Crafting Believable Dialogue

When I first began writing features, one of my editors talked about my emerging "voice." I only vaguely understood what she meant at the time, but with more assignments, her words grew clear. I also happily noted my ability to craft a story in such a way that the reader could hear the "voices" of my sources.

I wasn't too far into writing Bryony when I realized, with dismay I must admit, that my job was to create distinct voices for my characters.

In previous posts, I've mentioned how to use dialogue to allow personality to shine forth. The reverse is also true. When contemplating a particular character's words, considering certain character traits will not only help you decide what he should say, but how he should say it.

For instance, John, who is naturally introverted, uses the fewest words possible, when he uses them. Henry, an exuberant storyteller who likes the sound of his voice, freely spews them. Melissa, with youthful animation, has plenty of rambling internal monologue.

An exchange between John and Melissa (one from Bryony, and one from Visage) and then one between Henry and Melissa, from Bryony.

She was just about to touch him when John, still playing, said, “Melissa, I don’t have time tonight.”

He had called her Melissa! She glanced at her coral gown. No, she was Bryony. She smoothed her skirt and sat on the bench beside him. “John….”

John struck a wrong note. The music stopped. He turned brutal eyes at her.

Melissa’s heart sank like lead. She had not expected this reaction. What should she say to him now?

“The other night….” she began.

“Thank you,” John said. “Truly.”

John also vetoed Melissa’s suggestion to spend their wedding night at Munsonville Inn, something Melissa had intended as a surprise for John. The surprise backfired. John had discovered her arrangements, canceled them, and then coldly accused her of deception.

Stunned, Melissa had vehemently protested her innocence and defended the lodging as a quaint romantic venue for their first night of married life together. As she continued to jabber, Melissa watched the fury on John’s face settle into a maddening, condescending calmness.

Not until she sputtered into silence did John speak. “What is your preoccupation with that village?” 

“I just don’t get him!” Melissa finally dropped onto the settee. “Where is he?”

“Our John is attending to other matters tonight.”

“Like what?”

Henry pretended to be shocked. “Melissa, really! There are some things a man won’t bring into his home.”

“You mean, like other women?”

He laughed again, less heartily this time, almost as if he sympathized with her. “Is that what you think, Melissa?”

“I don’t know what to think. Why orchestrate all this, if he doesn’t….”

“Doesn’t want to be with you? You’re not the meal, remember?”

Melissa did not say a word. She sure felt like the meal last night.

“Now, if you’re talking about delicate matters of the heart, then you surprise me.”

“Stop making fun of me!”

“I’m not teasing you, Melissa. Women are the fickle ones. They profess undying affection for a man one day and fall in love with another tomorrow. We men are different. We love only once, for life, and close our hearts to other women.”

“What a lie!”

“I said ‘hearts,’ not other parts. There was only one woman for John. You’re deluding yourself by thinking otherwise.”

“He wants a second chance!”

“At music, nothing more. John would rather touch a piano than a woman.”

When setting up your dialogue, even when furthering your plot or providing pertinent information, consider also the relationship between the people talking. Obviously, people who like each other will speak one way, and people who do not will speak another. But although those differences are clear, they are often subtle, especially when one is subordinate to another. Here's an exchange between a barely eighteen-year-old John and his father from Before the Blood.

   

   John waited until the accountants had departed for the night before approaching his father, sitting like Vlad Tepes on his throne, eager to mete out impalements.

   "You must terminate the Gibbs family immediately," John said.

   "Why?" Abbott asked, as he peered through his reading spectacles at a report.

   John straightened his shoulders. "Insubordination."

   Without looking up, Abbott reached for an envelope and handed it to John. "You're leaving for New Haven at the beginning of next week."

   "New Haven?" John asked, annoyed that his father had so easily dismissed his request. "Why?"

   "Ever hear of Warren Holloway?"

   "The robber baron for the New England railroads?"

   "Yes. He retired a few years ago and in the vicinity of Spencer Inn."

   "So?"

   "So he caught a bad cold last winter, which he didn't survive. His widow has hired someone fulltime, but he can't start until autumn. She needs help with the stock and grounds for the summer. Your grandfather asked if you were available."

   "And you said, 'yes.'"

   "When you return, I'll set you up in business."

   "And if I don't comply?"

   Abbot raised his eyes. "You'll no longer have a home here."

Utilizing those personality traits is especially helpful when, at first glance, characters have plenty of similarlity. In Bryony, Melissa is often hanging out with her friends, all girls and all the same age. Of course, judicious use of tags with their names helps differentiate them, but so does keeping in mind the differences that make them unique. Ann is intellectual, quiet, and fanciful; Julie is smart, confident, and authoritative; and Katie, the baby in a large family, often behaves immaturely for her seventeen years.

