The Dialogue Obsession
Sometimes your characters talk too much
Writers know how much dialogue can enhance a story, define characters, move a narrative forward. And there are some wonderful scenes in books — memoir and fiction — that are nearly all dialogue and are unforgettable. (Check out Roddy Doyle’s book, Love.) But manuscripts that are dialogue heavy many times can wreck the book’s narrative flow and can be, if not skillfully rendered, nearly unreadable.
Here are some thoughts about those scenes or maybe even entire manuscripts that are too full of dialogue, what to do about it, if anything, and how to adjust your prose to create scenes that are pitch perfect.
1. Remember there is no right answer to dialogue. It’s about what works or what doesn’t. The dialogue must be realistic, certainly. Reading it out loud helps. But it also must be delivered within the prose in a way that enhances, not burdens the narrative flow. Stay away from too much explaining in dialogue.
2. Watch for empty dialogue. These are the exchanges that are just gibberish, small talk, unnecessary replies, and fail to move the storyline along or to reveal something about a character. It’s small talk nonsense. Trim it.
3. There are no clear-cut rules, but if your dialogue involves more than 6/7 exchanges in a row without breaks of description or action, take another look. Be especially careful of long passages by one character. That’s not conversation, that’s a rant. And long passages that act as info dumps or backstory elements are almost always in need of editing.
4. To help with dialogue heavy scenes, consider the story’s setting. Offer descriptions about where the characters are and show how that is relevant to the scene and to the book’s theme. The same with characters. What is relevant that you can reveal without dialogue? Using internal dialogue is one idea. However, use it sparingly.
5. Silence is golden. Silence in a scene can be a major reveal and allow the reader to consider what is being shown in the scene. What is not said can be many times the most powerful part of a scene. Think about how silence—showing only setting, action, or physical reaction in a scene—can enhance the significance of a story’s moment.
There are many great reasons to use dialogue — to reveal character, to show conflict, to give the story variety and balance. But dialogue done poorly can wreck a scene. Dialogue always must be delivered the way real people talk, and exactly how a particular character would speak. (Each character speaks differently, as we all do.) What dialogue should never be is the transcript of a scene’s conversation, as if someone recorded the exchange and all the author is doing is transcribing the content. That’s transcription, not writing.
Dialogue has its place, of course. But don’t allow it to be the only element you consider and become the monster you can’t control.
David W. Berner is an award-winning author of memoir and fiction. His latest novella, The Islander is the recipient of the 2023 National Association of Independent Writers and Editor Book Award for literary fiction. He writes regularly at The Abundance.
