Struggling with dialogue

[Justin_B]

Hi,
I'm never comforatble writing dialogue.
Happy to have this shredded. Any and all critque welcome.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Sir, sorry to bother you…” the intern murmured.
Fixing him with a baleful glare supervisor Warren waited.
Never knowing whether the man wanted him to continue or was merely contemplating evisceration, Intern 907 swallowed and carefully constructed his next sentence.
“We have a RL in bay 217, the subject is resisting the protocol and is showing signs of consciousness”
“Reality Leak aye?” Warren said switching on his terminal.
“Convict 217 Jacob [the Shyte] Durren. Sentenced to 1 year re-live, 2 years re-education and 10 hard labour”
“Moved to the city 9 months before incarceration with Wife, deceased, and son also deceased”
Intern 907, watching the deepening scowl on Warren’s face, waited while he scanned the rest of the file.
“Apparently the son made some sort of disparaging remark about the Protector while he and his mother were out shopping”
“Both sentenced to liquification, Jacob sentenced to throw the switch”
“Should have schooled him better”
Looking up from his desk Warren muttered “What the hell is [the Shyte] supposed to mean?”
Deciding it was a rhetorical question the intern waited for instructions.
“Keep an eye on him, let me know if it gets worse. I’ll dig around, see if I can’t find out more about this [Shyte]”.
Warren leaned back, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.
Knowing he’d been dismissed and knowing that querying the datasphere about someone who’d only been in the city for 9 months would take some time 907 returned to his station.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks

[Dozmonic]

From reading it I could rewrite it to a way I think would work better but I don't think that'd help overly, so instead I'll suggest a way of going through it.

I don't much enjoy writing speech either, because I write it all as I would say it. So I go through and do that, just simply putting said John, said Bob etc after so I know who is saying what. It should be absolutely clear who is speaking.

Once I have the basic speech down for my piece, I'll go through and change it so it's being spoken how the character would speak it. Here you have Intern 907 who is nervous and uncertain, speaking in very clipped and factual tones so he can't make a mistake and be punished for it. You have Warren who's a little more colloquial with his "aye" and "what the hell". Yet the line starting "Moved to the city 9 months ago..." I have no idea who is saying that. Is that Intern 907 continuing? If so it should be part of the speech before, or interspersed with some physical action. If it's Warren then it needs to specify this somehow, "... read Warren from his monitor". The tone of that line sounds like 907 speaking, but because you put it separately I'm led to believe it might be Warren. That means that when reading it I can't read it in the voice I've created for 907 or Warren, because I don't know who it should be.

Where you have "a RL", I would change that to "an RL", because although it stands for Reality Leak, I would read that as "an RL". The letter R starts with a vowel sound and so needs an before it. You can use a if it is said as a word that makes sense. One example from real life would be SQL which is said either as SEQUEL or the letters S-Q-L. When said as the word you could take about "a SQL database", but if you're saying it as the letters it's "an SQL database".

Always re-read your speech back aloud, in the accent of your character. That helps a lot when writing. If you can't act it out, if you stumble over the words, if you speak them to someone else and they don't understand, then it all needs clarifying and just going over again.

Hope that helps a little. Give it another crack and re-post it and we can see how much you've improved it just by redrafting ;-)

Edit: Forget to add that it's always good to break up lots of talk with little actions, little movements. You've got this going on already, so it's not an overload of text and it's not looking like mundane forced actions either

[Stylus]

Originally Posted by justinbentley1

Hi,
“Convict 217 Jacob [the Shyte] Durren. Sentenced to 1 year re-live, 2 years re-education and 10 hard labour”
“Moved to the city 9 months before incarceration with Wife, deceased, and son also deceased”
Intern 907, watching the deepening scowl on Warren’s face, waited while he scanned the rest of the file.
“Apparently the son made some sort of disparaging remark about the Protector while he and his mother were out shopping”
“Both sentenced to liquification, Jacob sentenced to throw the switch”

Are both characters reading this information from the file? I think this kind of to-and-fro dialogue works better in film/television as a means of conveying information. Written down, it would seem more realistic to have the information outside of the dialogue (perhaps the intern is thinking over the details of the case as Warren reads) - when two people read the same document, they don't often read it aloud to each other, unless they want to draw attention to something (which doesn't seem the case here, they are just skimming the facts).

It would be better to have a character's response to that information in the dialogue (e.g. "Only nine months ... querying the datasphere will take some time."), rather than the flat information itself.

And a non-dialogue point: this scene is from the viewpoint of Intern 907 - yet he refers to himself as 'the intern' - this this a character point, or a way of keeping the audience distant? How does he regard himself?

Oh, and another thought: is "The Shyte" intended to sound like a swear-word? (because to a lot of British ears, I fear it will)

Hope this helps, and I agree with Dozmonic - it would be good to see a re-post of the next draft.

