Writing a conversation

Dialogue tags aren't necessary all the time, unless the conversation involves more than two characters. Just remember that when the speaker changes, new paragraph. Every so often, identify one of the speakers with a dialogue tag, or some action where the character's name is mentioned in that paragraph.

Liberal Feminist Hippie

I tend to use tags only as needed to prevent confusing the reader. If you make each character's speech individual enough, you shouldn't have to use them every time.

/You said: I also tend to use it more if I'm adding an action with the conversation. For example, "I can't see you doing that." she said with wide eyes, and a small chuckle./

You could also do it like this:

"I can't see you doing that." Eyes wide, she chuckled.

Most of the time, if you're adding a bit of "business" (laughing, smoking, whatever), you can dispense with the dialogue tag.

Yes, you can readily do things like,

Bob looked up from his newspaper. "What are you doing?"

Also, if it's a conversation between only two people, you don't need to tag every single line, if any at all aside from establishing who's in the scene, if it's clear from context or speech style who is talking. Remember that the "rules" they teach in elementary school are rarely hard, fast rules when you come to the world of novels -- any of them, in fact.

You can break any "rule" you want so long as you know what the rule is and have a good reason for breaking it. There's some published novels out there whose styles would make people trying to teach "proper" grammar and style flinch. (Actually, "Finnegan's Wake" makes _me_ flinch too, but that has nothing to do with the style but the fact that I can't understand more than 2 words in a row of it. ;P)

Title: Breaking Light
Goal: Finishing this novel. (Probably be 100k-120k at this rate.)
Sanity level: Do you even need to ask?

You don't always have to use a tag within the dialogue. You can identify the character and further the plot by writing movement and description in place of a "he said" or "she said."

"I'm excited about NaNoWriMo this year," the female MC chattered to her love interest. "I do it every year!"

"Do you?" He moved closer, not taking his eyes off of hers.

"Yeah! Fifty thousand words is a breeze! This year I'm going for seventy-five!"

The first line offers who is speaking, and who she is speaking to. In the second line, it doesn't say that the second character /said/ the line, but it furthers the scene by giving him an action. In the last line, you're left to assume that it's the female MC again, despite the fact that she is neither referenced nor given action.

Remember, when was the last time anything important happened in a scene of just dialogue? Generally you need some sort of movement in order to further the plot or theme.

[Also, I apologize for the sucky scene. Snapshot of life with a boyfriend who just doesn't understand.]

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"NaNoWriMo spares us from three evils; boredom, laziness and free time."
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Also keep in mind that when using dialog tags, the word said is usually the better choice then shouted, laughed or other actions. The word said blends into the background, other tags stick out more and that's not usually a good thing for a dialog tag.

Agree with Ghostmouse there, don't strain for alternatives to said. Ones like shouted and whispered are okay to use to say establish that the two folks hiding in the closet from the killer are whispering. But you only need to use it at the start to let us know they are whispering and then you can use said later, since the reader will assume they are still whispering. I also prefer yelled or shouted to "said loudly", or whispered to "said quietly". It's like, why say "young cat" when you can say "kitten"? Of course, this is NaNoWriMo, where word count is king. :D

Also, be careful of things like "No chance," she laughed. Or "Yeah right!" he snorted. Unless you have very special talents you can't actually laugh or snort words. Use only said or things that desribe actual speaking in those situations.

I'm kind of wobbly on "asked". "Are you hung over?" Jack asked. is perfectly legitimate, and yet feels redundent to me. We know he asked, that's why there was a question mark. But that may be personal preference.

A good rule of thumb is that if when you read back through it you get confused by which character is speaking, you need to establish it again. Particularly if you slip up and have the same character speaking twice in a row and realise that nothing happened in between
Although if you've got more than 2 characters talking it gets confusing, because you don't talk one after another in turns, sometimes two people dominate a conversation, the other listen but still participate occasionally. So unless you establish a back and forth dialogue between two people and mention that other characters sat and listened, you've probably going to have to label every line of speech.
I find that two characters of the same sex get confusing too, because 'she said' doesn't tell the characters apart.
In saying that, I find conversation easier to write than actions, simply because conversation doesn't have to follow rules. People can stop mid-sentence, wander off on a tangent, use jargon and slang and are often grammatically incorrect.

