Daring Dialogue

by Jordyn Redwood

I have to confess that dialogue is one of my favorite things to write. It also is the easiest for me. Often times when I start a scene, I’ll just lay out the dialogue first.

My love of dialogue likely stems from my real life job as a pediatric ER nurse. Communication in the ER is very quick and to the point. Cutting at times. There is little room for fluffing up someone’s feathers emotionally when you’re trying to save a life.

At the most recent ACFW conference in Indianapolis, I was fortunate to take James Scott Bell’s class called Quantum Story where he touched on several different areas to take your novel to the next level. Jim is a great teacher and I highly recommend any of his classes or books on writing (of which there are many.)

One area Jim discussed was his eight essentials of dialogue and I’m going to list them here. Remember, these come from a master teacher and storyteller and not little ole me who is still learning a lot about writing.

Good dialogue:

1. Is essential to the story. Fictional dialogue should never sound like “real life” where lots of mundane facts are often communicated. “Hi.” “How are you?” “I’m fine-how are you?” It should communicate something inherently necessary to the story.

2. It flows from one character to the other.

3. It should have conflict or tension. There is the overall story conflict but then there is also microtension. I first heard this term from Donald Maass and he explains it as the tension between words, sentences and paragraphs that propel the reader to keep turning pages.

4. Just the right tone.

5. Just right for each character. All your story peeps should not sound the same so how can you differentiate between them so the reader can identify them? The best example I ever saw of this type of characterization was Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. Each chapter is in a different character’s POV but she never is obvious about it-like putting the character’s name as a chapter heading (which I have seen done.) The characterization/dialogue is so unique in differing POV’s that you don’t need extra help to identify the character.

6. Unpredictable.

7. Compressed. Characters shouldn’t talk for paragraphs at length. Give the reader some white space as relief.

8. There should be subtext.

Here is one of my favorite exchanges in Peril, my latest medical thriller. The lead heroine, Morgan Adams, is not sure she’s all that capable of holding onto this life. Her husband, Tyler, worries about her committing suicide and he’s just come home and found a bloodied knife on the counter. This section occurs just after she’s found alive.

“You can’t scare me like that again. You are killing me with this thoughtlessness you have for your life.”
“You found the knife?”
“Yes, I found it! And the blood dripping down the counter.” He grabbed each of her hands and caressed his thumbs over her pulse points of uncut skin.
“It’s not my blood.”
“Then whose is it?”
“Our neighbors.”
“And if I ask her?”
“You don’t believe me?”
He combed his fingers through his hair. “Morgan, it’s as if you’re holding on to the cliff with one hand and lifting your fingers up one at a time.”
She brushed past him and headed into the master bedroom. “I wouldn’t have done anything today.”
And just like that, all the tightness in his chest returned.

What do you think? What are some techniques you incorporate to write powerful dialogue?

Jordyn Redwood is a pediatric ER nurse by day, suspense novelist by night. She hosts Redwood’s Medical Edge, a blog devoted to helping contemporary and historical authors write medically accurate fiction. Her first two novels, Proof and Poison, garnered starred reviews from Library Journal. Proof was shortlisted for the 2012 ForeWord Review’s BOTY Award, 2013 INSPY Award and the 2013 Carol Award. You can connect with Jordyn via her website at www.jordynredwood.com.