How to write good dialogue

OMG, all the time when I edit my sex scenes. WHOSE DANGLY BITS AM I TALKING ABOUT I CAN'T REMEMBER

Its honestly the only time I'm jealous of people who write straight explicit romance.

 

Oh, it's the worst. A while back I got the advice to refer to one person more by name and the other more by pronoun, and keeping that in mind has helped, but then you have to be very aware of it getting clunky. At some point I'm just like, "Y'know what? They'll figure it out."

In that case it was 'xe'.

 

Ah, of course. Why didn't that occur to me?

 

Hey, don't beat yourself up. Beat yourself up over the fact that you missed the much more obvious 'they'

And don't get me started over how many wrenches that can throw into group scenes ...

 

When I write fiction, the system I use seems like the only one that makes sense to me. I can't really think of any other way.

I simply envision scenes from a movie, and then I try my best to describe what I see in the scene, even down to the smallest, briefest of facial expressions during dialogue. I also use the same method for describing a fight scene; I simply describe, in detail, how the fight goes. What move is countered by what move.

Is that the method you use for writing fiction? Is there any other method?

 

Agreed. Trying to write a scene as if it were a movie is a double-edged sword. In one sense, it really can help you visualize what's happening in real time, which is very important. However, it can also lead you to writing the scene as if you were on the sidelines, just describing the things that are happening in a summary kind of way.

@big soft moose is absolutely right--it should be about what the POV character is feeling, thinking, and experiencing rather than just a this-then-this-then-that kind of summary of the action (and this goes for all scenes, not just fight scenes).

What I do when I write, personally, is to get into the head of the main character (or the viewpoint character which, in my case, is usually the same thing). First, what is the character doing? Then, how does what the character does influence the way she thinks/feels/reacts to the scene around her? Then, how does that reaction spur the next action?

Obviously I don't overanalyze and get that nitty-gritty with every single thing, but it's important for me to keep those ideas in mind as I'm writing. I make sure the narrative is littered with her biases rather than some objective summary. How does the scene look to her rather than to an objective narrator? How does that influence her actions, and how do her actions in turn influence the scene? And on it goes.

 

Okay. So let's say I'm envisioning a move like the one in the video, carried out by the protagonist. How would you describe it?

 

The officer snuck up behind the man, grabbed his pistol and kicked out his knee. Within moments of his hitting the ground there were three other people on top of the man. He barely had time to realize what was happening before he knew he was good and soundly fucked.

 

I think in terms of the scene itself -- where am I, who's there, what's going on but there is also an underlying goal for the scene which stops it from just being a blow-by-blow description.
It could be the introspection, the quirky conclusion, the goal or a foreshadowing detail that is going to matter for the future scenes as well, and also anything that exposes a greater understanding for the character.
I'm right in the middle of an odd scene in which the mc has just been blackmailed into going to a party to watch the premiere of his tv show by a boy who has been bullying him. The confusion is in contrasting details as to why the bully wants him there and what the mc feels about this. The handing of an invitation does not have the same connotations or responses.

 

I'm assuming you'd want me to leave out the "fucked" part.

Regardless, the description is sound, but I'm not sure it's encompassing enough, especially if I want readers to understand the fighting method the character utilizes.

 

If you want to give a character a specific style of fighting, then that's something you should probably introduce before they actually get into a fight. The actual fight scene and description of it are just one part of the writing a fight into a story. Character motives, their feelings, and such all need to come before the actual fight needs to happen. In Kung Fu movies, this is where they exposit about what kind of fighting styles each guy has trained in or the describe the sacred unbeatable sword that the bad guy uses. It sets the conflict and the stakes to the fight and it builds tension. Only after the set up do you have the fight and after it's finished, you can have a bit of denoument explanation if things happened too fast or something was unclear. Establishing flair within the fight can severely hamper a good fight scene with too much description. Even accurately and concisely describing a fight scene can hamper it with too much description.

 

Are you asking only about fight scenes, or scenes in general?

For your video, I'd say that @The Dapper Hooligan 's writeup is just about the right level of detail. I think that people rarely care about a blow-by-blow description of a fight. It's about the stakes and the emotions.

 

I'm a visual person (I say this all the time; god knows why I picked up writing instead of drawing), so I do the 'movie in your head' thing as well. I think that the strength writing has over visual mediums, though, is that you can get into a character's head, so imo it's best to play to that strength rather than emulate the play-by-play of a movie. Cut away to thoughts and feelings when appropriate.

Fight scenes, to me, just aren't interesting to read. Watch, sure - but I don't know how you convey the excitement of a cool action movie fight in text. Plus, realistic fights aren't going to be flashy and choreographed, and I prefer realism in my writing. My fight experience - and most everything I've read from those more experienced than me - is that it's over quickly. I try to make my fight scenes go the same, and focus on the general motion, the sensations and emotions, and largely, the fallout.

 

I usually have a problem with descriptions. How do you know exactly how much is too much? Or too little? And what is the best way to improve upon writing descriptions. When I write my story it usually ends up having too much dialogue and not enough dsecriptive parts. Should I try to describe every little thing? Or just what is needed to help the reader. I really would like to improve in my ability to be descriptive, but I need help. Any replies with suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

It's a rather subjective thing, and without knowing what you're writing (genre), the POV, short story/flash/novel it's not the easiest answer to give. And of course, without seeing an example we'll all be guessing anyway, but it's worth a shot I suppose.

