Writing a Novel, Part Four: Chirping

Today, I’ll be writing some dialogue for y’all, but I’m going to start by opening a random book on my shelf…

Okay, I’m back.  Twenty-two of the thirty-two lines on page 164 of Hero’s Trial by James Luceno are COMPLETELY dialogue.  That’s 69% of the page.  My experiment won’t work so well all the time—go on, test it till it fails—but you get the point.  Dialogue is a major element in novels that deserves special consideration.

 In fact, stories can have segments of uninterrupted dialogue.  Here we go:

“Reeve just fell, man!”

“He moves.”

“He fell thirty feet!”

“Only to stretch His joints.”

“HELP!”

“Do not listen.  This is a lesson, not a tragedy.”

“Is that a giant spider?”

“Watch Smerdis’ blessed mandibles.”

There are no tags (he said, she said, she asked…) anywhere in the above eight lines.  And yet I’m guessing you got the gist.  I’ll finish up the post with a line by line breakdown of my short piece of flash fiction, so you can decide for yourself how effective I was.

“Reeve just fell, man!”

Character #1 is surprised.  Colloquial. Talking to a second person about a third, Reeve.

“He moves.”

Character #2 seems to reference  Reeve.  Is disdainful of Character #1’s panic.

“He fell thirty feet.”

Character #1 repeats the word ‘fell’ for emphasis.  Reveals part of the setting.  A cliff?

“Only to stretch His joints.”

Dark humor.  Character #2 seems to understate Reeve’s condition.  The capital ‘H’ adds suspense.

“HELP!”

Interjection.  Reeve speaks.  (Anything more complicated would probably require dialogue tags.)

“Do not listen.  This is a lesson, not a tragedy.”

Character #2 is overly calm.  Moralizes to Character #1.  Has an agenda.

“Is that a giant spider?”

Humor.  Unexpected.  Character #1 sees something in the distance.  Probably near Reeve.

“Watch Smerdis’ blessed mandibles.”

Smerdis eats Reeve.  Character #2, strangely religious, has no qualms.

The weakest parts of this dialogue are probably Reeve’s dialogue (unclear speaker) and the spider revelation (unclear location).  If this segment entered a book, I would consider adding dialogue tags to the fourth, third, and second to last lines.  What do you think?

Next time—Starting the First Bit.