How much dialogue is too much?

[Scott R. Forshaw]

Recently, I've found my current WIP has become very dialogue heavy. I, personally, have never been a great admirer of too much dialogue, but seem to have gone against the grain, somewhat, as of late. I've also come to realise that, against my better judgement, it appears to work, and not only that, but has actually become necessity as the story has progressed.

What I'm asking is: Do you feel dialogue can be overused, even when done well? And are there other authors/books which use high volumes of dialogue to good effect? And, just to be bothersome, does anyone else use high quantities in their writing?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I use massive amounts, Scott. If they're not talking to each other, they're thinking about what to say next. I struggle to write a scene without any. And my first skeleton drafts usually are 90 per cent dialogue, of which about half usually stays, in one form or another. It moves a story on, keeps it fluid, lets us see pov easily. Vive le dialogue!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I've discovered recently that a great deal of my exposition can be replaced with dialogue, to much better effect -- this probably means that I'm better at dialogue than exposition.

I'm sure that it can be overused, as anything can be overused, but if it seems necessary and appears to be working, you're probably ok.

 

[Galacticdefender]

I'm much better at exposition than dialogue. In fact, unless it is a particularly interesting or important conversation, I sometimes have to force myself to write it. I just don't like it much I should probably work on that.

 

[Esfires]

My WIP is much more character driven than plot driven, and this leads to it being very dialogue-heavy.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think when it reads more like a play than a novel there is too much dialogue ... or not enough of everything else. The amount of dialogue might be just right, and you simply have to fill in the blanks. Or it may be that your characters talk too much, and there really is too much dialogue.

As with so much else, it depends on the story, the characters, and whether or not you are good at writing it.

Many of my scenes start out purely as dialogue. The characters take over and write their own lines. Then I fill in the rest. If I try to control the dialogue too much, it often looks forced.

Mind you, that doesn't mean that I won't edit down what they have to say afterwards, if it's obvious they're taking too long to say it and slowing down the pace.

 

[Mouse]

I don't think you can have too much dialogue unless, like Teresa says, it ends up looking more like a script. I love dialogue.

 

[prizzley]

I think dialogue, like exposition and description, needs to be controlled. Several pages of dialogue and no action would put me off. I try to break it up with thoughts and action. But sometimes I get too involved, dialogues over-run and are heavily cut in late later re-writes.

 

[Bowler1]

Over the last year I have moved from a narrative to a dialogue style and it's working a lot better for me. If your chapters are set out well and it's not just characters gabbing away, then I don't see the problem. As long as there is emotion and background descriptions then I can't see any problems using a lot of dialogue. It's all about a style that works best for you.

 

[J-WO]

1- Move plot.

2- Reveal character.

3- Be funny.

If it ain't at least one of these three, cut.

 

[Tecdavid]

I'd say a lot of dialogue is a good thing. It can help the reader get inside the head and shoes of a character in ways which are far more striking than what would be achieved through a lot of narration.

I'd agree with J-WO, though, in that it might become a problem if it's nothing but banter. Listening to the characters discuss their mission or quest might prove insightful and exciting to a reader, but no one wants a whole ten pages dedicated to the church minister going on about his favourite flavours of tea.

 

[Ursa major]

But what if there's trouble brewing...?


As ever, the golden rule is that if it works, the amount of dialogue/introspection/exposition/whatever you have is, at the least, acceptable. When the passage/scene/whatever isn't working, something (which may or may not be the ratio of dialogue to narrative) needs changing.

 

[Brian G Turner]

The danger with too much dialogue is that the POV character has become a passive observer in their own story, and therefore the dialogue is used to compensate for lack of character experience.

I haven't seen any hard and fast rules on use of dialogue, but I have been looking closely at GRRM's "Game of Thrones" to see how he uses it, and so far his structure has a tendency to be short sections of dialogue, followed by short sections of introspection, repeat. This seems to work well, though he does have longer dialogue scenes - but generally not at the expense of the POV character.

J-Wo I think is very much on the ball here - if you cut lines of your dialogue, does the story still make sense? Can you rewrite any of the dialogue as internal thoughts?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But pure introspection is passive, too. With dialogue, the character is at least interacting with others. Introspection is just the character talking to him- or herself.

What does the dialogue accomplish, and is it appropriate to the story and to the scene?

When the characters are in conflict with each other, or working together toward some important goal (perhaps, in SFF, some world-shaking goal), then you need the interaction that comes through dialogue.

When a character is principally experiencing internal conflict (or is analyzing, or silently stewing, or trying to figure out what to do about what everyone else is doing) then you need introspection. Although either may make the character a passive observer, there is more potential for that here unless handled correctly. It's not the pattern of how Martin does it, it is how he uses each one.

But with humorous books, some of them anyway, one of the main sources of delight may be in the dialogue. Take a writer like P. G. Wodehouse. After a while his plots became a mismash of other plots, but it didn't matter. The action became a vehicle for the witty, fast-paced dialogue and the equally clever exposition, and that was more than enough.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Very good points, Teresa, especially about the use of conflict - I especially like to use Frank Herbert's "Dune" as a good example of how it's used - the first few chapters at least, introspection is used primarily to provide directly conflicting thoughts between characters. However, it's not necessarily the most practical example, but certainly one of the most blatant I can think of.

 

[juelz4sure]

That all depends on the scene sort of speak, if your doing a monologue it has to progress the story in a way that only a monologue can do, other wise the story has to flow even through the dialogue if you feel that the dialogue is stopping the flow it might be time to shorten us the dialogue. It's hard to do my first attempt at a book which was whenIi was still in school bored me because it was nothing but dialogue( I don't consider that a true effort simply because it didn't last past a month).

 

[nightdreamer]

This thread comes at an interesting time. I'm reading Asimov's Foundations' Edge, and I couldn't help but notice it's almost all dialog. Every now and then he might mention they're in a room or there is grass in the field, but as likely as not, one of the characters will just say there is grass in the field. It's not too terribly bad because the plot is intellectual (it's Asimov, after all) and he cleverly brings it out through that dialog. On the other hand, I like more world building than that; I don't want everything to be my imagination. Overall, I think a lot of dialog is a good thing, but be careful not to let the setting slip away from you.