So... who told you that it has too much dialogue and not enough description? (and no, you do not need to describe every little thing).

 

Okay, we see this question a lot, and the answer might surprise you. I don't know if you are telling the story 1st, 3-rd close, or Omni, but the method is the same. Choose three things that your narrator notices about the world. For example, let's say you are telling the story through your MC's eyes, and he enjoys music, colors, and cars. The majority of descriptions will reflect this.

Example: The pinked-haired girl pulled up in a yellow Honda; The Beatles's While My Guitar Weeps' was playing on her radio.

 

It's way too easy to over correct, so I'd definitely be wary of describing every little thing as a countermeasure, here.

Like @Trish says, it's a subjective thing and very dependent on context. Some people enjoy reading and/or writing really elaborate descriptions and some prefer a more minimal approach. I'd advise looking at the things you enjoy reading and paying attention to how those writers do their descriptions. Some folks suggest emulating other styles as an exercise and I can't say I've ever done it, but it might be worth a shot just to let you really see how minimal vs extravagant descriptions look in your story.

For me personally, I tend to write close third so the way the POV character sees the world determines how much description there is. I'm showing things 'through their eyes' so I linger on what they would linger on - what's new/interesting/novel/relevant to them. An ex-military character tends to assess whether people are threats before anything else, commenting on their stature, posture, physique, etc; a character meeting his love interest for the first time dwells on how attractive he finds them; someone who's never been to a city before is blown away by the scale of it while someone who's lived there a long time is just annoyed by the pigeons.

I'm prone to writing a lot of dialogue as if it were just heads talking in a blank void, myself, and I helped get myself over that by carefully watching movies and real conversations to pick up on the gestures and expressions that people litter their 'dialogue' with. Not all of it is going to be relevant, and you don't want to clutter your dialogue up - there's nothing wrong with smooth stretches of uninterrupted dialogue - but it can give you some ideas.

 

Yes. All of this. Everything you said is right, but this is especially right.

 

It may be worth doing something they did on another site (now closed). Basically you have a theme and then pick three random words. What you have to do is write a narrative no more than 100 words long.

If you do this a few times it is really helpful because it teaching you how to say more with very few words. There is also the question of style and taste. I write very descriptive pieces because I like to. I also like to read rich descriptive writing.

If it feels like too much cut it back, and if it feels like too little add to it. Obvious I know, but sometimes the most obvious things are those we forget to consider.

I also find it EXTREMELY useful to put whatever you've written aside for weeks/months before coming back to it. If you read it then and see nothing that annoys you, then you've done it right. Self-editing is something I struggle with a lot and I have to give myself a lot of space before coming back to something (recently I started looking back at poems I posted here months ago, because at the time I knew I couldn't really see them properly.)

Basically, it depends

note: I would also highly recommend writing an essay titled "How to write descriptively". I bet you already know what to do you just don't know you know yet

 

I'm always a little wary when people talk about 'description' as in 'how do I write description?' (It's a valid question, of course ...but it pushes a few warning buttons for me.) It often means the writer sees 'description' as something outwith the storytelling itself. As if they have to take time out of the story to describe something before moving on.

I'd avoid that approach. Instead, maybe make sure that everything in a scene is only relevant to the story (the reader needs to know this information) but also relevant to the moment.

I was intrigued by @Homer Potvin example of the outdoor setting in New Hampshire, in winter. All the details he gave were entertaining, actually. And if these things matter to the POV character at the moment in the story where this scene appears, by all means include them. A passage of scene-setting as entertaining as this one deserves to be included, if it's appropriate. However, if the POV character isn't trying to see the stars just then, and isn't in the middle of remembering that he could hear ice popping during the night, and all he's noticing at that moment is the plop of snow that falls onto his deck—then that's good enough. In fact, Mr Potvin is also letting us know there is a thaw on. Otherwise there would be no plop, would there? So, to the discerning reader, there is more going on in the scene than the detail he's given us. It's WHAT he's chosen to tell us that matters. Not how much he's told us.

Beware beware beware of creating 'lists' of setting details and calling it 'description.' That's what makes people often assume that 'description is boring.' When given in the form of a list, it certainly can be. Not only that, it often doesn't stick. It's like adjectives. One well-chosen adjective will have more impact than a string of related ones.

Less is usually more when it comes to writing, in my opinion. And I'm a born over-writer. I've had to learn to pare back.

 

I agree with what others are saying, but also wanted to emphasize the idea that there is no "right" amount of description. Depends on genre, sure, but also very much depends on the individual reader, as @izzybot said. @jannert enjoyed @Homer Potvin's description of his mountain home, but I skimmed right over it and had to go back to read the chunk with "susurration" in it to see what he was complaining about.

I think @jannert and I are both pretty avid readers, and I think our genres of choice overlap at least to some degree. But I'm not a visual person--I don't make pictures in my mind based on words, and I'm not a patient person--I don't want to read words that aren't going to have an effect on me.

My writing contains very little description, and certainly not full paragraphs of it, because I don't care for the stuff. I expect @jannert's writing is much more descriptive than mine.

And both approaches are fine. There's no one right way to write. Find your style. Embrace it, enhance it, enjoy it. It's yours.