I recently reviewed
a book, Inca's Death Cave by Bradford G. Wheler. I loved the plot.
The author had done a lot of research on technology and how it could
be used in archaeology. The setting in Peru was beautifully described,
and the plot was interesting. These were pluses. However, the
dialogue almost made me put the book down.
The mistakes in the
dialogue were the ones everyone warns beginning writers about. Every
time the main characters had a conversation they used their first
names. People don't talk this way. They may use a first name in
greeting someone, or in adding emphasis to a statement. They do not
constantly refer to each other by name. It isn't necessary and it
becomes tedious to read. It also makes the dialogue sound stilted.
The second mistake
the author made was using conversation as a data dump. In the early
chapters of the book, the female character gives long dissertations
on the technology. The author does it in the guise of explaining
technical areas to a novice, but it quickly becomes wearing. There is
no give and take. If the explanations were necessary, and in this
case they were, description could be used effectively at least part
of the time.
Dialogue is not the
easiest thing for most people to write. Even experienced authors have
some character come off sounding stilted. The best advice I've heard
about how to correct this problem is to listen to people. If
eavesdropping on conversations seems too intrusive watch good movies,
or there are places like the library of congress where native
speakers have been recorded. If you listen to them enough you will
get the speech patterns, and your dialog will sound natural.
One of the best ways
to draw a reader into your world is a conversation. Readers get
caught up in the exchange between characters if it's well done.
Another plus is that dialogue sentences are typically short, at least
they should be. This means lots of white space on the page. Readers
like to see white space. It doesn't look so daunting.
Writing dialog may
not come naturally to you, but if you work at it, it will pay
dividends with your readers and reviewers.
