nearly all books, whether it’s quotes and references in nonfiction or speech in novels. Relying on its strengths only goes so far in a good book. Too much dialogue takes the focus away from the storytelling or reporting in nonfiction. Confident authors know how soon they should introduce a narrator’s voice, even if it’s summary and setup from the book’s protagonist
So when you use dialogue judiciously, you’re throwing a spotlight on the most meaningful moments of a tale. Descriptions, motivations, inner thoughts not expressed in dialogue, plus exposition wrap themselves around dialogue.
Former agent and now editor Nathan Bransford summed up the best of dialogue’s virtues. He calls it “an escalating joust between characters with competing interests.” Readers learn about those interests during a dialogue exchange, but at the same time we don’t get a report about things both characters should know already.
You avoid giving your characters leading questions to ask, just so you relate the baldfaced exposition that delivers context. Let your narrator do that work. In the movie Adaptation, the screenwriting guru chides his students, “No f-ing exposition in dialogue!” Be bold and find a way to show and tell us what builds up the context.
In style, dialogue lives on the word “said” as a default. But you can slip in a bellow, whine, or wheedle once in awhile. Set these tags early in a speech, or even before it. Look for a place where a character would take a breath, if you’re inserting the tag inside the line.
Dialogue should show us people trying to get what they want using words. They should always have an angle. Watch out for too much banter. Characters can be witty and reveal themselves, but it’s easy to believe too much in the charms of conversational exchange. Stay away from long sentences. Make sentence fragments a regular habit for your speakers.
Things should get worse or more complex to help dialogue escalate a situation. Without something important at stake, dialogue leans hard into chit-chat. The meter is running while characters are speaking, whether it’s a memoir or a novel or even nonfiction that references other experts.
Dialogue is powerful because it conveys drama and gravitas. When it’s all over a story, though, it runs roughshod over context. Make your dialogue serve the drama, letting the expertise of the narrator deliver the meaning