Pervert's Paradise- the sequel (yeah, it's a working title)

Thanks everyone. I guess my response got lost when the database crashed. But I thank you all for the input. This isn't for my Nano but for a piece of fan fiction I'm writing. I don't usually write fic, but I just wanted to get into the writing mood again before November.

Nicole

Agreed.

"Said" is a perfectly good dialogue tag.
"Asked", after a question mark, is redundant.
Avoid over-use of adverbs (the dreaded -ly is a sure sign).
Dialogue should only be used to move the plot along or to develop character. It should not be chatty; written dialogue can only be included if it is useful to the reader.

If you add stage directions to your dialogue, they will help make who is speaking, clear. They will break up the sentence patterns on the page, and help put the reader in the scene. They can even help move the plot along. Have your characters pick up props unique to them, move in ways suitable to them, say what only they would say. Mix the point of view character's feelings in with the dialogue and action.

"Jeanie, what are you doing here?" Keith stepped back from the door and let her in.

Jean's perfume preceeded her into the room. "I couldn't sleep." She pulled a short red bathrobe tighter around her chest. "Could you come over, check the house like you used to? Remember?" Her pink-lacquered nails, chipped along the edges, caught the light of the bare bulb over their heads.

Keith stuck his head out the doorway but saw nothing except grey, wet lawn, and shadows stretching into the trees. He closed the door and turned to face her.

Before he could react, she tossed both arms around him. "I miss you." Her hair, stiff with layers of old mousse, smelling of cheap cologne and too much time since its last pass under a shower, settled against his lips. "Come over, can't you? We'll play games, just like before. You can be a policeman, I'll be the scared babysitter. Or do you want to break in, tie me up, pretend to rob the place?" She smacked her lips, a wet sound that echoed around the log walls of the one-room guesthouse.

Nausea settled in the back of his throat. He reached up and pulled her hands off the back of his neck. "You still like your fun, don't you babe? I enjoyed it too." She made a happy animal sound against his chest. "But that was over ten years ago, before you married Hugo." He pushed her away, not caring where she landed or if he hurt her.

And etc.

"Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing."
- Margaret Chittenden

I've gone and forth on this over the years as a result of reading and picking up tips from authors I enjoy and admire, and I think I'm kind of settled in my style now.

You don't need dialogue tags all the time by any means. Personally I think a he said/she said/he said/she said is repetitive and off putting (I try to avoid repeating words (outside of the speech itself)) too closely together anyway.

You can go with a back and forth without tags for as much as half a page BUT the reader has to have some grounding. If the point of view or argument makes it obvious who is who then you can go for longer without a prompt than you can if the reader has no way to know which is which.

Then I'd definitely agree with prior posters that you can mix it up and write other actions as the identifier.

At the moment I would say that in a solid page of 2 person conversation/reactions about 50% of the lines don't get tagged at all, 25% get a he said/she said and the remainder get tagged in some other way - reactions etc.

As long as you are consistent and take care around conversations between people of the same gender it doesn't really matter.

Colbane

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2007 - Starlight - Completed
2008 - Out Front - Completed
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Personally, I doubt any sane reader would kill you, or even notice, if you used the word "asked", no matter how redundant. ;)

And the last bit is a pretty bad thing to say, especially for nano. :) I like to let my characters chat all they like, because frankly, I don't know beforehand if they're going to wind up saying anything useful or not! And if not, you can always cut it out in December if you like.

If you go around saying "You should only do this" "You can only do that", somebody's going to come along and decide to write their nano as entirely a group of characters chattering about nothing, with absolutely no plot whatsoever.

Title: Breaking Light
Goal: Finishing this novel. (Probably be 100k-120k at this rate.)
Sanity level: Do you even need to ask?

A novel cannot, of course, be one long conversation and expect to sell. (Although, this has happened.) On the other hand, I enjoy a story because of the characters, and that means dialouge is key, not a distraction, in my view.

"I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul."

"should" really isn't a word I would use to describe ANY writing rule.

There are always conventions... but any writer can use or break them as they please. Now, granted, if you want to flout the conventions, you need to be GOOD at what you're doing... and have a reason for doing so. But don't listen when someone says "you should do this" or "you shouldn't do that".

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Heather Dudley
Forums Moderator - Broke? You can still donate!
Couldn't verify your winning novel? Contact the general hotline for help.

I agree.

First and foremost, I write for my own enjoyment. If others happen to find enjoyment in said writings, then that is wonderful. My advice to other writers, especially younger writers (as I mentor teens), is to right what you enjoy and discover your own writing style. All of us are different.

