I've noticed that in writing the drafted chapters (I'm only at the drafting stage) of my novel, there is a lot more first person narrative than there are scenes where my protagonist is actually speaking in conversations. The chapters so far don't have a lot of back and forth dialogue between characters, more of paraphrasing what the protagonist has spoken with them about. Is this okay? How little is too little when it comes to speech? My chapters are about 4000 words so far in the draft, and probably 100 of them is spoken. How much speaking is decent, or is it okay to not have a lot and still have a good story?
So, I prescribe to the Robert Mckee view of story in which dialogue is the weakest form of communication, and your first draft should be written without any form of dialogue. - Subtext (Internal thoughts and emotions) Action Dialogue. -
A limited amount of talking in the story is OK, but it sounds like there is talking in your story and you're paraphrasing it. That strikes me as a possible problem. Edited to add: are you tending to summarize everything, not just dialogue?
Since the story is a first person narrative, and a story that the protagonist is telling about the events that have taken place in her life, I paraphrase conversations from the far off past, because the character doesn't remember them exactly how they went. Another thing I paraphrase is part of a funeral where the main character is numb and is zoning out a lot of the eulogies. Most of her other conversations thus far have been sort of in and out, like she will have a small piece of the actual conversation, and then she goes away from it into another tangent of thought. I also skip a lot of pieces that are going to be boring to the reader (like the "hi how are you" type stuff).
Some people say books that have equal parts dialogue and narrative (a balance) are the best, but not all styles of writing are like this. Plays are mostly dialogue, some books balance both, I've read books where there was limited dialogue " " because the person was speaking to the reader so it was kind of like a dialogue but not. I think it's all based on style. But I also agree with ChickenFreak. I usually write dialogue down on separate papers and insert them later. I have conversations in my head and out loud, then apply them later when possible. Since the primary thought is to tell the story first instead of conversation. Unless of course if the scene is a dialogue scene them I experiment with a few drafts and pick the one I like the best.
I can remember reading Sherlock Holmes and wondering how Dr. Watson could possibly remember the conversations verbatim (OK, I was quite young!). Now, I take the view that it's OK to take liberties with the actual truth as long as the general truth is maintained. i.e. As long as the gist of the conversation is correct, the actual words spoken aren't too important. Often you can characterise somebody so much better with dialogue than by describing him. Bear in mind that most dialogue is doctored. You'll omit all the pauses, all the umms and errrrs, all the "You know"s...unless you're using it to demonstrate some feature of his character. In particular, you'll "tell" the pause by saying He paused before replying, rather than "showing" it by...I don't know! But you can use occasional paraphrases to good effect. e.g. to add emphasis to the ONE conversation that you quote verbatim.
I don't think you have to worry until you actually start writing. This is one of those things that will likely work itself out as you're writing. I don't think there is any sort of magic formula. And I think you'll know once you start writing if something is off pretty quickly. Just about anything can work when done right. Good luck!
I quite like good dialogues in books. Not a problem for me. This was a discussion I had some time ago and I was told to read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, which is supposed to be the mother of all First person Narrative books. Check it out.
anything is okay if its done well ... Viking sagas are often in the form of mostly narrative with summarised dialogue for example , but its a hard thing to pull off
Long time since I've seen one of those in the best-sellers list... And aren't they mainly action adventures with an info-dump of genealogy? Perhaps a new thread...The Viking Saga: Compare and Contrast...?