Let’s Talk: Ways to Use Dialogue Effectively, Part II - 3 Types of Dialogue and When to Use Them
Photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash
Last week, I talked about ways to use dialogue to create deeper meaning in passages, rather than using it as a ping-pong of information between characters.
This week, I’m going to focus on the three types of dialogue, and when to use them.
The first is Direct Speech. This is what we usually think of when we think of dialogue:
“APRIL MAY THIS IS GETTING REALLY WEIRD!”
I winced away from the phone. “You’re going to need to be calm with me right now.”
“The video has had three million views now, people think you’re fantastic! You aren’t reading the comments, right?”
This quick snatch of dialogue, from An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, by Hank Green, shows a ton of contrast between the two characters: the excitable Andy, and the too-cool April. Then Andy’s quick comment, to be sure April isn’t reading the comments on the video – without further elaboration needed, as we know what internet trolls are like! This book is a fantastic example of how voice and dialogue can come together to create vivid characters we’d recognize immediately if we met them in the street.
The next type of dialogue is Indirect Speech. When it’s done well, it can be used to great effect, as in this comedic example from the beginning of Dorothy Dunnett’s The Game of Kings:
The steward asked Hob (the water carrier), in the vernacular, digressing every second or third word, what he wanted.
Hob said he had been told to bring water for the sow.
The steward denied it. Hob insisted. The steward described what he might instead do with the water, and Hob described in detail how he had ruined his spine raising the steward’s undistinguished water from the well. Mungo, above, thumped on the floor to stop the racket and the steward, cursing, gave in.
Written this way, the scene is much more amusing than if we’d heard the actual argument. These are minor characters who we’ll never see again, but their conversation is an important trigger for the next thing to happen, and it sets the stage and tone for the rest of the scene to come.
Finally, we have Summarized Speech:
Use this when you don’t need to create a scene with full dialogue. Meaning either the dialogue is not important enough to warrant a scene, or you are trying to create a particular effect by the way in which you summarize what was said.
Now they were gathered to discuss the first years of their big experiment, what Bob Wharton called their Hail Mary: the carbon coin... They listened to their assistants give reports on that for a couple of hours. Abstract after abstract, information crushed to crystalline density. Then it was back to them, looking at each other around the big table. Time for reckoning: had it done what they hoped it would? Had it worked?
Yes, and no and maybe. The usual answer to any question these days.
You can see here, that writing out a couple of hours’ worth of people giving reports would be mind-bogglingly dull for the reader. This is part of a longer scene in Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, which is actually told in a mix of direct dialogue, indirect dialogue, and summary. In fact, Robinson uses a variety of interesting dialogue types throughout the book – including a few interspersed chapters of philosophical conversations between two unnamed “talking heads in space,” proving that you can break any rule if you are doing it for particular effect (in this case, to espouse certain arguments about society, ecology, and economics the book is trying to make).
So, when to use each type of dialogue? Well, most of the time, you will use Direct Speech. It puts the reader right there with the characters, seeing and hearing everything they are. Depending on the point of view you use, you will be more or less inside their heads as well:
Omniscient - “hearing” the dialogue on the page only. Do not make the mistake here of trying to head-hop, telling us what was in everyone’s head. In fact, we don’t get anyone’s direct perspective; we simply read the dialogue on the page, and infer what’s happening from there. Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephant’s” uses this to great advantage.
Close 3rd person – you will still stick with being in one person’s head, but we will hear the conversation from their perspective. Anna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Then she noticed his hands shaking, just a little. Jim wasn’t as calm as he seemed.
(You can do a more distant third person, but that’s not as popular nowadays. Readers prefer to be right there with a character, experiencing the world with them.)
1st person – we're very close to that person’s perspective. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Then I noticed his hands shaking, just a little. Jim wasn’t as calm as he seemed.
Not every conversation needs to take place on the page. Sometimes, Indirect Speech will be a fun and appropriate way to get across the gist of what was said. Sometimes, it will be a character reporting on a conversation they had earlier, or between two or more other people.
My brother Paul wanted a big wedding. Nothing but the best for his bride. My parents thought Gina was spoiled enough already, and why weren’t her parents paying for the big wedding? Paul said they were being cheap (our parents, not hers). I put my earbuds in and ignored the rest of the conversation. As far as I was concerned, they should elope, but nobody was asking me.
This also works in summary form:
My parents and Paul had been arguing about who was paying for the wedding for weeks. I didn’t care. I hoped they eloped so I wouldn’t have to go. That would solve everybody’s problems.
In this case, we see the dysfunctional family from the narrator’s perspective. Since it’s their story, and they weren’t part of the actual conversation, we don’t need to see the conversation in scene. We just need to know how they see it – assuming it affects them in some way. Maybe the whole story is about the narrator resisting going to the big wedding, being the youngest who no one ever listens to, and actually saving the day/meeting their soul-mate/running away to join the circus at the end.
As you write, you will get a feel for how dialogue should be presented – when it’s important to show in scene, and when it’s good to “hear” it indirectly, or summarize. A lot of this work is done in revision, when you go through the manuscript and see what you can trim, enhance, cut, or turn into a different form of dialogue. So don’t stress about it too much in a first draft.
In revision, though, do a pass where you only focus on dialogue. You can look not just for dialogue on the page, but also places where indirect or summarized dialogue could be inserted to give color and context.
Dialogue is such a powerful element of telling your story. It underscores and enhances character, setting, action, theme. It’s worth taking the time to polish and make it the best it can be.
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