For example: I, personally, do not see anything wrong with using words other than "said" occasionally. When I read books that use only "said", instead of blending in with the rest of the story, as someone mentioned, I find the repetition irritating. English has one of the most extensive and beautiful vocabularies of any language in the world, yet we barely use any of it.

Ordered. Pleaded. Snapped. Advised. Remarked. Challenged. Mumbled. Cried. Exaggerated. All of these and more can add the right tone to your dialogue that "said" cannot. Granted, going overboard can be just as distracting to certain Readers, but you cannot please everyone. Write what you like first, and worry about potential Readers later. ;)

~Jacquelyn

Agreed, the whole point of NaNo is to learn to push out words without pausing to wonder how good the writing might be. My mantra: It's a draft, keep going; it's a draft, keep typing...

Quantity over quality, at least for the month.

Since the poster said this question was not for her NaNo, my earlier response addressed quality, not quantity, of dialogue.

Because my training is in short story, on rewrite every word must justify its existence or it gets cut. I write with the reader in mind. So even if one of my sentences is the best thing I have ever written -- beautiful, perfect, glowing on the page -- if it doesn't forward the story, it's out.

I'm not into writing to massage my ego, I do it to tell a story. (Well, most of the time. :)) My ego disappears when I'm telling the story, doing it right. That's the juice of it.

"Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing."
- Margaret Chittenden

"Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing."
- Margaret Chittenden

I absolutely and utterly disagree. If dialogue always has a direction it is going towards, then you will have paper-thin characters, who will have so little depth they'd make a puddle look like an ocean.

I get the majority of my wit, even in the most dire situations, through controlling the flow of dialogue with pauses, um's and ahs, and characters mishearing each other. And so on, there's many ways to make characters feel awkward, and my dialogue is far and away the best aspect of my writing.
Of course, this is about as overtly British as I could possibly be, and since going to the US over the summer I'm aware very little in this style exists over there - even though the nice folk I met grew to love my awkward writing. Cultural difference, I suppose.

Back to the original question, how much should 'said' be said? Well, as I mentioned, my conversation regularly is broken up with pauses;
"Um, I've got something to tell you." Bill paused. "Actually, maybe later."

It identifies the character and controls the flow of speech nicely, isn't that great?

I found a short story I wrote recently that has 29 lines of speech without the narrator naming a character; in fact, the narrator only makes two very brief notes. Frankly, the more you can get away with the better, as long as the reader doesn't get confused.
Leading by example, some minor self-promotion.

Well, by chatty I generally mean about subjects that have no relation to the plot, or just having several lines of error in conversation when one has to try and explain how he or she managed to confuse something another character said. Words for the sake of words wasn't what I meant either.
I'm just testing here really, seeing if your situation is possible to make worthwhile:-

Sue drifted around the tables with the tea tray.
"More tea, Vicar?"
"Yes, thank you Mary."
"Actually, I'm Sue. You're thinking of my sister."
"Oh." The Vicar looked down. "Sorry, I'm always doing that."
"Sugar?"
"No thanks, it makes me shaky. Thanks, though."
"Biscuit?"
He looked up to meet her eyes. "Ehh. I'm tempted."
"Go on, have one. It won't kill you, will it?"
The Vicar tried to laugh, but struggled. "I shouldn't, really."
"Are you sure?" The last syllable was stretched, egging him on.
"No. No thankyou."
"Really?"
"Mhmm." The Vicar looked back to his shirt cuffs.
Sue hovered over him, unsure what to do.
"Uh. Bye then."
"Bye, Sue."
"Bye."
"Yep, bye."
Sue took the hint and moved on.

You gave me one of the most mundane situations possible, but that's still all adding depth to the characters. I'm not perfect at separating the two, they both have quite similar speech here, but generally it's still beneficial for longer stories. Even moreso if your characters have different (or better still, clashing) personalities.
Though that was all for the sake of trying to prove a point, for the most part I'd say that speech should have some content, not just one character offering another tea. Having something worth talking about is different to having something that aids the plot - a favourite trick of mine is to basically write up a debate I've heard both sides of (political or philosophical) that has sod-all relevance to the plot, just something that the characters happen to be talking about.

Oh, and something else that happens almost every conversation is interruptions. I love it when characters interrupt each other even close to as much as people do in real life.