a service of Simcomserv Australia

Agency for Literary Review offers unpublished authors and first-time writers the opportunity to have their work assessed for free.

Free Advice and Assistance for the Novice Writer

Agency for Literary Review

Use and Abuse of Dialogue

He said, She said.

"I think it shall be fine weather after all.  Do you not agree, Mr Caruthers”, she said, smiling coquettishly from under her bonnet.

"I do indeed, Miss Jayne”, he said, wondering why this vapid young woman was testing her wiles upon him, a married man.

"I quite agree with you, Miss Jayne”, said Mr Brophy on overhearing the exchange and hoping for excuse to engage the attention of Jayne, of whom he had long been an admirer.

"There you are, Mr Caruthers, a second authority”, said Jayne, taking the moment to place her hand upon his arm in a manner she hoped would not be seen as too familiar, even for her.

This method of telling a story leads to boredom.  Either write dialogue or set the scene.  Do not use one to accomplish the other.  The use of he said, she said to describe the scene takes away from any impact the dialogue has.  You are a storyteller.  Your object is to tell a story in such a manner that the use of dialogue enhances the story, making it far more dramatic in the mind of the reader.  Using dialogue as a ploy to describe what is happening in the story is just poor story telling

Build each character, either before they enter the stage you have set, or just before or after their first comment.  Think of it this way:  If you were on a street talking to a business associate and a friend happens upon the two of you, you would introduce your friend and your business associate.  Your character needs to be introduced to your reader in the same manner.  Now, in real life, you might simply make an introduction by names alone for the time being.  Then, at a later moment of convenience, you would explain who they were and what relationship they hold to you.  That is socially polite and avoids the possibility of confusion.  You can do the same with your characters in your story, but they have to be identified to your reader eventually and described in such a way that even their style of speech gives clues to their identity and background.

When the dialogue has been disposed of, you can return to the narrative to explain what just happened, what was significant in the dialogue, or how each of the people presently on stage viewed the comments.  Then set the stage for the next lot of dialogue exchanges.  Your reader should be on the stage you have set.  He should be there to hear what is being said and to form his own opinion of the implications of those spoken words. 

If you continue to lead him by the hand through each statement, explaining as you go, he will soon tire of it and wander off to do something of greater interest or moment.  Keep the dialogue crisp.  Keep it flowing.  Keep it directed.  Then go on to explain (only if necessary, and it shouldn't be necessary too often if you have done your job) what the exchange was all about and what it meant in terms of the story.  Your reader should be saying to himself, yeah, that's what I thought, or even, that's a point of view I hadn't thought of.  

The only exception to this is where you deliberately have tossed in a red herring to confuse the reader or where you wish to make some significant comment that doesn't become activated until much later in the story.  And make sure that before the story ends you have explained the red herring and that the significant comment was in fact significant.  Otherwise, the reader will be crying foul and will start looking for other orphaned comments.  Too many and he won't buy your second book.

It is you who is telling the story, not your characters, so make it obvious who is speaking the lines and what they are meant to convey.  If someone is sneering, don't tell your reader that the character was sneering.  You need to write it in such a manner that your reader detects the sneer all by himself.  This is the difference between great writing and writing.

You have likely received or seen emails or forum postings where someone has made a remark followed by LOL or the cutesy :) in order to show that the writer was just being jocular by the lots of laughs remark or the smiley face.  It was unnecessary.  You either detected that he was joking or you doubted it.  That wasn't because you were obtuse; it was because the way it was worded led you to believe that.  The good writer would not have left you in any doubt.  The unskilled writer needs to explain himself.  Don't write in such a way that you need to explain your dialogue by he said, she said, or use it to describe the stage setting.  You must set the scene before or after the exchange of dialogue but not as you are going along.  The noise of construction will annoy your reader and he is likely to wander off.

If you are uncertain as to the correct methods of writing dialogue (punctuation in particular) then there are likely some very good sites on the web that detail such things and you should make certain you study them.  A couple of good books on the subject from either your library or local bookstore will be an asset.

If you want an exercise on writing dialogue, then take the opening lines of this sheet and and set the stage in such a manner that all of the spoken exchanges can be done without resort to he said she said, and are perfectly understood without confusion.