Can they reject me on dialogue alone?

[Project nachonaco]

Dialogue = not my forte.

Can/will they reject me if the dialogue is bad in my MS or will they try to help me by using an editor?

[pconsidine]

My friend, they can reject you because they don't like the way you spell your name. :)

Seriously, though, my impression is that they want the best possible book up front. So if there's something that's not so great, you will really have to give them a reason to take you on anyway. That can be an amazingly original concept, a captivating voice, whatever. You might be able to get away with weak dialogue, but you'll have to be twice as good somewhere else to make up for it.

At least you know what you need to work on.

[Rhade]

Of course they can. But knowing you need to work on your dialogue is half the battle. Lots of writers think they are aready perfect and get insulted when told otherwise.

[Cathy C]

Why do you say it's not your forte? Has someone mentioned it feels stilted or not in character for the . . . well, character? Or is it just a sneaking suspicion in the back of your head? Perhaps you can share a small sample here or in the share your work section. I don't find dialogue all that hard, so perhaps it's something really easy to fix.

[Project nachonaco]

But knowing you need to work on your dialogue is half the battle.

You channeling GI Joe there?

sorry....couldn't resist....


Cathy: Suspicion.

[Rhade]

You channeling GI Joe there?

I sure hope not!

[blacbird]

As pconsidine indicated, they can reject you for anything. They can reject you because they had a bad breakfast. They can reject you for no reason whatever (and chances are, when you get a rejection, that's exactly what will be indicated).

But, yes, poor dialog is likely to get a manuscript rejected. Stilted, artificial-sounding dialog makes for stilted, artificial-looking, stereotyped cardboard characters. Think about what you enjoy reading. Vivid characters are based almost entirely on vivid, living dialog.

The best cure I know of for making dialog work is to act it out, both out loud in words, and in performing whatever accessory action goes with the dialog. Record it, also, if you can. Nothing will more quickly reveal what's wrong with dialog.

Also, one of the worst sins of dialog is to use it as a ploy to convey information to the reader. Real people simply don't say things like, "You know, Sarah, my father, who made a fortune in real estate and left it all to me before sailing off in his yacht for the Bahamas and disappearing on December 14, 1965, had two mistresses, and collected rare stamps."

You'd be amazed how many manuscripts I've critiqued that suffer from this syndrome.

bird

[roger]

Where I come from (UK) there's a big deal being made of the fact that these days the traditional role of the editor has pretty much disappeared. Someone wrote an article in the Guardian saying that the blue pencil has gone for ever. I don't think this means that publishers are letting sloppy books through. It means they expect scripts to be pretty much ready to go (which is why agents now are more and more performing the role that editors used to). You could go to a professional freelance editor, but that will cost you money. Maybe others here have views on whether it's worth it. It's something I've never tried.

However you do it, you owe it to yourself to get your book as close to perfect as you can before you put it in that big envelope, and that includes the dialogue.

[KTC]

Of course they can! They can reject you because they're having a sh*t day. Dialogue being good is an imperative. In fact, dialogue being spot-on perfect is an imperative.

[AncientEagle]

"You know, Sarah, my father, who made a fortune in real estate and left it all to me before sailing off in his yacht for the Bahamas and disappearing on December 14, 1965, had two mistresses, and collected rare stamps."

Hey! You swiped the opening sentence from my WIP, "Sarah and the Real Estate Heir."

[HConn]

Would you put down a book that has crap dialog?

[scarletpeaches]

If dialogue is not your forte, better make it your forte fast, or you won't be published.

Unless you're Barbara Taylor Bradford by any chance?

[Project nachonaco]

Example of my dialogue:
“About five or six kilometers away…to the east, I think…if you dig you can get to it…there’s a big ol’ box, buried there in case of emergency. It’s a box of a few Project Falcon helmets.”

[Torin]

Would you put down a book that has crap dialog?

Absolutely. I bought a book which an online acquaintance had written with a partner (and, er, published at iUniverse) and the dialogue was horrible...okay, maybe it was more the dialogue tags, she said saucily. When I started counting adverbs instead of reading the story, I skimmed on past to the next scene, and again, dialogue issues, plot holes (some of which were revealed via dialogue). The book went beyond bad and the dialogue was a big part of that badness, she said disappointedly. (you begin to get the idea). It was stilted, unnatural, and rife with abundantly adverbial tags.

