People talk.
They talk a lot, actually. It’s this funny thing about
humans (and your related fantasy and sci-fi races) that continues to amuse me
greatly. And it provides a lot of interesting choices while writing.
I want to talk about one of the more boring choices on that
list, today. It’s not, in and of itself, boring, but compared to some other
choices it’s definitely not up there on my “oooooh I get to do this!” list.
Dialogue is – as I’ve explored before and as your average
third-grade grammar textbook will tell you – two or more people speaking.
Thanks to your word-roots textbook, you’ll know that only one person speaking
is a monologue. But that’s actually irrelevant and not necessary for this post.
Oh well.
Most of the time, dialogue is shown through a series of
(short) paragraphs surrounded by quotes and tags, with each person taking turns
speaking (unlike real life, in my opinion):
“Hey Matt.”
“Hey, Sally.”
“I’m Bob.”
“Oh, sorry, you just look like Sally.”
Easy enough right?
Well, what happens when you don’t want to show all that
speaking? What if your story just needs to move on and get to the next scene
because things need to happen
someday.
That is where you must ask yourself: is unspoken dialogue
okay?
What is Unspoken Dialogue?
Unspoken dialogue is NOT telepathy. Telepathy is telepathy.
Unspoken dialogue is dialogue that is
summarized in a single sentence. This might sound strange, but you’ve
probably used it before without even realizing it. This might look something
like:
Arthur approached the guards and they blocked him from entering the door. When he said the password, however, they relaxed and stepped aside, welcoming him with stiff salutes.
Now. Find the unspoken dialogue in that poorly-written piece
of prose. Found it yet? I’ll give you another second to-
Ah, there it is: “when he said the password”. This nifty
little phrase allows Arthur to say something [in this case, the password]
without my having to draw it out into actual dialogue. The scene could go
something like this:
Arthur approached the guards and they blocked him from entering the door.“Password,” one of them barked.He swallowed hard and wiped his hands on his shirt. “Melon pellets.”
The guards glanced at each other, and then they relaxed and stepped aside. Both of them saluted as he passed through the doorway.
This second scene has twice as many words, for a scene that
is rather unimportant. Yes, the second scene has more emotions – a grumpy guard
barking orders, Arthur nervously giving his password. But… do we really need
all of those extra words? Prose should be concise, shouldn’t it?
Well, that depends on two things: is his nervousness
important? If he’s sneaking into the enemy base using a password he overheard
from the villain, then yes. We need to see this scene painted out in painful
tension and worry.
If Arthur is just arriving home after a day at work, then
his password isn’t important. And he’s probably not nervous anyway.
The Uses of Unspoken Words
Unspoken dialogue is most useful when you’re trying to show
that words are exchanged, but the exchange itself is not important:
The business partners
greeted one another and, after a brief moment of small talk, turned to the
matter at hand.
This situation is incredibly boring, unless I go on to show
how the MC leans in to overhear their conversation because the matter at hand
happens to be weapons smuggling and the MC works for INTERPOL or something.
But which is the best way to show this dialogue: spelling
out each word of their small talk and greeting, or summarizing it in a
sentence?
In the case of this, there’s no reason that this exchange
need be told through tedious dialogue. It’s unnecessary.
When Unspoken is Best Spoken
A thing you’ll notice about unspoken dialogue, however, is
the telling aspect of its entire being. While I don’t feel like discussing the
truth of the phrase “show, don’t tell”, this is a moment where it actually
makes sense.
Your reader wants to see the story in detail. We want your
story to come alive and dance across our minds like a movie that’s playing in
theatres just for us.
If you summarize a snippet of dialogue, then your reader
won’t be able to picture it as a movie. It’s like you hit the mute button and
then fast-forwarded through a bit of boring dialogue.
Just because it’s boring doesn’t mean we won’t realize that
you’re skipping it.
Unspoken dialogue can be useful. But at the same time, it
can kill the vividness of a scene.
So what do we do? Do we show all the boring bits of dialogue
to maintain the scene, or do we skim over the parts your reader won’t care
about?
Allow me to sum up:
-Show emotional dialogue. If the exchange involves strong
emotions, your reader needs to be in on the conversation. Actually, if it’s emotionally
strong, it’s probably not boring at all.
-Show dialogue that includes the MC. If your main character
is speaking, your reader deserves to know what they say. We’ve been following
this character around, sitting on their shoulder or inside their head, watching
their every move and hearing their thoughts.
If your MC speaks, we want to hear it. Even if it’s boring. When it’s boring,
just make it awkward. Solves everything.
-When in doubt, start the conversation, then let it trail
off. What do I mean by this? An example:
“What do you mean?”
Bart shrugged. “I’m
jus’ sayin’ that you shouldn’ have ta do none o’ tha’ if’n you jus’ do as I say
an’ not do that other thing.”
Aaron spat. “You know
that’s not how this works; anyway, you’re one to talk.”
The two wandered off,
still bickering.
This is a prime example of a rather unnecessary conversation
that is established, then summed up and moved on from. Your reader gets a
chance to picture the scene, then you whisk us off to something that’s actually
important.
And that should be the goal of unspoken dialogue. Your
reader should still be able to picture the scene, watch it move, but they
shouldn’t have to sit through a long boring conversation about Aaron not doing
that other thing.
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