Many writers curse the time that dialogue threatens to appear in a novel or short story. They fear the spoken word because it feels false when writing a speech for characters. There is a straightforward reason for this which I learned only through experience.
I have written since my teens, and all of my early work was bad. Awful might be a more honest description. The prose was weak, and the dialogue was pure nonsense. It wasn’t that I lacked imagination or reading experience. I had a fund of creative ideas and read everything I could get hold of. My problem was that I needed to gain two things, maturity and life experience.
The years went by, I continued to write, and my output improved. My stories were more enjoyable because I had something to say and write about. I remember taking a creative writing course, and each assignment returned the same. The tutor told me that my dialogue could have been more realistic. I was confused and could not understand why I had this problem.
That is, until the mid-1990s, when I became an actor. I had been a musician, and after that, I drifted into stand-up comedy. I moved from comedy to serious drama and began working in the theatre.
Having appeared in several plays, I decided to write something myself, with a view to performance.
As a writer, I had the skills to create the story, but as an actor, I could write the dialogue. I understood the rhythms of speech, tone and inflexion and breathing. Each time I wrote for the voice, I would read the line out loud. The play ended up as a full-length costume drama and premiered in Manchester in 1996. Since that time, writing dialogue has been very easy for me.
I want to share some tips, which hopefully might prove helpful for anyone struggling, as I was with the written and spoken word.
When writing dialogue, write it at the same speed as conversation occurs. That is relatively fast and with little careful consideration. When people talk, it is a natural process, and it has a flow. Unless a person has a cautious, slow and deliberate style of speech, they will talk in rapport with their emotional frame of mind.
An angry person tends to deliver dialogue very quickly and often in a precise manner in order to emphasise their own viewpoint. A person, who is upset, will, more often than not, speak slowly, with little gaps.
Always read aloud every piece of dialogue you write. If it’s a conversation, try to act a little and get both parties’ speed, fluency and emotional intent. If you do this, you will know if what you’ve written is true or not. As a writer, I can only write my own truth. Your truth is a part of your own magic. I can offer advice from an actor’s viewpoint because this provides a different slant.
Another convenient thing about reading your work out loud is that you quickly catch typos and grammatical errors. Even if it is only to say something is wrong. Because once you are aware that there is a problem, you are in a better position to find the answer. This doesn’t have to be complicated or tedious; it can be fun. Give yourself permission to enjoy hearing the words you have created.
An interesting little extra, which should appeal to most writers, is that the more you read out loud, the better and more natural it becomes. This can come in handy if you are asked to attend a function and read a passage from your book.