Yes...crap dialogue will kill a book. IMHO--YMMV.

[JAlpha]

Dialogue = not my forte.

Can/will they reject me if the dialogue is bad in my MS or will they try to help me by using an editor?

For a long time, writing dialogue was my weakest crafting element as well, until I took my first poetry course.

I can't say/promise it will work for you, but cross-training, so to speak, with poetry helped to make my dialogue more succinct and productive.

Can't hurt :Shrug:

[maestrowork]

Sometimes bad dialogue is indication of something else in the quality of writing: plot, character development, pace, etc. An agent wants the best works -- and they have a big pile of material to choose from. Sometimes certain things can compensate for problems in certain areas... for example, a high-concept plot might compensate for flat characters and stilted dialogue (did someone say DVC? :) ) and sometimes great dialogue or prose might compensate for a slow plot (e.g. A Painted House). As writers, we should all strive to become better. If you know your dialogue is weak, work on it. Improve it. Workshop it. It's a race out there, whether you like it or not, so would you put a horse in a race if you know it's handicapped?

[Jamesaritchie]

Dialogue = not my forte.

Can/will they reject me if the dialogue is bad in my MS or will they try to help me by using an editor?

Writing good dialogue requires a writer with an ear for dialogue, not an editor. Rejecting for bad dialogue is no different than rejecting for bad story or bad characterization or bad plot. Dialogue is an essential part of the story, and good dialogue often makes or breaks everything.

If you really can't write good dialogue, then I'd suggest studying dialogue, and writing as little dialogue as possible.

If you know dialogue isn't your forte, then make it your forte.

[AdamH]

Another useful technique besides taking a course is try speaking your dialogue out loud. I found that whenever I'm not sure if what I wrote is any good, I do that simple exercise. If it doesn't roll off my tongue (sorry about the pun :) ) then I'll rewrite it until it does. Sometimes stuff that sounds good in my head doesn't work when spoken aloud.

The dialogue that you posted didn't seem to bad. I'd rework the tail end of it a bit. But it all depends on the context and if that is how the character talks (i.e. with a bunch of pauses).

[Bufty]

Example of my dialogue:
“About five or six kilometers away…to the east, I think…if you dig you can get to it…there’s a big ol’ box, buried there in case of emergency. It’s a box of a few Project Falcon helmets.”

Submitting anything you know in advance is bad is silly. It is asking for rejection - you can't expect an Agent or Editor to imagine how submissions would be if they were written better. Bad writing will be viewed simply as bad writing and tossed aside.

Re the above extract - nothing desperately wrong with it at all. Maybe a teeny bit clumsy and wordy perhaps if ,say, the speaker is supposed to be on his last dying breath. I suggest you post a longer extract than this, nachonaco, if you want any constructive suggestions. Use the 'Share Your Work' Forum.

[Jamesaritchie]

Example of my dialogue:
“About five or six kilometers away…to the east, I think…if you dig you can get to it…there’s a big ol’ box, buried there in case of emergency. It’s a box of a few Project Falcon helmets.”

This isn't bad dialogue.

[Project nachonaco]

Thanks.

I've posted more dialogue in SYW.

[Cathy C]

Example of my dialogue:
“About five or six kilometers away…to the east, I think…if you dig you can get to it…there’s a big ol’ box, buried there in case of emergency. It’s a box of a few Project Falcon helmets.”

This really doesn't need much fixing. The first part is a little long, since a sentence should be able to be spoken out loud in no longer than a single regular breath. When I tried, it was a little wheezy when I got to "emergency," but that's not a big deal. I'd probably only do something like this:


“About five or six kilometers away…to the east, I think… you'll have to dig to get to it…there’s a big ol’ box, buried in case of emergency. I remember there are a few Project Falcon helmets in it.”


The best thing to do with dialogue is to make sure that it sounds good OUT LOUD. Pretend that a lamp or couch is the other person and talk out the dialogue like a script of a play (not screenplay). If it sounds natural to your ears, it will probably sound natural to the reader.

[Jamesaritchie]

This really doesn't need much fixing. The first part is a little long, since a sentence should be able to be spoken out loud in no longer than a single regular breath. When I tried, it was a little wheezy when I got to "emergency," but that's not a big deal. I'd probably only do something like this:



.

