Okay, I just skimmed through an HC crit on a book I admire quite a bit. They gave the author a hard time about dialogue, saying 'remove words like actually, sure, really' implying that doing so would make the dialogue "better".

Uh, hello! Is anyone at HC under the age of 70? Do they talk to anyone, ever? People do NOT speak clearly, they do NOT use proper grammer, and they do NOT always make sense or say something just to drive the story of their life.

GET A GRIP, HARPER COLLINS!

Posted: 26/11/2008 10:50:05

exactly, my dialogue is probably a mix of Idaho, Missouri and Kentucky with a little New Jersey, I purposely wrote dialogue to fit the characters, not to fit an English textbook

Dialogue is hard. I use quite a lot, but it's never 'he said, she said.' I'll do an attribution every three or four lines if things are getting hairy, and frequently my characters will use the other person's name, 'cos I really hate 'he said' etc.

I agree, the HC editor was barking up the wrong tree about that, like, y'know, LISTEN to how people, er, speak. It's, like, bloody awful! So adding in all the glitches, burps and verbal farts actually brings more realism to the work. IMHO.

Posted: 26/11/2008 13:46:27

'Like, bump,' he said.

'Bump?' she asked.

Posted: 26/11/2008 14:12:17

Move over, make some room for me on that band wagon!

That's exactly how I try to get readers through my dialogue. Vary the vernacular. Assign unique preparatory statements and disposable ad-libs to individual characters. Hopefully, you can have some tagless dialogue. I've a scene of conflict between a Hispanic prostitute, a Jamaican drug-dealer, an American gang-leader and an English lawyer. There are almost no tags and it reads fast and furious.

In defence of the crit (though being, as ever, on the fence), it may be true to how people actually, really and, like, speak, but it can be far more painful on the page unless it's done with great care and sparingly. It's no use saying, 'people speak like that these days,' if the readers will go away in droves cos they don't like reading it.

Writing dialogue should, imao, be a compromise thang.

Posted: 26/11/2008 16:29:41

'So adding in all the glitches, burps and verbal farts actually brings more realism to the work. IMHO.'

I've heard so many people complain about the number of times 'youngsters' use the word like...sheesh.
I work with the elderly, in Devon, and I have one little old octogenarian who uses it almost like every other like word like. But in a heavy Devonian accent!
Strangest thing I ever heard...but how like acceptable would like THAT be if you like wrote it, I like wonder?


Posted: 26/11/2008 16:33:27

In defence of the crit (though being, as ever, on the fence), it may be true to how people actually, really and, like, speak, but it can be far more painful on the page unless it's done with great care and sparingly. It's no use saying, 'people speak like that these days,' if the readers will go away in droves cos they don't like reading it.

Writing dialogue should, imao, be a compromise thang.

Dude!

Posted: 26/11/2008 16:40:19

Posted: 26/11/2008 16:41:43