Dialogues and Speech Patterns?

Question

Ok, so recently I have identified that one of my weaknesses is definitely writing dialogues. I have noted that there is actually very few of them in my stories and they're usually only a few lines here and there. I think the reason I avoid dialogues is because I can never make them sound natural enough. One of the issues I have is speech patterns, partly due to the fact that I am not a native English speaker, which can make the subtler things go unnoticed for me. For example I can't recognize accents. I can tell an Irishman speaks differently than a Scot or an Indian, but ask me to identify an Australian from a Texan or a New Yorker by their accents and I'll draw a blank (unless the Australian actually says "crikey" or the New Yorker mentions the Yankees).

So, I was wondering if you could give me a few pointers on what to think of when creating a speech pattern. Kind of like a character chart but for speech pattern?

Thank you.

Answer 1

One thing you might try is thinking of how you would say it in your native language and then translating it. I know this will require some re-ordering of the words, but it might help you when you're thinking out your dialogue.



Also, one thing I do sometimes when I'm creating a 'voice' for a character is exaggerating whatever speech pattern they happen to have. I have one character who repeats himself a lot. Another speaks in a very formal English compared to the other characters. I've taken those traits just a smidge further which helps keep the voices separate. (Philip Pullman is like a master at this if you want a really good example.)



One thing that helps a lot with this, at least for me, is giving the character a few things that recur throughout the whole novel. It can be something simple, like a word they use for 'friend' (and they call everyone who's not an enemy that word,) or maybe a random curse word they tend to add to their sentences.



Also, give each character a few emotions as they're speaking. Maybe every time Mary gets mad, there's something to show it in her face, and it's the same thing every time. I think tagging is half of the success of dialogue.



My last bit of advice in creating realistic dialogue is, don't be afraid to use slang. Not all the time, mind you, but a word here and there can help distinguish a character's voice from the other characters in the novel. The cool thing about slang is that you can use it two ways; everyone from a certain area can have a certain group of words that they use, and each character can have a few that they use from that group more often than the others.

Answer 2

A lot of people find it distracting when an author writes in an accent. I think there should be more emphasis on the words themselves than just on how they are spelt. I don't think it should matter what nationality they are, unless its a question of whether they'd have their southern manners or big city superficiality. I don't really understand the issue. As long as you know what your characters are like and how they're feeling you should be able to make them effectively say stuff. Because dialogue is what progresses a story... unless your book is like Gargoyle and it's just about being in pain.



EDIT: It's only a matter of understanding your characters. Just assign them different traits that usually come out in speech. Like if someone is tactless they'll probably have no use to lie, and they'll just say whatever they think, especially if it's mean. Or if someone is insecure or has confidence issues they'll obviously doubt themselves a lot and that doubt may surface in their speech with things like "This is probably stupid, but..." or "Um..." or "Sorry..." or "Just going to say it...", like they think that they have nothing worth to hear and apologize for their worthless opinion before hand. And then you have to back up that trait with something physical, like the tactless person will likely grow bored easily, and the insecure person may be a terrible planner because of that doubt and when the time comes they'll botch what they attempt through nerves and clumsiness, but if something is sprung on them in an instant they'll probably excell, without anytime to slip into that mind frame that makes failure the only possiblity. Once you understand them, it'll be easy to come up with things for them to say.

Answer 3

In my opinion, I don't think speec patterns matters much when writing dialogue except you want to write a book like Trainspotting where accent is very important

However, the way I write dialoogue is simply by picturing the scene out in my brain. That's all. If it looks right then I use the dialogue and if it isn't I change it. You wouldn't get it perfect for a long time but practice makes perfect.

Answer 4

Heey :)



I'm not really sure how to give a useful answer (double maths - my brain is fried) but you've got a lot of good answers here :D



Rather than spend a zillion paragraphs rambling about something that barely makes sense to ME (I used to have heaps of trouble with dialogue, too), maybe I can just point you in the direction of a few sites that helped me?



http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/crafttechnique/tp/dialogue.htm

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/dialogue-writing-tips/

http://www.right-writing.com/natural.html

http://www.suite101.com/content/characters-need-unique-dialogue-a48742



Humm. Perhaps read, too. I don't know any particular authors who are good with dialogue, but if you're going for the medieval-high-fantasy aspect, go for Tolkien. He helped me a lot with my dialogue. Stephen King and Thomas Harris are also good with accents and so on (at least, so it seemed in "Salem's Lot" and "Silence of the Lambs" - but then again, maybe those two books just stood out to me. It might be different for you?)