I hate that "rule," probably more so than any other "rule" out there. I think it makes for poor dialogue. Or rather, it means the writer is avoiding writing some extremely good dialogue that's too long to say in a single breath.

A reader should breath according to the punctuation of the sentence, not simply according to its length. If you want the reader to take a breath, put in a pause, such as an ellipsis or a dash. Both are places where a reader can, and should, take another breath. Commas are also a chance for a reader to take a quick breath. So are colons and semi-colons.

There's no more reason to read a sentence of dialogue in a single breath than there is to read a sentence of narrative in a single breath.

Shakespeare, probably the greatest writer of dialogue who ever lived, would be unreadable, and certainly "unactorable," with this rule. Many of his sentences are from fifty to seventy words, and reading them in one breath would sound horrible. So, for that matter, would Ray Bradbury and William Faulkner be unreadable in many places.

Most of use do breath according to the way we punctuate our real dialogue. Ever listen to someone say, "Well, maybe"? Many people put a full breath between those two short words. Readers should, as well.

In nachonaco_Grippers' dialogue an ellipsis is used three times. All three of these are times where a reader can, and should, take a breath. They're long pauses, and reading them without a breath is reading them incorrectly. If yu read this sentence in a continuous breath, you just removed the ellipses. Not good. You change both the rhythm and the flow of the sentence. Also not good. You completely change how it would actually sound if someone said this to you. Really not good.

I don't know who came up with the "rule" of reading dialogue in one breath, but it's a horrid little thing, and doesn't at all reflect the way real people actually talk, or the way a great many of the very best dialogue writers write dialogue. All it really does is make for a lot of short sentences where readers ignore the punctuation.

This mistake isn't writing dialogue that requires more than one breath. The mistake is in trying to read every sentence of dialogue with only one breath.

[maestrowork]

In fiction, ellipses are usually used for trailing off speeches, so in this case it "sounds" like the person is out of breath.

Now if you punctuate the dialogue this way:

“About five or six kilometers away, to the east, I think. If you dig you can get to it. There’s a big ol’ box, buried there in case of emergency. It’s a box of a few Project Falcon helmets.”

I think it becomes more natural. Obviously, if the person is indeed out of breath, you may use the ellipses. But personally I'd prefer just the say "he said, catching his breath once in a while." But that's just me. I just don't like ellipses in dialogue, in general.

[Cathy C]

We'll have to agree to disagree, I'm afraid, James. It's a stylistic choice and I believe the rule has a great deal of merit. Of your three examples of excellent dialogue, I'll only agree with Bradbury --- and only in certain stories. My personal opinion is that the others have "stood the test of time" merely because they are foisted off on young readers by force. Fortunately, there are many different styles of writing available in the libraries.

Go with your gut, nacho. You've got several opinions here to choose from. Fortunately, none of them are "dialogue isn't your forte." :D

[MarkPettus]

Shakespeare ... Ray Bradbury and William Faulkner ...

Of your three examples of excellent dialogue, I'll only agree with Bradbury --- and only in certain stories. My personal opinion is that the others have "stood the test of time" merely because they are foisted off on young readers by force. :D

Holy busted brainpans, Batman, she thinks Shakespeare and Faulkner need to be propped up by public education.

C'mon Cathy, say it ain't so. :kiss:

[HConn]

My personal opinion is that the others have "stood the test of time" merely because they are foisted off on young readers by force.

This is backward. They're still taught in schools because they are fantastic writers.

I think it's incumbent on all writers to understand what makes classics into classics. You don't have to enjoy them, but you ought to understand the qualities that made them so well-regarded.

I'll never "like" Faulkner, but I did spend a couple days studying him (outside of school, I mean).

[Jamesaritchie]

We'll have to agree to disagree, I'm afraid, James. It's a stylistic choice and I believe the rule has a great deal of merit. Of your three examples of excellent dialogue, I'll only agree with Bradbury --- and only in certain stories. My personal opinion is that the others have "stood the test of time" merely because they are foisted off on young readers by force. Fortunately, there are many different styles of writing available in the libraries.

