No, no, no! Never do dialog the way people actually talk; the results would be unreadable. Dialog has to be unrealistic, but in a way that people think is actually realistic, which is what makes it so tricky.
Maybe that's true if they really talk in unprounceable jargon...but I hate reading scenes that go like this: Guy: Darling I have something to tell you. Girl: What? What is it? Guy: I...I can't. I love you, but I cannot do this anymore. I am leaving you. You're better off without me. Girl: But -- no! You can't leave me! You are my everything! Guy: You're always in my heart. Girl: But no! I am nothing without you! I mean, I ripped that off the top of my head but I've read plenty of cheesy, poorly-done 'mance novels where it's like that. No. Bad.
It's not that people talk in unpronounceable jargon. Try reading academic transcripts of genuine natural conversations. They're full of pauses, hesitations, fillers, parallel conversations, incomplete sentences, repetitions, overlapping speech and so on. We mentally filter all that out, so we don't notice it, and it's the mentally filtered version that writers need to create. Here's a genuine example -- the first one in a corpus I have access to (BNC:OU). The names are anonymised. PS028: "Don't do phone calls." PSOY5: "Made your ..." PS028: "Really have a thing really" (laughs) "Have any? I think actually ask them." PSOY5: "Oh, I see." PS028: "Oh, we've been [unclear]" PSOY5: (laughs) PSO28: "What with the mileage." PSOY5: "Yeah. Yes." PSO28: "Right." PSOY5: "Mm." PSO28: "Oh." That's already cleaned up -- it doesn't show stuff like overlapping speech. In context it probably made sense to those involved. As it is it makes for infuriating reading, but it's pretty much typical of normal speech.
You are absolutely right, Mallory. People -- at least the people I know -- don't have conversations like that. But, I think what digitig meant is that a typical 'real life' conversation which included all of the "uh"s, "you know"s, "ya'll"s, and the side tracks even a simple exchange usually take, would be unreadable. Dialogue in fiction is a careful balance of word usage and sentence structure to create the illiusion of reality. A few colloquialisms, contractions, and selective use of vernacular can go a long way in creating that illusion. It's a lot like a pointalistic painting, from a distance it looks like reality, but up close it's just little dots of paint.
I think to write, you must read, study people(dialog, actions, mannerisms) and try to describe them, and also you must write. Reading exposes you to how someone else did it, watching people will show you how real people do it, then writing will attempt to describe what you learned from the other two. Even if writing is just short stories or prose. Putting words together will come easier when you do it more.
But writers try to create a lie the readers can believe in, and to do that it is important to study reality as well. Focusing on reading, is interpreting how others interpret reality, hence focusing on second hand world views, rather then turning to you own unique world view. You should study others writing to study the craft, but you should study the world to create a perspective of you own.
Hi MatrixGravity, A weird suggestion I know but give this a try. Get people, friends and family to start picking on your diction when you talk to them. Also listen to the speeches of some well spoken actors in various works and try to copy them out loud (not the accents). We all become lazy in our speech and need picking up on it from time to time, because lazy speech will translate to lazy writing. But if you get into better habits speaking, this will help your writing. Then, and this is going to sound even weirder, read out loud to yourself everything that you write. It'll help you pick up mistakes, and in time hopefully when you write the voice in your head will be more clear. It will also help with punctuation if you read out loud in the way you feel is natural. At the very least it will tell you where the pauses should be so you can put in a comma, and shorten sentences etc. Also I'd suggest staying away from vocab boosting books. They aren't necessarily going to help you. For example you used three synonyms in your OP, Peace, tranquility and harmony. Yes they can mean the same thing but they can also have quite different and distinct meanings. You can't just slot them in willy nilly and expect your sentences to make sense. Stick to the words you're comfortable with, at least for the first draft and then maybe when doing a rewrite / edit, see if maybe a few others might fit in even better. Cheers.
