One of the things I struggle with the most is handling conversations with more than two characters. I can get a good cadence and flow going if it's one-on-one, but the more characters I include, the more trouble I have getting things to seem natural, especially if there's also action going on. And, as it happens, I've written myself into a scene with five freakin' characters, one of whom is holding two others at gunpoint, while the fourth is holding the fifth at gunpoint in the next room over, shouting back and forth with the first three characters. I'm finding it very, very difficult to write this scene, and could use some advice. Namely, if I need to or three characters to share several lines of dialogue, how do I make it so that the rest of the characters don't feel like they're idle video game NPCs waiting for their turn to talk?
I wouldn't worry about how the characters feel so long as the reader can follow the scene and the important points. Are you a Stephen King fan? If you've ever read It or The Stand there are several heavy action scenes (particularly in It where the seven kids are fighting the monster in two time lines 28 years apart) with six or seven characters in the mix and it flows just fine. I can't remember why exactly, but if you're a fan you might want to check those out again. In general, I've always used dialogue beats more when I have more than two characters speaking in a scene. It cuts down on the speaker attributes and allows for action and little reminders to slip into the flow. If you've got five I would route the POV firmly through one of them and just play off that. The readers won't need as many reminders of the other characters as you might expect. One or two in the whole scene should be sufficient.
I agree that this can feel awkward when you're writing it... but I'm not sure I have a solution to offer, other than to avoid these situations whenever possible, and charge through them when you have to. Not too useful, I know.
Usually I don't worry about it too much and don't write them moving (or their placement) unless they make an important move. I have an entire group of smugglers talking in one of my books but it only focused mainly on the dialog.
Okay, so I actually went back to skim the dialogue heavy portions of an old project (6 years ago I think?) where I had 5-7 main characters who were generally all together as one large group, or else randomly splintered into various smaller groups. I knew that work had lots of multi-character conversations, and while I wouldn't hold it up as a gleaming example to the masses for emulation, these are the few techniques I used that seemed to've worked somewhat: Lots of beats for the various characters (clearly naming the individual performing the actions). An occasional tag, but the ones more tag heavy felt a bit grating (at least from my quick scan). I also would have the speaking character include the addressed character's name, if it wasn't meant openly towards the entire present party. Character A demands "Character B, why do you always have to be like that?" If the same two previously identified characters are just playing off each other for a bit— back & forth & back & forth again—I started to ignore any identification (unless an actual character action or reaction is necessary). So if Character A speaks, Character B responds, (Character A), (Character B) et cetera—I leave the parenthetical dialogues as their own individual island paragraphs without reaffirming the two speakers. I simply rely on the built up rhythm and the character's established voice—what they say, how the say, etc—for distinction. I only go back to beats & tags if a new character jumps in. Then it goes Character C interrupts, Character B responds, Character C, (Character B), (Character C). . . But if three or more are all actively speaking, then there is always something present to identify who is speaking. Character A, Character B, Character C, Character B, Character A, et cetera And lastly, I never wrote more than a few sentences of dialogue for each character, often less—with the occasional exception of POV character or if there was actually something important & detailed needing discussion. The rhythm works better with quick, direct/efficient responses, but long tirades bog the flow down & can make it more difficult to follow. Hopefully this helps
