Writing Exercise: Making Conversation

“Dialogue is important,” said The Literary Lady. It is the way in which a character’s inner world escapes fleetingly for other people to see. Dialogue is different from thought because it is controlled and censored. Therefore, when you write speech you need to apply this same filter process. Having said that speech can’t be too rigid. In short, you need to achieve something more controlled than thought, yet something natural and realistic. Try out the following exercises to improve how you write dialogue…

1. Prose and dialogue work together. Its unattractive to see great swathes of text or speech on their own. Take a page of dialogue from a play (a contemporary play would probably work better for this) and write prose to fill in the blanks between the words. Focus on movement and inner thought.
2. Write a moment of dialogue between two characters who are involved in doing something - moving a table, ballroom dancing, rock climbing etc. How does the action interact with the dialogue?
3. Take a situation in which the dialogue more or less follows a set script. A few examples might be wedding vows, legal oaths in court or a teacher taking a register. Make the scene interesting by allowing the characters to modify the script. For example, would a groom regretting his nuptials speak in perfect control or be displaying signs of fear?
4. Experiment with ‘The Pinter Silence’. Master playwright Harold Pinter once said ‘There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed. This speech is speaking of a language locked beneath it. That is its continual reference. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its place. When true silence falls we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.’
5. Most writers will be either too reliant on prose or too reliant on dialogue. Take a look at your writing and see if there is a dominance. If so, take a section you’re not happy with and try converting it from prose to dialogue, or dialogue to prose. How does this make it different? Does it improve the writing?

What is your experience of writing dialogue? Do you think any of these exercises would be helpful? Let me know in the comments below…