I know a lot of writers around here seem to be dialog heavy. This is just based on the discussions I've read and not on anyone here who has shared their work with me. But it's got me thinking... How much is too much dialog? How do you know if there is not enough dialog? I think it's easy to get caught up in your characters having a conversation. You want to see how it all goes. But I don't want to read three pages of dialog even if it's got some small breaks without it. I don't need to read a transcript of the conversation. I just need to know why this conversation is important. And I don't think it's always important to show the conversation to get a point across. Still, it seems very easy to get caught up in this as a writer. To counter this problem I had, I'm very cautious about entering into dialog. I ask myself if it's really necessary. And more times than not, I think no. I might add a line or two, but I try to stay with the story. For me, too much dialog can pull me in another direction it feels. However, I recently had a short piece accepted for publication. There is a scene about an argument with some dialog, but I thought I put more into it. My editor wanted me to change (just that scene) to all dialog. Interesting. I never would have thought to do that, but I am getting paid and I do trust this editor knows his stuff. It killed me to take out everything that wasn't dialog. this scene is a little less than half a page in a longer piece. I think it works better now. But I obviously don't always know when to turn to dialog and when not to. How do you make that call when it comes to your work? How do you know if what you've done will work with just dialog and when there's really little or no room for dialog? Have you ever gone back to change a scene to all dialog or gone back to lessen or take out the dialog?
I am definitely dialog heavy. I really don't think it is important what the character is wearing, or if it's raining, if any other condition would work as well in the story. I grunt a lot because I'm old and grunting means that I'm very near the floor. It just goes with the territory. But, other than that, if I don't have something meaningful to say I don't say it. Neither do my characters. That may very well be a flaw in my writing style but....
Well, I write one chapter at a time, to an ever-evolving plan / timeline / flowchart type of thingy. That means I have a structure in place, which will deliver essential plot points at the right moment, weave together the main story and the subplot, and 'build' the whole to a climax. When actually writing the damn thing, I have to constantly adapt things like how much of a scene should be dialogue. The main things I look for are: 1. What has just gone before. If it's been exposition, I'll need mostly dialogue in this one. After that, I might go on to a flashback (deep history). Then another dialogue. Then exposition. Then dialogue. So, the rate is about two thirds dialogue. 2. The purpose of the scene or section I'm writing. What is it absolutely essential that this section do?
Personally, I'm having this problem right now. My last two WIPs are very, very dialogue heavy - to the point where the first draft is mostly dialogue - and I'm trying to rework them to have more narrative.
I use dialogue if I want the characters to tell the reader something and when I want the character themselves to be the storytellers. I don't use dialogue when I'm the one who wants to tell the reader something. So you could think of it like this, do you yourself want to tell the reader the information, or do you want that to be the characters' job? Who would it sound better coming from?
@The Bishop -- That's where I went wrong. I made the wrong call for this scene in the story. I used to think I had a handle on this. I think my editor made a great call with this, but I don't think I ever would have thought to write it that way on my own.
Im bad at info dumping and excessive exposition so I'm learning to have the dialog or action\events be what drives the story. I can get carried away and type a ton of narrative when it just isn't necessary. I've come to really love dialog though as it seems to develop a character more then exposition. "Show don't tell." You can probably tell I'm a noob. Style differs with writers and I've read books heavy on narrative and description and they are still, at least in my opinion, good novels. But at the end of the day, the story is wrapped up by what has happened.
Sometimes, I'm dialogue heavy. I've also begun to change the voice of the narrator, based on exactly whose story I am currently telling. The narration when I am describing a scene with my villain or antagonist is much different than the narration describing something my protagonist is in the midst of. This offers you the opportunity to use the dialogue of the narrator. Don't worry about writing a book, just tell a tale.
Gosh, I hear you, @deadrats . And in a way, I'm a bit surprised at the editor's reaction. Speaking as somebody who has read quite a bit of your stuff, I would say you normally get the balance of dialogue/exposition exactly right. However, as you say, you're getting paid.... I'm afraid there is a trend these days to telling stories VIA dialogue—because, hey ho, it gets readers turning pages. (Coupled with the mistaken notion that exposition is 'boring.') But dialogue runs by too quickly, sometimes, for ideas to sink in. It's just bla bla bla bla bla bla, turn page, bla bla bla bla bla bla, turn page. This is especially annoying if the dialogue is cutesy or has very little meat in it. There is no space or time for the reader to reflect on what's being said. And with just dialogue, you get very little in the way of 'visuals' to help you process the event. (The stuff that actors and scene direction supply in a movie. Things that flesh out the dialogue.) Unless your editor can tell you WHY they think more dialogue/less exposition works in a particular scene—and it very well might do—I'd say take their opinion with a grain of salt. Obviously do what they say if you want them to publish the story, but don't necessarily carry that advice forward to your next piece. Editors are people, with preferences, who don't always get everything right. In this case, it sounds as if yours did, which is great. But overall, I'd say keep going as you are. ........ I like @The Bishop 's approach to writing dialogue. Like anything else there will be other factors, but I think you are on the right track with this:
On the novel I'm querying, I made some late, relatively significant revisions to two chapters to replace narrative with dialogue, based mostly on comments from my spouse that those sections were requiring too much patience from the reader (e.g., he was getting bored). I like using dialogue - I think it's an easier read and allows you to reveal a lot about a character without saying so (and, yes, I'm avoiding the "show not tell" buzz words). That said, I totally get jannert's point: I totally felt this way while writing and tried to insert narrative or otherwise SLOW DOWN the cadence at times. But it's hard. And . . . with the MS out now and radio silence . . . of course I'm worrying I have too much dialogue. Which is why I was searching for dialogue and found this thread. I must learn patience.
A lot of time I will open a chapter with narration. I write with a lot of characters, often widely separated in space, so beginning a chapter with a paragraph describing the setting, as seen by the POV character (or maybe the reader), eases the reader into the scene shift... kind of like a movie, then zoom in on the characters interacting. In one scene in my WIP I had to write about Roman legions fighting on snowshoes in the Armenian highlands in deep snow. I couldn't miss this because they really did (Legio VI Ferrata, "the Ironclads"), though there is no further historical description of how they did this. No legion could fight in deep snow the way they fought on the plains, massed marching formations, trumpet calls, etc., all of which would guarantee that their enemy would either evade or ambush them. So I opened with a description of snow-laden pines in the mountains, wind soughing, then a whiff of camp smoke, muted voices from the pine forest, a glimpse of the rectangular corner of a snow-covered tent hidden in the trees, barely visible. An emphasis that a Roman camp was a mobile fort, meant to be seen and heard, this camp was not. Then the commander of the Sixth arrives at the camp, his horse nearly stumbling on the haphazard array of tent ropes tangled amid underbrush and snow. When he gets together with the POV commander of the Twelfth Lightning Bolt, in a very ordinary soldier's 8-man tent, the dialogue begins, as the two commanders discuss tactics and targets to reveal how very different this fighting will be. Like small-unit special operations forces, emphasis on stealth and maneuver, rather than massed force. Then the description of the battle, an attack on a camp of about 250 rebels caught totally unaware, is described by narration, as seen by the two commanders observing the action. Dialogue description would be clumsy and actually "expositional dialogue", characters talking about things for the reader's benefit that they would not in reality talk about, because they already know them. In reality the commanders would be watching, mostly in silence, the execution of their planned operation, hoping this first-ever operation ends well. I include some interior monologue, as the POV commander's son is leading the attack, his first real combat; he is concerned that he may watch his son die today. The dialogue then picks up again at the end.
