It can be easy or it can be hell

 

My characters aretalking to each other. They are a team, so they have to.

Dialogue can beeasy or it can be hell.

And how to makethem all sound different – more like themselves and not like the other guy. Itain’t easy. The ideal is that you should be able to tell who said what withoutthe dreaded he saids and she saids. Nice work if you can manage it, as someoneonce said.

I usually get thewords down and then add necessary tags so that we don’t get totally lost aboutwho said what to whom. Then I look to make it more interesting and that meansadding some action. What are they doing while they have this dialogue? How arethey feeling? Is that coming across in what they say, or have I got to resortto telling readers how my characters feel? Maybe I can get away with saying sheis angry if I say “her anger rose until it boiled over in a splurge ofboiling hot words.” (A bit wordy but you get the idea.)

I like to addnorthern dialect to some of my characters, but its easy to go overboard with it.I know what they’re saying, and I hear it around me most days but dialect maynot carry to the far corners of the world. Sometimes I toss in a glossary atthe end and leave it at that.

It’s a balancingact I find entertaining.  Once I’ve donemy best shot, I leave it and go back a day or two later when I do a readthrough. I have to do this. This time I’m glad I did because I’ve foundcharacters talking about something that hasn’t happened in their world. I knowit’s going to, but they shouldn’t know about it yet. So easy to get confusedwith time lines. They almost deserve a post to themselves.