Go with your gut, nacho. You've got several opinions here to choose from. Fortunately, none of them are "dialogue isn't your forte." :D

Writing this way IS a stylistic choice, reading this way isn't. Not in any way. When a writer puts a pause in a sentence, and you ignore that pause, you are not reading that sentence correctly. You are NOT reading it the way it's written. Nor are you listening to how real people talk. No one, and I mean no one, says every sentence with only one breath. We all take tiny breaths to keep a sentence going. We all put pauses in out speech. We all sometimes stop to think right in the middle of a sentence. "Well. . .maybe" is a sentence where there's not only time to take a breath, but also a sentence where the speaker pauses long enough to decide on "yes," "no," of "maybe." A reader who doesn't pause there as well would be one odd bird.

It's not only a bad rule, it's a stupid rule, and I could list writers from now until eternity who ignore it, and very darned few, if any, I've ever read, who follow it.

You can disagree with Shakespeare, but I'd say this makes you a minority of about one. But if that's bad dialogue, I'll take it every time. And as I say, writer after writer after writer known for their great dialogue do not follow this rule. Thank God. I can't, in fact, think of a single writer I read who even begins to follow this rule.

Listen to books on tape. No one even reads this way. I mean, do you really read "Well. . .maybe" as if there's no pause?

Punctuation is meant to let people pause, to take a breath. Some punctuation is meant to not only let people breathe, but to also allow them to think before the next word comes out.

What hasn't stood the test of time, what can't stand the test of time, is writing every line of dialogue so it can be said in one breath. It's completely unrealistic, and no human being actually speaks this way.

And these writers did NOT stand the test of time because they were foisted on anyone. That's nonsense, and an insult to the millions who read them outside of "foisted" environments. Shakespeare, in particular, stood the test of time long, long before anyone was forced to read him, and he's still read for pleasure by millions. He was, and remains, the best writer the English language has ever produce, whether you like or dislike him. So are both Bradbury and Faulkner. So are the thousands of other writers who do not, would not, begin to follow a rule that says every line of dialogue should be said in one breath. And darned certainly not read as if the punctuation were missing in action.

A line of dialogue should be said in one breath ONLY if that's the way the line of dialogue is written.

Write this way, yes, if you want. But for God's sake don't read this way. We might as well simply do away with all punctuation meant to be a pause. Let's write sentences based not on the way real people speak, not on the way nearly everyone reads, not on rhythm and cadence, but on how much lung power the average reader has.

Young writers should follow their gut, but they should also listen to how real people talk, and no real person talks without pause, with every sentence constructed so it can be said without drawing a breath.

And even if you write sentences with this intent, if you include punctuation, they will not be read this way by the vast majority of readers. Nearly all readers do pause when the punctuation says pause. They do take breathes, they do stop for thought.

Fortunately, the "read dialogue in one breath" rule isn't really a rule at all, and, thank God, isn't taught anywhere I've ever been associated with. The real rule is that you "shouldn't run out of breath when reading a sentence." This does NOT mean every sentence should be written so it can read with one breath. It means you need to construct and punctuate the sentence so readers have a chance to breath at the proper place. A very, very different thing.

A rule that says every line of dialogue should be written so it can be said with one breath is not only a bad "rule", it's a "rule" that automatically eliminates nearly every writer, and nearly every reader, I've ever known, and a rule that doesn't even exist.

[Danger Jane]

Dialogue is REALLY important. A casual reader might not notice weird things with the rest of the book, but if the dialogue is screwy...well, people have conversations. People know how other people talk, and converse. It's like when you watch a computer-generated movie--whether or not you work in the animation industry, you can tell if that guy on the screen isn't moving right.

Bottom line: people know how conversations are supposed to sound. Yours should flow just as easily as any spoken conversation.

To work on dialogue: imagine a pair of floating heads. Two buddies. They're arguing over a call in the Patriots (haha, NE loyalty) game. Don' give them any detail, or their settings, or ANYTHING. Write for five or more minutes--only what they SAY. No "he said" "he replied" ANYTHING. Just the words that come out of their mouths. It'll help.

[Julie Worth]

Of your three examples of excellent dialogue, I'll only agree with Bradbury --- and only in certain stories. My personal opinion is that the others have "stood the test of time" merely because they are foisted off on young readers by force. Fortunately, there are many different styles of writing available in the libraries.



