People watching can be such a rewarding tool for writers.
I have already talked about how it can help set a scene and create compelling characters.
Today I wanted to discuss dialogue.
Bringing Speech To Life
Dialogue should give insight into character and will allow you to introduce present tense ‘show’ into your story.
Unless it’s reported speech, dialogue will always be set in the present tense.
It needs to be realistic and, in many ways, it also needs to be better than normal speech – concise, without being peppered with the ‘ums’ and ‘ahhs’ people traditionally include as they think about how best to phrase something.
A common mistake is allowing your author’s voice to continue through your characters’ dialogue.
If you’re doing this then you’ve assumed that dialogue is just words.
This is where people watching turns that idea on its head and why it is so vital.
People have ticks. They have things they do that are specific to them when they’re making a point or are nervous. In addition, they have ways of sitting and of punctuating their dialogue and too of speaking generally.
Include the foibles that make us individuals and you will create individual characters.
Top Tip
A trick I use, which is based a little on character acting, is to imagine a real-life character who has similar traits to my character and then I use that real life character’s voice and persona when I’m creating my character and their characteristics.
One of my characters is an old boy who is very upright and proper, and I base his character loosely on Prince Charles – his body language and the type of speech he uses, the contractions he uses in speech etc.
If you don’t build in different characteristics for your characters, then there is a danger they will all sound the same and be indistinguishable from each other.
Remember that you are the narrator of the story and your author’s voice is the voice your readers will hear carrying the story. The one they depend upon to be consistent and reliable.
Dialogue will help your readers decide which of your characters they identify most closely with.
Individual Voices
Your characters must have individual voices, just like characters in real life.
Your characters must sound like and be consistent with the description of them that you’ve painted for your reader.
They must be individual, and importantly: individual from the author. Unless you’re writing in first person.
But even writing in first person, your voice should be true to the individual character whose voice you’re in.
If you’re writing in first person then you want your story to sound like a memoir – with all that consistency of character and belief – but distinguishable from other stories you’ve written/narrated and other first-person characters you’ve written.
Remembering that story’s POV is a style choice and not a character choice.
The only occasion when you’re both narrator and when it’s vitally important for your author’s voice to be one and the same is when you’re writing a memoir.
Dialogue In Practise
Using the scene I worked on in my last blog (People Watching – How to Create Character), the beauty of third person is that it allows you to view a scene from a distance and to break down the nuance of body language and facial expression for your readers, but from the POV/perspective of your narrator.
Nonetheless though, those characters also need to be wholly distinguishable and individual from each other.
The only time when it’s forgivable for characters to share inflection and phrases is when they come from the same household and you’re trying to emphasise this link.
Anyway, back to the scene from last month:
“Simon leaned forwards, his body rigid and shoulders hunched towards his ears. He jabbed a finger towards Maggie, his coffee slopped over the rim of his cup as the table jarred. He didn’t notice, but Maggie clearly had, she leaned back, her eyes went to the coffee pooling on the table before returning anxiously to his face.”
This dialogue can go in a number of different directions and it shows the power of dialogue that it can change your feelings about your characters based on the dialogue you include.
I’ll use the scene above to demonstrate this.
Currently, it seems as if Simon is the slightly bullying aggressor, but let’s see if we can change your feelings about Simon without touching the narrative:
“Simon leaned forwards, his body rigid and shoulders hunched towards his ears, ‘Why did you do it Maggie?’ He jabbed a finger towards Maggie. ‘Why did you sleep with my best mate … and you stalked him. It wasn’t even as if it was a one-night stand,’ his coffee slopped over the rim of his cup as the table jarred. He didn’t notice, but Maggie clearly had. ‘He showed me the texts Maggie.’
She leaned back, her eyes went to the coffee pooling on the table before returning anxiously to his face, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to go this far. I just … he got under my skin … I couldn’t help myself.’