I'm still learning to write and tend to avoid dialogue as it always feels clunky and boring to read to me. So I've decided to write a small piece that requires lots of dialogue to get more comfortable with it. So I decided to write a therapy session which requires questions and conversation with no a lot else going on for me to get distracted by. The problem is, at the moment it feels like a script with who said what, actions and bits of information thrown in, it always ends up reading this way and this is the problem I'm trying to fix. It's 1,534 of dialogue alone. It feels like too much and it doesn't feel interesting or like there's much character depth (which is another thing I'm trying to improve on as my characters tend to feel 2 dimensional). Maybe I'm being over critical but could anyone help me with some tips? Thank you.
I find I need to intersperse dialogue with narration and action or it gets dull and confusing. You need to shift fluidly between them, depending on which is more appropriate for the moment. Does that make sense? I mean like this: I flung the frisbee hard into the wind, angling it up the way I used to do, knowing if I could catch the wind just right it would curve it back down pretty close to where Ron was standing. I miscalculated a bit, but not too bad, and he only had to run a few steps to catch it. "Aw come on man!" He shouted, somewhat out of breath. "What do you call that? Tryin' ta make me run too much!" He threw it straight to me, I was able to catch it without even taking a single step. Not bad for such a windy day. Using narration, action and dialogue in the right places makes things flow smoothly. I think trying to stick with any one of them for too long would start to feel weird.
You've chosen a slightly difficult scenario to 'animate,' because I expect the two people will be in fairly static positions ...sitting, etc. In an office or room of some kind? So you can't have them 'doing' much. This is where thought processes jump in. Instead of just question/answer, maybe include the thoughts of whichever one is the POV. If it's the therapist, let him internally react to what the patient says—which will determine the next question? How interested is the therapist in this patient? Is it just routine, or does the therapist find the patient fascinating? Is the therapist driving for a particular response or outcome? Has the therapist pre-judged the patient's condition and is just looking for ways to confirm it, or is the therapist truly baffled? Does the patient surprise the therapist in any way? Or if the POV character is the patient, what is this patient's attitude toward the process? Fearful? Defiant? Bored? Resentful? Resigned? Repressed? Trusting? Cooperative? Hopeful? Lethargic? Overly excited? Does the patient like and trust the therapist? Does the patient exhibit any attitude freely, or is the patient keeping the attitude hidden? These attitudes won't necessarily be reflected in the actual words the patient says, but see if you can include the internal thoughts and feelings the patient experiences during this interchange. Thoughts and feelings will not only deepen the interchange, but will make it less 'talking heads' for the reader to bounce through. The patient may be suppressing a known truth, in favour of what the patient thinks the therapist wants to hear. Maybe the patient wants to make a confession, but isn't quite ready. Or maybe the patient reacts with a sarcastic thought to everything the therapist asks him, but doesn't verbalise it. Why? You do have facial expressions and body language to work with here, although the therapist is probably trained not to reveal much with his own. But the patient might be easy to read in this regard. If you can delve into the underpinning of the exchange, you'll bring it to life. Think of it as an iceberg. The dialogue is the tip of the iceberg that is visible, but the bulk of the iceberg is hidden.
There are some actions they can take. The therapist could have a clipboard and pen that he or she keeps referring to and writing on, and maybe the patient fidgets or taps a foot repeatedly for a while. Nervous actions and the like. Sometimes maybe he meets the therapists' gaze, sometimes looks away. Maybe there are books or pamphlets laying on a table in between them and the patient keeps picking things up and fiddling with them.
Both above suggestions are excellent and this: is a looooong dialogue. You can make it work though with some more tricks, but before that, make sure whether it's necessary to keep every single line of this dialogue. What's the theme of the scene taking place? What's the main information the reader needs to focus on here? What's the core of this give and take? Where are you leading it? What are each character's goals? One interesting thing I learned this year from school is the difference between the theme of the written script in a screenplay and the theme of the direction take. Confusing right? We were handed short dialogues, five lines in total between two people. They were so vague and enigmatic, you had to juice your brain in order to make any sense of the written word and understand the situation. Thing is that the screenwriter knows from the start why he includes these dialogues. He directs as he goes. After teach told us what was happening in the scene, who the characters were in one or two words really, everybody had an aha moment. It was in front of our eyes, but could take so many different directions it remained a mystery. The outcome was fun though 'cause before he gave us this vital information, all we had to do was to direct the dialogue with just one rule: it had to have a directing conflict. Just had to. Didn't matter if one character was more submissive and polite than the other. In the script there was no conflict. None at all. It was the most mundane dialogue e v e r! Well, we made it happen our own way each of us, same dialogue, but with different characters in mind and a different situation. Everyone of us directed something completely different than what it was supposed to be, because we had different goals for the scene and what it meant. Where it lead. We had to think about the next scene. In short, what I mean to say, is that the goal of a scene is not just the written word, what we hear the characters say to each other. It's how they say it, to achieve what and what lies between the lines. You have to know your characters well and direct them just as well in order to make them shine and add meaning to the plot and their personalities as you go, because dialogue is only part of the story as a whole and not detached from it. Make it stylistic, but relevant. Only reveal what needs to be revealed in dialogue. Direct the rest.
It is likely that your perception of the dialogue you write is skewed for some reason. That might be a lack of conviction/confidence or any number of reasons. Remember dialogue is necessary and it is more likely to draw attention to your writing when it is not there. It really is the most versatile tool us writers have. It can speed up or slow down the pace, convey information (where would Harry Potter be if he couldn't ask Hermione everything?) It is quick and effective and is far less likely to be wordy. We should always ensure that there is a purpose to dialogue, then it works.
As @jannert says, a dialogue from a therapy session sounds particularly difficult to write and keep interesting. It is bound to end up as a sort of verbal ping-pong which is just what you are trying to avoid. One thing which may help - try writing a few radio scripts. The BBC writer's room used to run competitions for scripts which were, at the very least, a great source of writing prompts (or delve through the writing prompts and competetions on here of course), but download a tool like Celtx which makes writing professional looking scripts a breeze (and therefore helps with confidence), and create a script - radio scripts are particularly effective because all characterisation has to be through dialogue.
I read a piece about bringing a character to life or revealing things about them in what they notice in their surroundings. So someone into nature might notice the flowers, trees or wildlife and another would notice the architecture of the building instead. So my POV character is the therapist so I thought reading the patient's body language would be something he'd notice. But I never thought about his own that he'd be aware of. Not sure if he would be thinking of his or whether it would come naturally to him after doing it for so long. He's in his late thirties so somewhat experienced. Don't know any therapists and never has any sessions so not sure how conscious they'd be of their own, or if they'd just 'slip' into the therapist pose. I knew it would be difficult from the get go which was why I picked it. I tend to play 'safe' all the time and because of that I just do the same thing all the time and never try anything out of my comfort zone. Which was why this piece is deliberately full of things I'm uncomfortable writing about. It's fun and because it's difficult and a challenge I'm finding I want to do it. Not getting bored. Great advice so far so thank you all very much
Maybe you can write something about how the patient thinks the shrink is offering him/her a string of empty platitudes. Or maybe how the patient is completely impervious to being analyzed and how difficult it is for the shrink to peel away the layers.