By force! Even if I didn’t agree with this, I would lie and say I did, because it is such a fine sentiment. Shakespeare? Truly, what modern reader can read him without training? And as for Faulkner, well...give me Steinbeck any day!

[MarkPettus]

Blasphemers!! Heretics and Blasphemers!! We're surrounded by them.

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.



I'm sorry, but if we don't aspire to that quality, what sort of beasts are we?

[fallenangelwriter]

I'm baffled by this Shakespeare-bashing.

yes, not all classics are for everyone. I, for instanc,e don't particularly enjoy Hemingway's work. on the other hand, I've read enough to recognize him for what he was: a very, very good writer whom i did not happen to care for. I haven't enjoyed all the "literature" i've read, but mosst if not all classics are classics because there's something noteworthy about them.

to read Shakespeare does NOT require special training, just literacy, intelligence, and a good annotated copy. I might recommend the New Folger Library editions, which are paperbacks with excellent notes, suggested stage directions, consistent headings and reconstructed texts (using the combination of multiple existing versions and inserting, in brackets, some words belived to have been omitted).

Not everyone needs to write like shakespeare, but he was indisputably a teltned writer, one whom whom I have read htoroughly, and only for pleasure. (as a homeschooler, i've never been FORCED to read anything)

[pdr]

Those of us who grew up listening to the King James' Bible and who had a compulsory classical education with the best sort of teachers don't have problems reading Shakespeare. We were lucky.

When I was an English Prof many of my students came to their first Shakespeare class saying they hated him. They'd read him in school once. Badly taught by teachers who didn't like him either.

To point out the obvious Shakespeare wrote plays. Plays for people to watch and listen to. Half the fun in Shakespeare comes in watching the actors using those marvellous lines. Many of those lines contain written in directions for the actors and have to be seen. For my students - brought up on films and TV - I'd show them the Franko Zefferelli (sp?) film of 'The Taming of the Shrew' starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton. It never failed to make them laugh and set off hundreds of arguments and questions.
Then we would perform a play of their choice.

If you think you don't like Shakespeare go and watch some of the easier plays before making that a permanent judgement. It's better in a theatre but there are a few good videos around - Laurence Olivier's 'Henry V', 'Richard 111' and 'Hamlet', and his 'King Lear' and 'Othello'. The BBC and Time Life did a good series of all the plays for TV. Their 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' is truly spooky and gives a really good impression of what Elizabetheans thought of fairies. Their 'Much Ado About Nothing' is good. Kenneth Brannaugh (sp?) and Emma Thompson made a good 'Much Ado About Nothing'. The 'Romeo and Juliet' with Olivia Hussey as Juliet gives a good feeling of the passion although the play was cut too ruthlessly for me.
There's a Japanese producer's 'Macbeth' which is terrifying.

Please don't read the plays if you find the language difficult and the images historical. Go listen and watch, laugh and cry. That's what Shakespeare intended you to do.

[scarletpeaches]

Trouble is, Shakespeare wasn't too hot when it came to historical or geographical accuracy...

[HConn]

Trouble is, Shakespeare wasn't too hot when it came to historical or geographical accuracy...

So what?

__________________

Here's a personal favorite of mine:



Gloucester: Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lowered upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front,
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them -
Why I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Annoted version at http://www.r3.org/bookcase/shaksper/act1.html

[Bufty]

Nachonaco - your original post was on dialogue but somehow this thread has become a pro or con Shakespeare one.

Reverting to your original Query, in my view dialogue should be like a ball bouncing back and forth between the speaking characters.

In dialogue between say two people, what each person says (the response) is usually triggered by the last phrase spoken by the other character (the stimulus). Sometimes that triggering stimulus may be an observed action instead of spoken words. Follow the principle of 'stimulus/response' and your dialogue (and scene) should achieve what is called 'flow'. In other words it will make sense and the reader will be able to follow it clearly.

Each sentence might - in any particular exchange - happen to be such that it can be spoken in a single breath but to make that an unbreakable objective is in my opinion both impractical and unrealistic. Many factors govern the length of a sentence in any given run of dialogue - emotion, mood, state of mind, circumstance, education etc. etc.

If you wish your speaker to pause or take a breath, use punctuation - that's what it is for. Listen to any politician or interview, debate or discussion and it's perfectly obvious people don't deliberately speak in sentences that can be uttered in a single breath.

