The Worst Advice Ever About Writing Dialog

Lots of articles and writing books teach how to more effectively create dialog that just "sings" to readers. But enough about that. Let's look at the flip side of that. What's the worst advice you've ever received about how to write dialog? And did you take? How did you learn just how wrong it was?

Desmond Reddick: To listen to how people REALLY talk and mimic it. Ugh. That would create unreadable nonsense. Ha! I think the trick is more to approximate real dialogue but rather boiling it down to its purest, most plot-driving core while still leaving room for characterization and distinction.

Robbie Hilliard: Tagless dialogue. Sure, it has its place, but I once ran into a writing group that uniformly insisted that all dialogue tags must go! How insane is that? You know, the 'he said' and 'she said' speech attribution tags? Yeah, well I think there are times when they are just fine. They can help give the reader a hint at the pacing of 'spoken word' in the story. Just like you don't want to twist sentences due to grammar rules to the point that they don't sound natural (e.g. "Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put."), you don't want to find yourself creating dialogue that is twisted and unnatural just so your reader will clearly know who is speaking. Sometimes a 'he said/she said' is exactly what you need in order to preserve the natural flow of the dialogue.

So when to strive for tagless dialogue? When the scene is close, the tension is high, and the action is tight and flying by so fast you don't want the reader to have to slow down for anything. That's a great time for tagless dialogue!

C.E. Martin: Oh, I am all over this one... Back in 2012, when I started my first Kindle Direct book, I read a lot of advice from authors at Kboards.com. They were blasting the use of dialogue descriptors, like "Stay back" he growled. They claimed "Said" was always better.

Even though it went against my grain, I went ahead and followed the advice. By my second book, I decided that was stupid, and went back to trying to avoid having "said" appear twenty times on a page. I think "said" takes a reader out of the story when used more than once a page.

I also don't like that Hemingway-way of never identifying who is talking. Sure, if it's two people in a scene, then yes, your readers should be able to tell who is who, but in a crowded room, you need to spell out who's who.

Gordon Dymowski: Worst advice: try to capture a local dialect by spelling. Tried it in one of my stories, and rereading it....hoo, boy, was it bad.

Now, I tend to write dialogue the same way that Tommy Lee Jones once described his method for scripts - people tend to talk in sentence fragments. So I tend to write very fragmented, lyrical dialogue. (Plus, best advice - listen to *how* people people. Find rhythms)

Paul Mannering: Dialog should speak directly - people talk shit in real life. We hesitate, mumble, stumble over words, say things in a round about way. Listening to most people talk is like listening to Donald Trump -- it's bizarre.

In a story -- off the cuff comments should sound like they were carefully thought out - because they were - but they make your characters look cool.

Avoid dialect and specific slang -- it never reads well.

D. Alan Lewis: I was once told in a critique group that we all speak English and we talk the same. So, write your dialogue that way. Don't try and make everyone sound unique because it will confuse the reader. I didn't follow his advice.


Richard L. Altstatt: Most words are monkey noises. Ignore them...or, learn to spell....other good advice.

PJ Lozito: Potential agent: "No, don't set STING OF THE SILVER MANTICORE in 1942. World War II would make the events in it sort of a side show...." forgetting there were plenty of novels and stories happening during WWII.

Oh, the Horrors (of the Publishing World)

For this week's roundtable, let's talk horror stories. No, not how to write horror stories. Instead I want to hear your horror stories from the world of getting and staying published. Please don't name names, as this is a small world (after all), but it would be good (I think) for new writers to be prepared for the inevitable stuff than can go wrong.

Alan Lewis: My first two books, published by different companies, were messed up initially. Each company uploaded the wrong (unedited) file to the printers. As a result, I was hit with bad reviews until they were able to upload the correct (edited) versions. This pretty much killed early sales since reviews help drive ebook sales, and negative reviews kill them completely. Having it happen once, I can understand. But two time in a row and by different companies? I almost quit writing completely as a result. They say lightning doesn't strike twice, but in my case, it does.

Mark Bousquet: I have a story in with Publisher X now for a book that was supposed to come out in January. It's now June and on track for a July release. Publisher X has valid reasons for not hitting the January deadline (some his fault, some not), but when you're excited to get a story out and it's not out when it was originally supposed to be out, it sucks, and I get mad at Publisher X.

Also, Publisher X is me.

And yes, there are valid reasons - my own long-term unemployment and never-ending search for a full-time job, formatting issues between different submissions, one nightmare file that doesn't play well with Pages, difficulty with a cover artist, someone getting sick, someone else disappearing, a file getting misplaced, and so on.

Valid reasons - It still sucks, though, and I feel terrible for that anthology's writers. But the contracts are signed, the final edits are being done, and the anthology will be out in July.

Instead of sharing any particular horror story beyond that, I would say that new writers need to be aware that horror stories will happen. A copy editor will miss an easy grammatical mistake. Or twenty. A publisher will tell you your book will be out in June and then it won't come out until October. Your name will be spelled wrong (this happened to me on my first publication credit, which came from Yale University Press! (I was an Illustrations Researcher on the Encyclopedia of New England book which came out a decade ago.) An artist will disappear, another will deliver the wrong content. You'll have a release your excited about come out on the same day as a horrible tragedy, which means you're caught between wanting to get the word out and not looking insensitive (this is happening to me right now). What I've learned is that whomever your publisher is, your artist is, your copy editor is, your graphic designer is ... ultimately, the final responsibility lies with you, so the more you can take control of your own career (not doing everything but being intelligent about everything that's being done), the greater your happiness.

R.J. Sullivan: Haunting Blue was rejected by a major publisher for being "too exciting."

