How to write good dialogue

Writing dialogue is partly about listening to people speak — another crucial matter is to listen to people hearing themselves talk. I will give an example from my own work and then demonstrate how the character is hearing himself thinking and beginning the process of change. This creates a much more realistic rendering of character than when someone speaks without seeming to hear what he himself is saying. By opening the door of irony inside his own mind — he becomes like we ourselves.

Example follows:

“I remember. Well, forget it. No I’ll say something. When my dad died, it was hard. You think you don’t like someone. But when they die. When you see their tombstone. You think about it, you know, differently. I remember stories. People would come up to me and say, I waited all night and all day by my father’s deathbed waiting for him to tell me he loved me. My father didn’t do shit for me. But you know. He’s dead. In the ground. I didn’t go to the funeral. Didn’t want to go. We never got along. But now I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop fucking. Thinking about what he’d imagine my life was like. This asshole. This fucking controlling little bitch. This fucking insecure piece of shit. I want to know if he’d be proud of me. And the fucking amazing thing is that. I know that there’s nothing he could ever have done or said that I would have stood back and said thank you for that. Talking about wanting him to be proud of me. I think half the time he wanted me to be proud of him. Now — I remember, he was rough with me one night for because I didn’t go to bed at nine o’clock. I stayed up, and then he walks over and shoves me into a wall and says go the fuck up to your room. And you know what I did? I sat down on the floor and I said no. And he sat down over on the sofa. He sat there and waited. He called down my mother. And the two of them sat there and waited. And finally, at midnight they both get up and go to bed. I went to bed that night at three in the morning. And do you know what he said the next day? ‘How’s my little man?’ Like he was pretending it never happened. I didn’t speak to him. For two years. And then. You know if he’d apologized or anything. I’d have said fine. Let’s go from there. But he never apologized. Ever. So — I wasn’t ever going to speak to him again. But he got brain surgery for something. So I talked to him.”

There was a pregnant pause because Frank continued. Michelle knocked the ashes of her cigarette into an ash tray. The cool wind blew through the window. Heather felt it on her bare feet. Amanda tucked her legs up, folding the skirt underneath.

“I regret it now. I regret I ever starting to him. I should have led him silently. To the grave. Not one more word. He’s just some fucking little piece of shit. He wants me to do something so he can be proud of me? No sir. No you fucking little (pregnant pause). You have to do something to make me proud of you. That’s what you have to do. Do something to prove yourself to me. I don’t prove myself to ANYONE. ANYONE. Except me. I prove myself — to myself. But you. Sir. Have to prove yourself to me.”

— -

Notice that this is a monologue — and yet he has complete mastery of understanding of what he is saying. The reader doesn’t know anything more than he knows — he actually knows much more than the reader. As he speaks, he turns inward — he seems to remember a very different person from the man he has become, and then he directly addresses his father in a transport that summons him up like a ghost.

It’s worth noting that no one talks like this in real life. And yet through the very old-school method of the monologue — one creates a kind of aria — and using this old fashioned means that is not realistic, one actually creates a realistic character — even if the speaking is not itself realistic.

Exploring character is best done by the character himself — all of the knowledge should be self-knowledge. In the character’s own ignorance of himself, we should sense a self-willed ignorance. Everything should be to a purpose. A person’s entire fate should be exposed by the way they talk — their past should be exposed and even some of the future — everyone is a work in progress.

You should never sacrifice the realism of precision of a character in order to say something funny or create an “effect” in your writing.

Notice that typos were kept — typos should remain always — they are often unconscious “twitches of the brush” that reveal deeper insights than you would otherwise find. At least consider keeping your typoes. As many as you dare.