Dialogue. Who gives a …?
What’s most important to satisfy when you’re writing dialogue?
- The Story
- The Audience
- The Character
- The Scene
It’s all the above. But one item in particular is critical to reader success. Did you choose the second item on the list? The audience?
Dialogue is what drives the story forward.
If the reader can’t pronounce the words or has to read with an open dictionary at their side, the story gets lost. It won’t get read. People who read encyclopedias for entertainment exist but are far and few between.
If you’re writing to stretch the reader’s vocabulary, there’s a quick and easy fix for that. Include a scholarly character that other characters tolerate because they’re so brainy. But throw in another character who can translate.
For example. Mary Linn, the young gravestone hunter, is interviewing a psychologist (the scholar). The interview is for the bully smashing videos she and Valinda are producing.
Psychologist: “Drawcansirs are narcissists on steroids. They subdue others to make themselves feel exceptional.”
Mary Linn: “Drawcansir? What’s a drawcansir? You lost me. Is there a simpler way to say that to first graders?”
Psychologist, chuckling: “Sorry. Big words come with the territory. Drawcansir is another word for a bully or a tyrant. Narcissists are selfish people who are in love with themselves. They’re egomaniacs.
Mary Linn: “So, if we are explaining bully’s behavior, we can tell them that ‘Bullies don’t say ‘One for all and all for one’. They say ‘All for me and me for me’. And that bullies are show-offs on Tony-the-Tiger fuel. They scare you to make themselves feel superior or smarter than you. They’re not.”
Psychologist: “Yes.”
To double-check the readability of the dialogue, I use a fast and easy editing software called Hemingway. Hemingway analyzes a block of text and gives the grade level of the text as well as other faux pas you need to be aware of. It was a free download if you don’t need all the bells and whistles. But it’s less than $20 if you choose to buy it. This article is at a 4th grade level, according to Hemingway.
One note to be aware of: Copy the text to Hemingway to check for readability. But make corrections on your original. If you copy and paste from the app, you’ll lose formatting, like spacing and bullets. And you’ll have a strange background to remove.
And… at this writing, Hemingway is not an affiliate of mine. But it might be someday.
To summarize, write dialogue and dialects to fit the audience first, then the story, the character, and the scene. In that order.
Happy dialoguing,
Alexie Linn
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