Dialogue serves three main purposes.
- Show character.
- Advance action.
- Bring in relevant information to avoid long passages of narrative. (Avoid explaining too much in dialogue, though. That can become as tedious as over-long narrative.)
In a novel for children, where every word must do double or
even triple duty, dialogue becomes even more important.
Children's speech is affected by the same factors that affect
adults' speech--background, age, sex, the person to whom they're
talking, and (in the case of teens), whom they're trying to
impress.
The conversation of small children is unconnected, painfully
honest, and wonderfully surprising. They have no need or desire to
impress anyone.
Teens talk much differently to their peers than they do to
their parents or teachers. They frequently have a subtext to their
words.
One thing I don't recommend is trying to use the latest slang
when writing young people's dialogue. The words current right now
will probably disappear before your book is published. Nothing
dates a book so quickly as yesterday's slang. Better to stick with
less exciting but more conventional words that won't scream 2004
or, worse, 1954, unless, of course, that's your goal.
Children have their own kind of short-hand in speaking.
Contrary to popular opinion, (started, I believe, by people who
have no children), children don't speak "cute." Any self-
respecting child would be insulted to hear his speech labeled as
such. Children's speech is to-the-point, funny, often irrelevant,
not to mention irreverent. Use their dialogue just as you would
that of an adult character.
Just make sure that it is children's dialogue. Children are
not miniature adults. They are children. Let us hear their
voices, not what you think children should say or how they should
say it. If you don't have any children underfoot, go to a
playground and listen or volunteer at the local elementary school.
Really listen to endless questions, the abrupt change of topics,
the unmatched humor of children talking to each other.
Then go home and write that.
The Do's and Don't's of Dialogue
Don't's
Don'ts
- Don't have conversations taking place in a vacuum. Show the
setting, weave in the details of where the dialogue is taking
place.
-
- Don't have invisible people talking. Let us see the
characters as they are speaking.
- Don't use inappropriate tags: i.e. People don't smile, shrug,
or smirk remarks. Neither do they beam, seethe, or laugh
their words. Compare "'You're crazy,' Joe said and laughed."
to "'You're crazy,' Joe laughed." The first reads much
smoother.
- Don't be afraid to use said and asked. They disappear into
the background.
- Don't attempt to duplicate regional dialect or foreign
dialogue. It makes for awkward reading and may turn off your
reader completely.
- Don't use dialogue to teach or preach to the reader. Don't
let one character use speech to explain something that another
character would reasonably know already.
- Don't use adverbs to describe a character's speech; i.e. she
said softly, he shouted loudly, etc. Let the dialogue itself
give emotion.
- Don't forget the use of silence in language.
Do's:
- Do listen to the way children talk with each other.
- Do match the dialogue to the character speaking it. Check
length of sentences and vocabulary to be true to character,
education and age.
- Do give your characters something important to say. The
weather (unless it affects the plot in a major way) is dull.
- Do cue the speeches to the speakers. Have you ever had to go
back through a conversation and count whose turn it was to
talk? It interrupts the story and diverts your attention from
the action.
- Do keep most of your dialogue short. Long paragraphs of
dialogue are just as unappealing as long passages of
description. As a general rule, short speeches begin the
scene and get longer.
- Do fit dialogue to action. Short, snappy sentences fit fast-
paced action; longer sentences slow the pacing and give time
for reflection.
- Do read your dialogue aloud. Better yet, have someone else
read it while you listen. Pay attention to syntax, rhythm,
word choice.
- Do use dialect and foreign phrases sparingly. Even something
as small as a "Si," or a "Merci" can flavor a scene and give
information about the character.
- Do master the mechanics of punctuation. Periods, commas,
question marks, and exclamation points go inside double
quotation marks. A quote within a quote uses single quotation
marks.
- Do allow three lines of dialogue per character before another
character speaks or action is inserted.
- Do have one computer screen of dialogue between tags.
- Do give each character a pet phrase, then use with discretion.
Determine How Well Your Dialogue Stacks Up Against These Fifteen Tips:
- In modern novels 20% - 60% of a manuscript should be dialogue.
- Dialogue should do one or both of two things: give insight
into character; move the action forward.
- "Said" is better than a more jarring tag (interjected,
capitulated, acquiesced) and is invisible.
- Short speeches begin the scene and get longer.
- As a general rule, allow three lines of dialogue per character
before another character speaks or action is inserted.
- Allow one computer screen of dialogue between tags.
- Use action to identify the speaker; i.e. Meg twisted the strap
of her backpack in her hands and said, "You forgot our date
last night."
- Use adverbs with caution. Mark Twain's advice of "If you see
an adverb, kill it" holds true today.
- Remember that children use speech to do different things than
do adults.
- Consider giving characters a pet phrase.
- Check length of sentences and vocabulary to be true to the
character's background, education, and age.
- Use dialect sparingly. Don't let it make your writing
incomprehensible. (A few dropped g's go a long way.)
- Don't forget the use of silence in language.
- Always consider subtext (what else is going on between
characters, dialogue may emphasize that).
- Listen to your characters. If you have drawn them with
insight and accuracy, they may well do their own "talking."