[blacbird]

Bufty's comments are good and on point. In addition, all dialogue should function to move some aspect of the story along, generally through illuminating the understanding (or misunderstanding) of characters about the story surrounding them. It's easy to write dialogue that is natural, human sounding, but is pure fluff and accomplishes nothing. We all talk that way much of the time. Such dialogue does not a story make, and should be weeded out when found.

bird

[Sheryl Nantus]

best advice I got from my teachers in college about dialogue was to LISTEN - get into a public area and just sit and listen to those around you. Don't spy, but listen to the different tones and dialects; phrases of speech and how real people talk and discuss and scream and grumble.

best advice EVAH!

:)

[scarletpeaches]

So what?

If someone claims to be historically and geographically accurate, I, at least, prefer them to be so.

That's what.

[Nateskate]

There are books that don't require characters conversing, but they are rare. Gulliver's Travels is a giant monologue. It works, although I doubt someone would get away with it today. For one, people are used to a faster-paced read, and pure narrative slows things down. And this is why all but the most ardent Tolkien fans give up on trying to read the Silmarillion. In some chapters he uses only narrative.

In the time that Swift wrote, people were curious about the rest of the world, and chronicles of sea adventures were popular. This story was actually somewhat of a practical joke and satire, though intertestingly, some people took it to be literal at that time.

Swift belonged to a group of intellectuals, somewhat like Tolkien's Inklings, and wrote the story on a dare. It is laced with insults to his culture, and he uses a mythical voyage where he meets little people and talking horses as the engine by which he accomplishes this.

Now, if you have a story like Swift or Tolkien, you'd still have a hard time selling it. But if you have a creative enough mind to write on that level, then it's only a matter of time before you get the knack of speaking through conversation between characters.

[blacbird]

If someone claims to be historically and geographically accurate, I, at least, prefer them to be so.

That's what.

I doubt Shakespeare ever claimed historical and geographical accuracy, or that his audience ever expected such.

bird

[Danger Jane]

No, but today we are informed, and things have changed. You have to be at least as accurate as your average reader. Probably more so. Shakespeare's average audience (and yes, I know he had lots of rich people watching too) was an ignorant peasant. Yours is most likely an educated audience. If something seems fishy, they can Google it and post an Amazon review about how unimformed YOU are. And suddenly you've got a reputation.

[NeuroFizz]

Nachonaco,

One way to approach dialogue is to give each character a unique speech structure, just like each gets a unique physical description. The speech characteristics can be very similar for siblings or best friends, but very different for people from different socioeconomic groups. If you put in character-specific quirks, it helps define the character, and may even help smooth out the dialogue. Dialogue should tell the reader as much about the character as it does about the events happening around that character.

Two pet peeves of mine: starting lines of dialogue with "Well. . ." or "Look . . ."

I kind of like Elmore Leonard's stuff for realistic dialogue.

[blacbird]

No, but today we are informed, and things have changed. You have to be at least as accurate as your average reader. Probably more so. Shakespeare's average audience (and yes, I know he had lots of rich people watching too) was an ignorant peasant. Yours is most likely an educated audience. If something seems fishy, they can Google it and post an Amazon review about how unimformed YOU are. And suddenly you've got a reputation.

I didn't argue that WE shouldn't be accurate about such things. in fact, I quite agree with you, and have more than once been exercised in reading a manuscript (or, for that matter, published work by famous authors -- can you say Tony Hillerman? -- that got basic stuff horribly wrong. I merely said it wasn't expected of Shakespeare. To judge his work on the basis of expectations for today's writers is like criticizing Columbus for being wrong about having reached India.

Two of Ray Bradbury's most famous works feature an ancient civilization on Mars and a steamy jungle on Venus. Dang! he got that wrong. I guess we're supposed to throw those stories out now, is that it?

bird

[Mistook]

The simplest way I can describe how I write dialoge is that before writing each line of dialogue, I become that character. I analyze their thoughts, the things they want to say, the things they don't want to say, suspicions, attractions, fears, everything. And when I have the sentiment that they would put into words, I ask myself how that character would say it.

And on a higher level, I also think about the plot, and where I want this conversation to go. Sometimes I explore blind alleys and have to back track to a certain point in the conversation and gently guide it in a different direction.

But generally, you have to "be" that character before you know what they'll say.