Making conversation
What’s a story or novel without scenes?
Scenes involve us directly in characters’ lives and, when handled adeptly, provide dramatic intensity. If the prose writing is stellar, we will certainly be hooked by expository sections that dive deeply into a character’s head, and we’ll be enamored of descriptive passages that vividly capture setting. But good scenes tend to hook us even more. Through them, we can gain a sense of felt life played out in the theater of our mind.
Oftentimes scenes are heavy with dialogue – and so much depends on the quality of this dialogue. Richard Russo has said, “What comes easiest for me is dialogue. Sometimes when my characters are speaking to me, I have to slow them down so that I’m not simply taking dictation.”
But this certainly isn’t the case for every writer. Sometimes dialogue doesn’t come so easily.
How do you involve your readers so that they’re enlivened by your dialogue and not dulled out? What does it take? How do you go about drafting your dialogue – and revising it, too? We turned to several seasoned fiction writers for their advice on these issues and more.
Recognizing good dialogue
What are some qualities of good dialogue? Are there certain consistent features and things to keep in mind to avoid bad dialogue? One key feature is surely the revelation of character.
Good dialogue entertains, states Peter Selgin, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. It must also convey character. “It does so mainly through wit, which one dictionary describes as ‘a natural aptitude for using words and ideas in a quick and inventive way to create humor.’”
It’s not that all characters need to be funny, says Selgin, “but through its brevity – which, as they say, is the soul of wit – good dialogue displays the quickness of our characters’ minds.” Yet it can also do the opposite: “It may suggest a sluggish, hackneyed, or dull disposition, which
