Let's talk about dialogue, but let's do it via blog so it's written. {Yes, I'm smugly amused with my witty self right now. Yes, please join me in the giggles.}
We know that in most cases we should avoid the opening
pleasantries as they are wasted space when something like ‘after the formal
introductions, I said…’ can skip us ahead to more active and engaging things.
EXAMPLE A 74 words
The phone rang. I
answered. “Hello?”
“Hello Jack, it’s
Barry. How are you?”
“Fine, and you?”
“Good, good. Thanks
for asking. How’s Mary and the kids?”
“Well, Matthew's in track this year. Does a mile in three minutes and works weekends at the grocery. Mark is in gifted classes for science and chemistry and works for old Mac at the tractor supply. Mary...she's a moody bitch anymore but she's healthy as a horse.”
There is nothing technically wrong with this. Aesthetically,
though…it’s flat and boring as information conveyance goes. (Except that last line, right?) If you're showing a flat and boring character, this could do it, but there are surely better ways to do that as well.
EXAMPLE B 43 better words
The phone rang. It was
my old friend Barry. He didn’t call often and when he did it was never just to shoot
the shit. After the usual droll conversation starters, a silence lingered. It wasn't like him. I
dug in. “What’s wrong?”
You know more from Example B than you do from A, and in fewer words.
TRUTH:
The common
scripts
we recite to each other
on a regular basis are
beyond boring in our fiction.
That above section aims to minimize unnecessary words. The flip
side, below, is dialogue that maximizes each word to become more than the sum of it's parts.
“Oh, I think not,”
Varys said, swirling the wine in his cup. “Power is a curious thing, my lord.
Perchance you have considered the riddle I posed you that day in the inn?”
“It has crossed my
mind a time or two,” Tyrion admitted. “The king, the priest, the rich man—who
lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey? It’s a riddle without an
answer, or rather, too many answers. All depends on the man with the sword.”
“And yet he is no
one,” Varys said. “He has neither crown nor gold nor favor of the gods, only a
piece of pointed steel.”
“That piece of steel
is the power of life and death.”
“Just so… yet if it
is the swordsmen who rule us in truth, why do we pretend our kings hold the
power? Why should a strong man with a sword ever obey a child king like
Joffrey, or a wine-sodden oaf like his father?”
“Because these child
kings and drunken oafs can call other strong men, with other swords.”
“Then these other
swordsmen have the true power. Or do they?” Varys smiled. “Some say knowledge
is power. Some tell us that all power comes from the gods. Others say it
derives from law. Yet that day on the steps of Baelor’s Sept, our godly High
Septon and the lawful Queen Regent and your ever-so-knowledgeable servant were
as powerless as any cobbler or cooper in the crowd. Who truly killed Eddard
Stark, do you think? Joffrey, who gave the command? Ser Ilyn Payne, who swung
the sword? Or… another?”
Tyrion cocked his
head sideways. “Did you mean to answer your damned riddle, or only to make my
head ache worse?”
Varys smiled. “Here,
then. Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less.”
“So power is a
mummer’s trick?”
“A shadow on the
wall,” Varys murmured, “yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can
cast a very large shadow.”
Tyrion smiled. “Lord
Varys, I am growing strangely fond of you. I may kill you yet, but I think I’d
feel sad about it.”
“I will take that as
high praise.”
--A Clash of Kings, George R.R.
Martin
Now there
is dialogue that makes you pay attention, makes you think, and gives you cause
to worry. Dialogue that is rich. Engaging. Conveying not only information, but
sentiment, character, and a sense of place.
This sharpness is not achieved in a first draft. The gist of the conversation, yes. The mood, bits of setting, too, perhaps. But this kind of discussion is honed on the whetstone of understanding that the author has for the motives of these two characters {far deeper than pals checking in...} and crafts those words to achieve the purpose of the scene.
I humbly submit the following excerpt from my novel Vicious Circle (Persephone Alcmedi #1) for you to judge the dialogue:
My gut was twisting with guilt and realizations I didn’t want.
Realizations I had to face, regardless. “I agreed to take Vivian’s money and dole
out the justice that other humans won’t.”
Silence. Then, “Your hands are shaking.”
“I think my victim may be a Council member. A High Elder or
maybe someone protected by one.”
Amenemhab cocked his head. “Victim? Don’t you mean ‘target’ or
‘mark’?”
Wasn’t he going to
lecture me about the Rede? “Whatever. I may be
writing my own death warrant.”
“Your fear, at least, is justified. Your pain, however, confuses
me. It is not all pain for Lorrie’s death and Beverley’s loss. You also feel
pain for yourself.”
I stood, wiped my damp palms on my jeans, and wrapped my arms
around myself. “Nana has a saying: ‘Once is a mistake, but twice is a habit.’
I’ve never had much use for most of her sayings, but this one . . . this one hurts.”
“Why?”
He knew I’d killed a man before. On accident. This was
different. I stared across the field, not wanting to face him. “I’m mentally
trying to justify this, but I know that worming my way around the Rede is
wrong.”
“Persephone. You are overthinking. If all this is true, if he
has killed, then he has already broken the Rede.”
“Me breaking it back in retaliation isn’t right.”
“And what if you are not acting out of vengeance, as the word
‘retaliate’ suggests, but as an instrument of justice?”
I squinted. “Mind-set does not change the action.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No matter how much I validate this situation, no matter how
much this guy deserves it, I’ve allowed myself to become an assassin. Even
before the deed is done, the intent to do it brands me.” My hands fell limp and
empty at my sides. “That’s not who I ever wanted to be.”
The jackal rose too. “The flower sprouts up from the ground when
the sun and the rain give the seeds cause to grow. In the right environment, the
stem will grow strong and produce a bud that will bloom when the time is right.
A rose is a rose, Persephone, and a lily is a lily. They do not choose what
color they are or what their petals will look like; they are what their roots
have made them. And they can be nothing else.”
