Craft of Fiction: On Jargon: Dialogue and Talking Heads

The average reader seems to have a two-dimensional understanding of craft based heavily on amateur/student writer jargon that have become buzz words: “talking heads,” “well rounded characters,” etc.

However, what’s the difference between “talking heads” and an extended dialogue scene?

People don’t quite understand the principles under the catchy, easy-to-remember phrases. Hence, they just stereotype any ongoing dialogue scene as a talking head scene. But an extended dialogue scene has something talking heads don’t: subtextual themes and personalities. Unfortunately, subtext is a dangerous tool for writers in mainstream society. Most readers will never pick up on it. At some point in time, every theme/trait has to be explicitly spelled out and wrapped in a nice bow. Well, if you want a genre bestseller anyway.

In an extended dialogue scene, the voice is true to characters. Because the voice, the style, is engaged, the character is revealing their beliefs and personality without explanation. This can happen even if the dialogue scene’s main Narrative function is to explain something that happened. In talking head scenes, the voices sound contrived, the writer throwing his voice often for info dumping.

In my novel Sympathy-B, Silby Masters has to explain a situation to her employer. A large paragraph of dialogue happens. But you learn about her from the way she talks. She rambles: she’s nervous. She takes a defensive tone: even though her boss intimidates her, she takes enough pride in her work to defend herself. I don’t say she rambles; I portray her rambling through the rhythm of syntax. People may say it’s wordy and redundant and hard to follow. But art can’t capture humanity by not going outside the average mind’s bounds (unless you can argue the average person completely understands humanity). And this is why many pop readers are becoming so disinterested in their favorite genres. If the novel expands its horizons, it’s shut down. But reading the same two dimensional approach gets really boring. The beautiful thing as a writer, is that you don’t even need an expanded sense of people to make subtext work. It comes down to detailing. Subtext is naturally occurring. But if readers aren’t open, then what? Each writer decides for themselves.