[Interference]

Dialogue is as important as every other part of your writing. It serves a purpose, first for the reader's eye - to break up what might otherwise be a large block of narrative - second as an indicator for character - dialect and quirks of speech - and as a means of progressing plot. Words used in dialogue are chosen with every bit as much care as any other piece of writing.

I tend to avoid the "Hi, there" lines that take you nowhere much and only seem to add to the word count. I'd prefer to describe the greeting in narrative and then get stuck into the conversation.

However, while drafting I might put these in unconsciously and only change them later if I discover they aren't advancing anything.

Another thing I try to avoid is putting personal biography into dialogue. I feel it comes better from the narrator who can then ascribe emotions, or the perception of emotions in a POV character, to the re-telling.

For me it is a question of balance and weighing the importance of spoken words over insight into character and choosing which progresses this need best.

In terms of choosing the words a character speaks, I once wrote a line of dialogue in a script and showed it to my director who didn't get it. "What I mean is," I said and then went into a concise, real-English description of what I'd been driving at.

"Okay, got it," my director said and he scribbled a few notes.

Next thing I know, the actor is using the words I'd spoken to the director, not the words I'd written.

Sometimes it can be that simple.

[Nik]

Um, I Dare Not critique this because I find writing fluid dialogue almost impossible. My ultimate tactic is to beat a reluctant scene to death with multiple re-writes and recursive edits: I'm on the fourth *complete* iteration of one such, have now decided to split it...

[Roy1]

Here's an alternative opening

“Sir, sorry to bother …” the intern flinched at the resulting glare. Did Warren want him to continue or was he contemplating some horrible punishment for the interruption? Intern 907 swallowed, careful here, he thought. “We have an RL in bay 217, the subject is resisting the protocol and showing signs of consciousness.”
“Reality Leak aye?” Warren turned to his terminal.

“Reality Leak aye?”

the 'aye' doesn't work for me if this is a question.


Not sure who said the following or precisely who was incarcerated

“Convict 217 Jacob [the Shyte] Durren. Sentenced to 1 year re-live, 2 years re-education and 10 hard labour”
“Moved to the city 9 months before incarceration with Wife, deceased, and son also deceased”

[Dozmonic]

If Warren's from Yorkshire or anywhere further north in the UK then a comma and aye with a question mark is just fine ;-)

[thaddeus6th]

The way I try to write dialogue is have a general idea of what a real-life person might say. So, for some of the nobles in my story I want to avoid colloquial terms but not go all the way to Shakespearian speaking. For them I try and imagine what an old school politician, perhaps like Ming Campbell, might say.

For the peasants and soldiery slang's alright, but nothing too modern.

It's not a hard and fast rule but it certainly helps me when trying to work out what sounds right and fits with the environment and character I'm trying to build.

If a guy's nervous consider giving him a stammer, or swallowing anxiously etc etc. I quite like both reading and writing little visual additions to dialogue (the raised eyebrow of flirtation, and the drumming fingers of boredom etc).

[Boneman]

Hi Justin, here's my try. I struggle with dialogue often, and do find that the re-write helps, and the re-re-write and the......you get the picture. I was a little confused by a couple of sections, especially where you print speech marks at the end of a sentence and then open them again, which usually means somebody else is speaking, but in your case it's not clear, viz:

“Convict 217 Jacob [the Shyte] Durren. Sentenced to 1 year re-live, 2 years re-education and 10 hard labour”
“Moved to the city 9 months before incarceration with Wife, deceased, and son also deceased”

I think that's the same guy speaking, isn't it? therefore a full stop after labour, and then into Moved to the city.......etc, with no speech marks between them. Here are my suggestions, hope it helps you focus.

“Sir, sorry to bother you…” the intern murmured.

Good start.
Fixing him with a baleful glare supervisor Warren waited. what is a 'baleful glare supervisor'?
Never knowing whether the man wanted him to continue or was merely contemplating evisceration, Intern 907 swallowed and carefully constructed his next sentence. No problem, handled well, we know it's the intern speaking next.
“We have a RL in bay 217, the subject is resisting the protocol and is showing signs of consciousness” I think you'll find that is 'an RL', say it aloud. R is spelt aah.....
“Reality Leak aye?” Warren said switching on his terminal. I agree with the general confusion...is he Scottish? At first glance I thought mebbe it was a reality leak through the eye, and it was a spelling error....... could be better done by reversing the actions and speech: Warren switched on his terminal. "A reality leak, are you sure?"
“Convict 217 Jacob [the Shyte] Durren. Sentenced to 1 year re-live, 2 years re-education and 10 hard labour”
“Moved to the city 9 months before incarceration with Wife, deceased, and son also deceased” As above......
Intern 907, watching the deepening scowl on Warren’s face, waited while he scanned the rest of the file.
“Apparently the son made some sort of disparaging remark about the Protector while he and his mother were out shopping”
“Both sentenced to liquification, Jacob sentenced to throw the switch”
“Should have schooled him better” Who said all this? I have no idea if it was the intern or warren, and there are no real clues to help me. And you're doing that thing with the speech marks again, and I notice you leave out full stops whenever you reach the end of a speech. As if the speech marks are your punctuation. eg it should read Should have schooled him better."
Looking up from his desk Warren muttered “What the hell is [the Shyte] supposed to mean?”
Deciding it was a rhetorical question the intern waited for instructions. Good
“Keep an eye on him, let me know if it gets worse. I’ll dig around, see if I can’t find out more about this [Shyte]”.
Warren leaned back, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.
Knowing he’d been dismissed and knowing that querying the datasphere about someone who’d only been in the city for 9 months would take some time 907 returned to his station.

