A more experienced writer once told me “Any dialog more than three lines long is a speech.” Obviously no rule is hard and fast, but I was wondering what you think of this line.
I do think it’s best to keep dialogue short most of the time, but there are times when it’s acceptable to let the characters have a speech. Just like conversations in real life, the back-and-forth flow of conversation should vary.
I am writing a YA contemporary fiction that includes various forms of communication. I have an internal dialogue of the main character, the regular dialogue between characters, text messaging, and telepathy between the main character and animals. There are some scenes where multiple communications happen at the same time.
I know that using italics is acceptable for internal thoughts, but what is the best way to format the interactions via text and telepathy so as not to confuse the reader or look sloppy on the page especially when querying?
There still isn’t an industry standard for this (and as notoriously slow as publishing is, there won’t be for a while!). If you have a story with telepathy, you should treat that as internal thoughts, ie, italicized, but add dialogue tags/beats to indicate who’s speaking mentally. Texts are typically handled as any dialogue, in quotation marks, with tags/beats that indicate it’s a text instead of speech. As for italicizing internal thoughts, keep that to a minimum, especially if you have telepathy too. Only use italics for direct intentional thoughts, like “You can do it, Jeni!” or “Pull yourself together.”
Word choice is key. The dialogue itself needs to convey the strong emotion, and then use beats to reinforce that. Don’t be afraid to throw in the occasional tag like yelled either–just don’t go overboard with them.
Rebecca
1 year ago
I worry sometimes that if a conversation starts to get long it feels static, even if what’s being said is important. Is adding in action/description (such as if they’re walking through the woods during the conversation, describing the trees or a character jumping over a log or something) a valid way of breaking things up?
Absolutely. Interacting with the environment is so important to ground long scenes of dialogue. Just make sure those interactions are doing double (or triple!) duty by making them meaningful. Don’t just add random actions; make them reinforce what the characters are thinking and feeling, as well as deepening theme and character development. You can also show the characters thinking about what the other character(s) says. If you haven’t read anything about scenes and sequels, this concept can shed a lot of light on this process. KM Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel has a great section on this.
JeSuisAmanda
1 year ago
Hello, Jeni! I tuned in to your “Improving Your Craft” workshop as well! Thanks for all the great sites and info!
My book is a MG historical fiction, taking place in a Medieval Era – European type countries.
I gave my characters accents, and have them use words as in “’tis” and “prithee.” Its mostly contemporary words, just with a few era appropriate words, phrases, and slang thrown in to not alienate readers.
I gave one character a thick northern accent, he says words like “nowt” for now and “fadder” for father.
Should I always write his dialogue out in his specific accent, or would that annoy readers?
More important than annoying readers, using phonetic spellings like that can pull your readers out of the story. Think of it like this: once we become proficient at reading, our brain processes words without us having to actively think about what the word is. When you use phonetic spellings, your reader’s brain has to pause for each one to sound it out and possibly review context to figure out what the character is saying. In other words, it’s not automatic anymore. Each time you do that, you risk your reader disengaging with the story, and the more it you use that technique, the more likely your reader will check out of the story and lose connection with the character. It’s fine to do it a few times or have one word like that that one character uses frequently. But if it’s more than that, use the dialogue tags and beats to indicate what the accent sounds like. With the era-appropriate words and phrases, it sounds like you’re doing it right. Just remember that the last thing you want is to pull your reader out of the story so you don’t want to overdo it.
A more experienced writer once told me “Any dialog more than three lines long is a speech.” Obviously no rule is hard and fast, but I was wondering what you think of this line.
I do think it’s best to keep dialogue short most of the time, but there are times when it’s acceptable to let the characters have a speech. Just like conversations in real life, the back-and-forth flow of conversation should vary.
I am writing a YA contemporary fiction that includes various forms of communication. I have an internal dialogue of the main character, the regular dialogue between characters, text messaging, and telepathy between the main character and animals. There are some scenes where multiple communications happen at the same time.
I know that using italics is acceptable for internal thoughts, but what is the best way to format the interactions via text and telepathy so as not to confuse the reader or look sloppy on the page especially when querying?
There still isn’t an industry standard for this (and as notoriously slow as publishing is, there won’t be for a while!). If you have a story with telepathy, you should treat that as internal thoughts, ie, italicized, but add dialogue tags/beats to indicate who’s speaking mentally. Texts are typically handled as any dialogue, in quotation marks, with tags/beats that indicate it’s a text instead of speech. As for italicizing internal thoughts, keep that to a minimum, especially if you have telepathy too. Only use italics for direct intentional thoughts, like “You can do it, Jeni!” or “Pull yourself together.”
Thank you so much. That’s what I’ve been doing with this WIP from NaNoWriMo. I was terrified that I would have to go back and change everything.
Any tricks for tags of verbiage to avoid the dreaded exclamation point?
Word choice is key. The dialogue itself needs to convey the strong emotion, and then use beats to reinforce that. Don’t be afraid to throw in the occasional tag like yelled either–just don’t go overboard with them.
I worry sometimes that if a conversation starts to get long it feels static, even if what’s being said is important. Is adding in action/description (such as if they’re walking through the woods during the conversation, describing the trees or a character jumping over a log or something) a valid way of breaking things up?
Absolutely. Interacting with the environment is so important to ground long scenes of dialogue. Just make sure those interactions are doing double (or triple!) duty by making them meaningful. Don’t just add random actions; make them reinforce what the characters are thinking and feeling, as well as deepening theme and character development. You can also show the characters thinking about what the other character(s) says. If you haven’t read anything about scenes and sequels, this concept can shed a lot of light on this process. KM Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel has a great section on this.
Hello, Jeni! I tuned in to your “Improving Your Craft” workshop as well! Thanks for all the great sites and info!
My book is a MG historical fiction, taking place in a Medieval Era – European type countries.
I gave my characters accents, and have them use words as in “’tis” and “prithee.” Its mostly contemporary words, just with a few era appropriate words, phrases, and slang thrown in to not alienate readers.
I gave one character a thick northern accent, he says words like “nowt” for now and “fadder” for father.
Should I always write his dialogue out in his specific accent, or would that annoy readers?
Thank you so much!
More important than annoying readers, using phonetic spellings like that can pull your readers out of the story. Think of it like this: once we become proficient at reading, our brain processes words without us having to actively think about what the word is. When you use phonetic spellings, your reader’s brain has to pause for each one to sound it out and possibly review context to figure out what the character is saying. In other words, it’s not automatic anymore. Each time you do that, you risk your reader disengaging with the story, and the more it you use that technique, the more likely your reader will check out of the story and lose connection with the character. It’s fine to do it a few times or have one word like that that one character uses frequently. But if it’s more than that, use the dialogue tags and beats to indicate what the accent sounds like. With the era-appropriate words and phrases, it sounds like you’re doing it right. Just remember that the last thing you want is to pull your reader out of the story so you don’t want to overdo it.