Talkies

It’s Friday! Hooray! The weekend starts now!

I think I’ll use this time to take a nap.

But before I can do that, I have to actually talk to you about today’s topic. Of course I do. Otherwise, what would be the point of writing this?

I think it might be an existential sort of day.

So, why do we need…

Dialogue?

Obviously, I’m talking about talking. The sort of talking that happens between characters, whether it be in a short story or a novel, it’s always an important feature, and it’s always something that I look out for, no matter what hat I’m wearing that day.

From the point of view of a reader…

Bad dialogue can and will make me put a book down. It really will. It saddens me to say that, but I really don’t like it when the words don’t make sense or it’s hard to understand what’s going on because of poorly formatted or badly written dialogue. I won’t tell you how many books I’ve put down because of this, but I will tell you that the number is very large… and that those books were either returned or sold. We don’t want that to happen to our books, do we? Dialogue needs to be something that’s interspersed. Monologues are boring, and I’ll lose interest pretty quickly. It’s something that should be mixed into the exposition, little golden nuggets that I need to find in order to make sense of what’s really going on. And that’s the really fun part about good dialogue. Good dialogue is the sort that’s sure to always make me learn something about the story, rather than be distracted from it.

From the point of view of a writer…

Dialogue has always been one of those things that I really enjoy writing. I’ve not always been amazing at it, but I’ve always had a lot of fun when I write it. I do use one specific rule, when I’m writing it. It’s probably one you’ve heard before. You need to read your dialogue out loud. Get a couple of friends to act it out, if that’s easier. But you need to hear it said aloud, to figure out what you’re doing wrong. Let’s face it, we’re all doing something wrong when it comes to dialogue. It’s just one of those things that’s ridiculously hard to write—but it’s also one of those things that draws readers into the story, nearly instantly. Even if your exposition is only okay, dialogue can save your story and make it something readers will crave. So, we need to get better at it. All of us.

From the point of view of an editor…

When I’m reading a manuscript, I’m looking for dialogue that sounds like people would actually say it. That tends to be the biggest problem writers have with dialogue, that they don’t think about whether an actual person would say these words, aloud. So, that’s what I look for. If your dialogue writing skills are very poor, it will negatively color how any editor perceives your writing skills. Even if the story is great, poor dialogue means I’ll have to go through and rewrite each and every sentence in that dialogue—and that’s not something I really want to do. If you want to have a manuscript that catches the eye of every editor, make sure your dialogue is as close to on point as you know how to make it. That’s probably the best piece of advice I can give you.

Next week, we’re taking a break from this series to read some excerpts, watch some videos, and have some great giveaways in celebration of the Dwr release, next Tuesday! Don’t forget to stop in on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and take your chance to win free copies of the Druid Novels!

[love]

{Rani Divine}

p.s. I just noticed that my post from Monday, "Grand," is now my most highly viewed post in the history of Too Many Books To Count... thank you all so much for reading it, for supporting me and my family, and for wanting to know about my amazing grandmother. I love her dearly, and I so look forward to a big hug, when I finally get to where she is.