There is a curious pattern I see in this section of your writing, and I can't make up my mind if it's okay or not.... You mix tenses in sentences on a regular basis. the fact that I've noticed it (probably only because I'm reading it anaylytically, rather than for pleasure) means that I'm likely to get fed up with it, as i'm leaning towards it being incorrect. What do I know? Here are some examples:
Fixing him with a baleful glare supervisor Warren waited
Never knowing whether the man wanted him to continue or was merely contemplating evisceration, Intern 907 swallowed and carefully constructed his next sentence
Intern 907, watching the deepening scowl on Warren’s face, waited while he scanned the rest of the file.
Deciding it was a rhetorical question the intern waited for instructions.
Knowing he’d been dismissed and knowing that querying the datasphere about someone who’d only been in the city for 9 months would take some time 907 returned to his station.

See what I mean? As one for instance, why not this?
Intern 907, watched the deepening scowl on Warren’s face, waited while he scanned the rest of the file.

Hope this helps.....

[ctg]

From what I read is that you're having a hard time with mixing the narrative and dialogue. Both of the has to be spot in the place, narrative has to be descriptive and if you're going with the dialogue between too people, then it has to be obvious that two of them are speaking different sides.

Pardon for the example, but I'm feeling lazy on inventing yet another one, but take a look at below. It's written from Tom's perspective.

“A hopper?” Tom frowned. “What the **** is that?”


“Your Low Atmosphere hover Vehicle,” Lo-3 answered. “Your LAV sir.”


“I don’t have one,” Tom said.


The android stood back, raised his volume by one notch and said, “Are you telling me sir that you used the West Gate to arrive in the Old London?”


“West gate,” Tom shook his head disbelief and started to pull off his hoodie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”


“You walked out from the West Gate sir, didn’t you?” Lo-3 said, took the hoodie from his hands and peeled out the t-shirt from it. He separated both of them and then started to examine them individually as Tom looked his shoulder. The bullet had cut through the flesh and left behind an ugly looking flesh wound. The blood had dried around it, and the pain remained him that the world he had arrived in was real and very dangerous.


“You walked out from the West Gate sir, didn’t you?” Lo-3 repeated.


“No I didn’t. I didn’t walk out from the West Gate…” Tom answered as he took one roll of bandages from the table and asked. “Do you any alcohol here?”


“Yes, I have eight three per cent strong ethanol here. How many litres would you like to get?”


“Just bring me some so that I clean this wound,” Tom said.

Now let's take a look in yours.

“Sir," the intern 907 said quietly. "sorry to bother you…”

Fixing him with a baleful glare supervisor Warren waited. Never knowing whether the man wanted him to continue or was merely contemplating evisceration, Intern 907 swallowed and carefully constructed his next sentence. “We have a RL in bay 217, the subject is resisting the protocol and is showing signs of consciousness”

I'm sorry if this offends you, but I edited your sentences together so that I could understand what you were writing. I understand that you've written this in intern907 POV. So when you're speaking to the other character, you dialogue has to be addressed to him and the omniscient narrative is fixed close to the main POV character.

I added said indicator and the red bits started to bother me. Do you see what I mean. I would reconstruct the green bit, but I'm afraid that I wouldn't write it in your character style. I don't know enough from this world or your character to do that.

“Reality Leak, aye?” Warren asked. switching on his terminal. “Convict 217 Jacob [the Shyte] Durren. Sentenced to 1 year re-live, 2 years re-education and 10 hard labour. Moved to the city 9 months before incarceration with Wife, deceased, and son also deceased.”

Intern 907, watching the deepening scowl on Warren’s face, waited while he scanned the rest of the file. Apparently the son made some sort of disparaging remark about the Protector while he and his mother were out shopping

”Both sentenced to liquification, Jacob sentenced to throw the switch”

“Should have schooled him better”

Looking up from his desk Warren muttered “What the hell is [the Shyte] supposed to mean?”

