Writing Dialogue When You Abhor Small Talk

Hello my dear readers! I took a slight break from my blog because I realized that I had run out of ideas about what to write! I feel like everything I put on here should be insightful and eye-opening, but I have about as much substance as a mushed piece of white bread so that’s an issue for me.

Then, as I was reading through my new manuscript, I realized something. I am terrible at writing long conversations! The most my characters spoke on average was one sentence, and I never had dialogue that even approached one page. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I can hold an entire conversation on my own, so that didn’t feel very natural to read. While I breezed through my manuscript, I tried to add extra dialogue in to the scenes, and suddenly everything felt more natural. I have an issue with describing most of my scenes and never letting my characters describe for the audience, which is something that I think all authors have issues with in the start. Sometimes, my brain seems to forget that I’m not writing a screenplay.

So, I was left with an issue. How was I going to tell the reader about the backstory of my characters, without launching into a info dump that leaves them bored and restless? In my published horror novel, A Soul Made of Cinders, I decided to do this with a small series of flashbacks, but for my new novel I want to take risks, learn how to write in different styles, and preferably make my characters speak more naturally.

My blood ran cold, a chill crept down my spine as I realized that I had to do what I have crossed the street multiple times to avoid! It was time for me to make my characters speak to each other in long sentences and make small talk. This is an excellent way to build a bond between characters and also to fill periods of time. For instance, in my current novel, the characters have to stand around for awhile as their companions complete their tasks. I was going to use time skips, until I realized that would leave my book feeling deflated and shallow with how many skips there would be. So, I decided to make it realistic, and fill the spaces with small amounts of dialogue, not enough that it gets boring, but you learn more about the characters.

Small talk in books should not be the same as small talk in real life. I don’t have them talk about the weather or share the stores they got their clothing from, but they talk about their jobs, families, what they’re missing out on if they don’t escape. Thus, the reader feels more connected since the information is sort of “coming from the horses mouth” so to speak. Dialogue is a great way of fleshing out scenes instead of having to add more and more to fill up the pages. Too much action, too much going on, and then the reader thinks it’s too much and asks Amazon for a refund.

If you have any tips on writing dialogue, feel free to write them in the comments below. However, an important thing to remember is that what one reader hates, another reader will love. So, in the end, write what you want. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t appeal to the general public, as long as it appeals to you. There’s more to life than making money, and staying true to what makes you proud of your writing is always going to be more valuable than a dollar bill in the end.