Oh boy, sorry, I'm starting not to make sense. Why does that always happen? Anyway, moving on..



This is going to sound *totally* immoral and dogy, but eavesdropping can help too :P Listen to the conversations taking place around you, especially if one of the speakers is foreign.



The tricky thing with dialogue is that it works differently for everyone :( By which I mean, people learn about it differently and find tips in different things.



I totally don't make sense anymore.



I'll leave it at that, sorry I can't be more helpful D:



If I think of anything else, I promise I'll put it in an "edit" ^.^



EDIT: I totally forgot the links to sites that help with writing in accents!



http://www.vcu.edu/arts/playwriting/accents.html (it's for playwrighting, but maybe it'll help)

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/8834-writing-with-an-accent.html

Answer 5

I write way too much dialogue.



For accents, you really shouldn't be forcing accents in a book unless you're very good at it or the character has a VERY distinctive and very pronounced accent. If you're writing about somebody with a (stereotypical) Transylvanian accent that causes them to say their v's as w's, you don't have to write:



"Ven are ve going to get there?" Said the Count



You could write:



"When are we going to get there?" Said the Count. Thanks to his thick Eastern European accent, I had to stop and mentally change all the misplaced "v's" back to "w's" before I could figure out his meaning.



Accents in general tend to be one of the things that it's okay to tell instead of show. If you write something like this:

"Ah said ta Puhrl, Ah was fi'in tah gimme sum afore Ah got mah warsh done." (and yes, I know people who speak this way)



People are going to have a hard time reading that. But if instead you just say;

"I said to Pearl, I was fixin' to get me some 'afore I got my wash done." But mention that the character speaks with a hills/Virginia accent (assuming your story is set in the States, if it's not, you'd have to specify), many people will understand what you mean, and the ones that don't won't suffer for not understanding what the heck you're talking about.



The other thing that can help with making dialogues sound convincing you pretty much hit on the head. Slang. You used the examples of an Aussie saying crikey or a New Yorker mentioning the Yankees. Obviously if you want to have a certain person identify with an area, slang is going to be an easy way to do that. I can't really give you a run down on every type of slang used in every English speaking area (mainly because I don't know all of them), but there are websites dedicated to these sorts of things if you look for them. Like this awesome dictionary of British slang:

http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/index.htm



Or this list of Boston slang:

http://www.aboutlanguageschools.com/language/slang/boston-slang.asp



Just type in "list of .... slang" (with the dots being replaced by the area of interest) and you should be able to figure it out.



As for the actual patterns themselves, once again, there is no hard and fast rule I can give you. But it's always helpful to talk to speakers from whatever area you're going for. There are a lot of websites that have recordings of different accents, so you can listen to different speech patterns that way. With enough practice, you'll probably start noticing the differences. It's all a matter of exposure (for example, I'm originally from Ohio, and anybody there can tell which part of the state you're from by how you say the words "button", "wash", and "bedroom" but if you aren't from Ohio, nobody is going to pick up on that...)



Since I typed this before I saw the edit, I'll add (even though this is insanely long already):

The slang thing holds true for fantasy worlds as well. Most people use slang, and a fantasy world is going to have it's own sorts of slang. Coming up with different terms for the characters to use not only helps to give the world more depth, but it also makes the characters speech more believable.



Also, think about the character's education and background. A more educated character is going to speak very differently then a less educated one. Likewise, two equally educated characters will speak differently based on how they value their education (a character that wants to prove to others he or she is smart will speak in more elevated diction then they would otherwise for example). Using longer words, complex sentences, and precise phrasing can signal to the audience that a character is either better educated or is rather pretentious. Depending.



There is also always verbal tics. I knew a girl once who always ended her sentences with "yeah?" when she was nervous. (ie "We should go this way, yeah?... I don't really think this is a good idea, yeah?") You probably wouldn't want to do something so blatant, but you could try something like that.

Answer 6

If there aren't many native speakers of English in your area, you might consider finding someone (or several people) willing to correspond with you. You could ask them about specific parts of dialogue, whether the phrasing of something sounds natural, or even just pay attention to the way they write and base a character's speech style on theirs.



And read! Read everything, good and bad. Good writers are voracious readers.

Answer 7

When it comes to writing dialogue, it's a lot like adding spices when you are cooking. You just add enough to make your point, not to overwhelm the recipients.

Answer 8

A favorite catch phrase in the south is y'all :) I recommend reading a book based in the reagions you are using and try to mimic their accentry. My favorite book with dialect signifagence is the adventures of huckleberry finn. It has just amazing dialouge. Good luck!