Deciding it was a rhetorical question the intern waited for instructions.

“Keep an eye on him, let me know if it gets worse. I’ll dig around, see if I can’t find out more about this [Shyte]”.

Warren leaned back, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. Knowing he’d been dismissed and knowing that querying the datasphere about someone who’d only been in the city for 9 months would take some time 907 returned to his station.

[chrispenycate]

Might as well point out a couple of punctuation details.

Originally Posted by justinbentley1

“Sir, sorry to bother you…” the intern murmured.

Fixing him with a baleful glare

comma

supervisor Warren waited.
Never knowing whether the man wanted him to continue or was merely contemplating evisceration, Intern 907 swallowed and carefully constructed his next sentence.
“We have a RL in bay 217,

semicolon instead of comma

the subject is resisting the protocol and is showing signs of consciousness”
“Reality Leak aye?” Warren said

comma

switching on his terminal.
“Convict 217 Jacob [the Shyte] Durren. Sentenced to 1 year re-live, 2 years re-education and 10 hard labour”
“Moved to the city 9 months before incarceration with Wife, deceased, and son

comma

also deceased”
Intern 907, watching on Warren’s face, waited while he scanned the rest of the file.
“Apparently the son made some sort of disparaging remark about the Protector while he and his mother were out shopping”
“Both sentenced to liquification, Jacob sentenced to throw the switch”
“Should have schooled him better”
Looking up from his desk Warren muttered “What the hell is [the Shyte] supposed to mean?”
Deciding it was a rhetorical question the intern waited for instructions.
“Keep an eye on him, let me know if it gets worse. I’ll dig around, see if I can’t find out more about this [Shyte]”.
Warren leaned back, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.
Knowing he’d been dismissed and knowing that querying the datasphere about someone who’d only been in the city for 9 months would take some time

comma

907 returned to his station.

This will probably be a ridiculous suggestion, but it helps me. Write the entire scene (especially if it's a short scene like this) in first person, once for each of the participants in the conversation. It doesn't have to be perfect, you're not going to use it for anything; the important thing is that you get between the ears of your different characters. Now, look at how they report the dialogue. Unless one of them is an actor who mimics others' speech, you'll find differences in rhythm and in word order, despite their attempting to reproduce the same words. Too often mine talk like me, which is bad; almost no-one in the world talks like me, so they need their own, individual wordflows.

Oh, and don't worry too much about tense changes. "Was contemplating" is past continuous, and "Fixing" and "watching (the deepening scowl) are almost not verb forms at all, and do not define a time period.

[Interference]

Maybe, and I stress this is only a vague possibility, you might get some ideas about dialogue from reading a few plays. See how a dialogue-driven narrative is written. See if that inspires you. Playwrights must surely also apply the technique Chris was talking about.

[Boneman]

Hah! Warra laff......

By Boneman
There is a curious pattern I see in this section of your writing, and I can't make up my mind if it's okay or not.... You mix tenses in sentences on a regular basis. the fact that I've noticed it (probably only because I'm reading it anaylytically, rather than for pleasure) means that I'm likely to get fed up with it, as i'm leaning towards it being incorrect. What do I know?

I just was reading some of my own work, as a self-edit, and I find that I do it all the time!!! So it must be okay, ignore what I've said.........

[ctg]

When you really get dialogue going, it's hard to get out from it. Sometimes you have to hit the breaks and think how far you're going with it. If you get that feeling, then you know that you've learned it properly.

[Robby]

Hi, applying some of the above should give you something like this ...

Supervisor Warren sat idle in his chair. The thought of his unforgiving nature made Intern 907 swallow and trial the news in his mind before he dared deliver it.

'Sorry to bother you, sir, but we have a situation. An RL in bay 217. He's resisting protocol and showing signs of consciousness.'

Warren shifted in the chair, switched on his terminal. 'A Reality Leak? I presume you've double checked?' He scanned the data. 'Convict 207?'

'Yes, sir. Jacob 'the Shyte' Durren. He was sentenced to one year re-live, two years re-education and ten hard labour. Moved to the city nine months before incarceration ...' A scowl creased Warren’s forehead as he leant closer to the terminal. '... came with his wife and son. Both are now deceased. Apparently, the son made some sort of disparaging remark about the Protector while he and his mother were out shopping. Both were sentenced to liquification. Durren was sentenced to throw the switch.'

Warren looked up from his desk. 'What the hell is 'the Shyte' supposed to mean?'

‘It's not in the datasphere, sir.’

'It’ll be in here somewhere, just need to dig a bit. Okay ... keep an eye on him, and let me know if it gets worse. I’ll see if I can’t find out more about this ‘Shyte’.' He leaned back, put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

Here, perhaps go to the next scene: 907's station or wherever the story takes you.

Hope it helps in some way

All the best.