The Dance of Dialogue... Getting it Right.

It’s a pretty important aspect of writing fiction, but not everyone knows exactly how to format dialogue… or some of the nuances that come with dialogue.

If you read quite a bit, you might see experimentation with dialogue, like Cormac McCarthy not using quotation marks. (He can get away with that because he’s Cormac McCarthy).

What I want to present is a pretty standard, universally accepted way to format dialogue. I would also like to talk about the three types of dialogue… as well as what I call The Dance of Dialogue.

Maybe also talking about dialogue tags… when to use them and when not.

First of all: basic formatting.

Obviously, when a character speaks, the line is indented like a paragraph.

            “I’m going to go to the store,” Albert said.

Here’s the trick. Now Albert owns that indent. Only Albert can speak in that indent, and only Albert can act in that indent (all of this cuts down on confusion, too).

            “I’m going to go to the store,” Albert said. Jake nodded. “Ok,” he said.

This is wrong. Jake shouldn’t be nodding or speaking in Albert’s indent. Plus, the “he said” at the end is confusing. Is the “he” Albert or Jake?

You would format the above as follows:

            “I’m going to go to the store,” Albert said.

            Jake nodded. “Ok.”

In this instance, I also dropped the “he said”… because Jake owns the indent, it’s obvious he said it. It’s good to drop dialogue tags if you can.

So here’s a basic exchange:

            Albert walked into the room. Jake was sitting on the couch absently eating potato chips from a bag.

            “I’m going to go to the store, “ Albert said.

            Jake nodded. “Ok.”

            Albert crossed his arms. “Do you need anything?”

            Jake thought for a moment. Outside, the neighbor’s dogs started barking, and they were loud enough that neither man could speak for a moment.

            “No, I’m good,” Jake said.

            Albert nodded and walked out the door. The neighbor’s dogs started barking again.

Notice there’s a difference between a dialogue indent (where only the speaker can speak or act in it) versus a narrative paragraph indent (where multiple people--or even dogs--can act in it). A character only owns an indent, when it was an indent made so he/she could speak.

That’s the most basic aspect of dialogue formatting.

But, we must think about the three types of dialogue, which help add to the Dance of Dialogue.

Dialogue can be quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.

Quoted dialogue we all know: “It’s really hot today,” Susan said.

Paraphrased dialogue tends to be as long as quoted, but we are told what the character said rather than hearing it word for word: Susan commented on the day’s hot temperatures.

Summarized dialogue tends to … well, summarize a longer passage. Like:

Henry told Susan all the troubles he’d been through as a teenager.

Obviously, if that whole conversation were written out word for word, it might be pages. Maybe the reader is already aware of Henry’s troubles, and the author simply wants the reader to know that Henry has told Susan about them. (Certainly the reader wouldn’t want them repeated if we already know it).

Or, it could be used like this:

            For a half an hour, the salesman told Susan about all the benefits of the vacuum he was holding on her porch.

In this case, the reader probably doesn’t need to know the benefits (boring)… we really just need to know that Susan knows. It also says a lot about her character that she would listen to his whole pitch.

Your own dialogue should be a mix of paraphrase, quoted and summarized.

Finally, sometimes when we get our characters talking, we forget that there’s a visual and auditory (beyond hearing the dialogue) world we need to represent. I’m often telling my fiction students, “when your characters start talking, leave the camera on… that includes the mic.” You don’t want dialogue just falling down the page for long columns at a time. Mix in descriptions, actions (especially if those actions show how the character feels about the conversation), and sounds. All of this helps with the Dance of Dialogue.

Here’s a scene of dialogue that brings all of these elements together:

            Andy walked into the camp and found that the others had already gathered. Old Hank was there, and his wife Susan, and the cousins, Jacob and Henry.

            They greeted him, and they asked about his drive up.

            He filled them in on the boring details with the one little moment of excitement when he almost hit a deer. “Just jumped right out of the woods onto the road.”

            “When you get to be my age,” Old Hank said, “you get hundreds of near misses under your belt.” He looked ready to tell every story of deer in the road he knew.

            Susan put her hand on his shoulder. “We all know the stories, Dear.”

            Jacob laughed. “Good one, Mom. Dear… I mean.”

            She thought about what she’d said for a moment. Then she laughed. “I guess I’m most clever when I’m not trying.”

            Old Hank was staring at the table top. His leathery hands worried over each other. “Guess I’m not clever at all.”

            Susan squeezed his shoulder and told him to hush up.

            Outside, the river was murmuring past the cabin. A light breeze moved the branches of the weeping willow. One of the dogs ran up to the screen door, looked in, and wagged its tail. It just as soon ran off again.

            Susan asked Andy how Jessica was doing.

            I don’t even know, he thought. He didn’t know if it had been two weeks or three since she’d moved out. “She’s good. Working in her veggie garden a lot.”

            They looked at him with sympathetic smiles.

            They know, Andy thought. He looked toward the window out at the faded-gray tire swing still hanging from the oak tree. “She sends everyone a hello.”

            They asked that he send their greetings back.

            Outside the dogs started barking at something.

            Old Hank launched into a story about how the fishing was supposed to be really good this year. “DNR planted a bunch of rainbows in the river couple weeks back. They’ll be hungry and dumb by now.”

            “You just described me and Henry,” Jacob said, laughing. “Well, Henry, anyway. I’m just hungry.”

            Henry slugged him in the arm and told him to shut up.

            Susan walked over to the counter and started taking out slices of Spatz bread. “I’ll toast up some grilled cheese.”

            Old Hank looked at them all. “DNR planted a bunch of rainbows in the river couple weeks back. They’ll be hungry and dumb by now.”

            Jacob and Henry looked at their feet. Susan breathed in a long breath like a sigh through her nose.

            Andy patted the top of Hank’s hand on the table. “Sounds good, Uncle Hank.”

            “You boys will clean up!”

Hope that’s helpful!

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