“I can’t see why the grown-ups are so bent out of shape,” Julie grumbled. “You’d think they’d want Munsonville to progress.”

Katie wound a strand of Julie’s hair over a roller.

“I don’t care,” Ann said with a yawn. “I’m won’t be here in a few years.”

 “Me neither,” Julie said. “The trouble with Munsonville is that no one thinks past fishing boats. I want something more than night crawlers and dead carp.”

“Like what?” Katie reached for the comb.

“Like anything that requires some brain power. Like a car, maybe.”

Melissa was surprised at Julie’s scornful remarks. She thought all the villagers  lived contentedly in Munsonville.

Ann turned a page. “I’ll be too busy traveling around the world.”

 Julie tossed her head and snorted.

“Hold still!” Katie struggled to fasten the roller.

“Not if,” Julie snapped her fingers, “Jack Cooper looked twice at you.”

Ann blushed, still looking down. “That’s not true. I’m marrying someone so rich and ambitious, I’ll own homes in three countries and eat gourmet food every night.”

“I’d rather get a job and make my own money, thank you.”

“Can’t you get a job?” Melissa then remembered Munsonville had no industry.

“Not unless you slave for a family business. My mom works the information desk at the nature center, and my dad sells used cars in Jensen. By the time they restore Simons Mansion, I’ll be in college, thank God.”

Katie rolled another strand of hair and secured it with a pin. “Do you think the ghost will attack once they start fixing it?”

Ann’s blue eyes were stern. “There’s no ghost. Grow up, Katie.”

Julie shook her head in exasperation and a roller fell out of her hair. “You’ve got to keep an open mind. What about the stories?”

“Mass hysteria,” Ann said.

“Maybe, except for the evidence backing their claims.”

Melissa stiffened and held her breath. Did Julie mean Kimberly?

Ann down her nose at Julie and snickered. “Not nutty Tina Swanson?”

“Who’s she?” Melissa said.

“Last summer,” Ann said, “Tina’s family rented one of the lakefront fishing cottages. No one liked Tina because she bragged that her red hair made her psychic, After a month, Tina’s parents went to Uncle Gabe. Tina said a dark man in black broke into her room while she was sleeping. So, he posted a guard.”

“Did they see anyone?” Melissa asked.

“Of course not,” Ann said, giving her a funny look.

“My parents said Tina was just spoiled and looking for attention,” Katie said.

“Or maybe she did have ESP,” Julie said. “Maybe everyone missed what she saw. How do you know nothing comes into your room at night?”

            “I hope not!” Katie shuddered.

And finally, one from Staked! where the distinct voices of John-Peter and Karla, as well as their close relationship, are obvious, even during a minor conflict.

           He had strolled through the motor home’s side door as he did nearly every afternoon and found Karla slumped at the dinette table, head buried under her arms, sobbing inconsolably. The boy had scooted past her to the refrigerator for Katie’s soy milk before dropping into a chair, still gulping, and wondering what had happened. Karla was not a crybaby.    

          “You’re rather gloomy today.” John-Peter eyed her as he downed the carton.

            

           Karla raised a tear-stained face. “Oh, John-Peter, I can’t stand it. Amy invited me to go to the movies with her on Saturday, and I can’t go because of this horrid crystal ball lesson.”

            

          “Who cares about a sappy movie?”

           

           She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not getting it. Why can’t I be normal for just one afternoon?”

           

           “Normal like Amy? Come on, Karla, she’s a goon.”

            

           “It’s so tiresome to be special.”

           

           “You should embrace your greatness.”

            

            “You don’t have to sit through math class without sharing the memory of Mr. Andrews’ morning quickies.”

            

             “A perspective infinitely more thrilling, to be sure, than his wife’s.”

           

             “I knew you wouldn’t understand!”

          

              John-Peter catapulted the carton at Karla where it bounced into her lap. She slammed it on the table and glared at him.

          

             “You have a gift,” he gently said, ignoring her outburst.

            

             “Sometimes, I don’t want it.”

           

             “That’s the trouble with your gifts. They have no exchange receipt.”

           

             “I said, ‘Sometimes.’”

            

             “Well, clear your mind. You won’t master the lesson when you cloud your mental faculties with a trivial emotion.”

            

              “Spoken like a real boy. Emotion, for your information, weirdo, is not trivial.”

           

              “I never said it was. But self-pity won’t get you to the movies.”

Hope this gives you some ideas. Happy writing! :)