Lucy Blue: I probably should leave this topic be -- I come across as the hag on the hill screeching doom every time I get started on it. My biggest horror story is the collapsing dominoes that were my writing career a few years back. After working with an A-list agent for a decade and publishing six mid-list paperbacks with a Big 6 publisher, in the space of three months I found out that 1)my publisher didn't want my next book and in fact wanted me to basically "go erotica or go home;" and 2)my agent was retiring, closing up shop, and the nice girl who'd been taking care of my stuff while he, my actual agent, was ill had decided (AFTER I had chosen to NOT go with the new people taking over the agency but stick with her out of loyalty) to not be an agent after all because the market was just too horrible. When I was a new writer, I thought that once I had an agent who knew everybody's name in NYC and signed a contract with a publisher, it would be smooth sailing, and I could just concentrate on being the Shakespeare's sister of historical fantasy/romance. Yeah.. . not so much. BUT--BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT -- and please, any new writers reading, this is the most important part -- it hasn't stopped me writing, or publishing, or finding readers, or making money as a writer. I just have to work harder and take more responsibility for my own stuff. I don't expect somebody else to take care of me and my career and my ego any more - which is good because nobody will. And in a lot of ways, that's been really liberating. But it sure didn't feel liberating while it was first happening.

Tamara Lowery: Before I found a publisher, I found a "publisher" that seemed very interested in my manuscript. I sent it in; they looked it over and sent it back with the advice to have it professionally edited then resubmit. The snag was that they preferred I use only an editor THEY recognized. For me, that was a red flag. Sure enough, when I did a more thorough bit of research of this "publisher" I found that several articles warning about them had been posted on SFWA's "Writer Beware" blog. Bullet dodged.

For quite a while, I kept an eye out to make sure my story did not turn up under a different author name/title.

Desmond Reddick: I'm still a neophyte to being published, As such, I don't necessarily have any horror stories about staying published. That horror story is still very much in progress. I do, however, have a story about my first anthology acceptance that gnaws at me to this day for reasons beyond my control.

I had written many stories in the first quarter century of my life, mostly yawn-inducing screeds sure to bore even the most diligent and forgiving of readers. Then the submission notice came out. It called for zombie stories and the anthology was specifically geared toward authors who had yet to be published. Perfect! It just so happened that a brilliant idea popped into my head. Of course, looking back, it's far from brilliant, but it was unique and fun in a sick way. I wrote it feverishly and submitted it. Lo and behold, it was accepted. I was ecstatic! It wasn't a major publishing house or anything, but it offered a token payment and an author copy. That was more than enough to stir my excitement.

Then, thanks to a particularly nasty internet battle between said publisher and an author he once worked with, it was revealed that the publisher spent more than a dozen years in prison for four counts of first degree sexual abuse of his former step-children. He admitted it, referring to his past mistakes, and said there would be no hard feelings if someone wanted to withdraw their story from the anthology. In a stunning turn of events, I appeared to be the only one to do so. I am an educator, so being in any way associated with a convicted sexual predator is not necessarily something I need in my career. Further than that, as a human being, it would certainly bother me. Yet, here I was: the only person who didn't see that "he'd paid his debt to society" or whatever. Honor had certainly kept me away from other situations that would have been boons earlier in my life, but this was my first foray into becoming a published author, my dream.

I eventually would be published, shortly after, with a different story. Though, that anthology made zero attempt to copy edit and completely neglected to put in a Table of Contents, but that's far lower down on the publishing horror story ladder. Today, with my first professional short story sale and my forthcoming first novel, I feel a little better about the publishing world, though that zombie story is still sitting in my completed drafts folder. I still sneer a little bit when I see it sitting there. Maybe one day I'll get over myself, polish it up and send it off.

Something to Say -- Writers on Theme

You can't tell any kind of a story without having some kind of a theme, something to say between the lines. -- Robert Wise

Obviously we're talking about theme this week. So let's get to it.

Looking over your body of work, does a cohesive theme seem to be present in it? If so what is it?

Stephanie Osborn: I don't know that there is a cohesive theme in my work. I don't set out to put a message in, but to write a good story. There are some books/series that do have loose overarching themes, but in general I guess my thought is that "There is always more going on than meets the eye," or, said a different way, "Things always work out the way they're supposed to."

Rebekah McAuliffe: As I've been looking back at Gears, and even now while I'm writing ALPHA, there's always been this theme of acceptance and sticking up for "the least of these," no matter the cost. This issue is very close to my heart, not only as a woman of faith ("Whatsoever you do for the least of these, you do for me"), but as someone who has witnessed poverty, and the hardships that many people go through, and the crap that they get from other groups of people.

Logan Masterson: I consider theme to be pretty damned important, and I pay it a lot of mind. Sometimes, when I begin a new story, I'm not sure quite what the theme will be. More often, it makes itself known early on in the process. My favorite themes are all very human. Justice, freedom, love, despair. And I do tend toward the darker side of things.

Percival Constantine: I don't think there's really a cohesive theme in my entire body of work. Redemption seems to occur a bit, though. So does escaping the past.

Bill Craig: Sometimes the stories determine the theme, sometimes the theme emerges with the writing of the story.

H. David Blalock: My last series (The Angelkiller Triad) appears to have been the most blatant example, although I can now see it through much of my past work as well. I have to admit, then, there is a great deal of truth in the adage that a writer puts him or herself in their work, whether by attitude or inference. I would like to think that stubbornness and courage my characters show in the face of adversity is a reflection of my own worldview even if I would doubt my own courage in their circumstances.

Rose Streif: The most obvious theme is that of being an outsider, often in a hostile world.  The outsider status is often bestowed by birth or by fate, and it is up to that character (or those characters) to survive when their very existence unnerves or even causes a violent reaction in those around them. It is also up to them to (somewhat paraphrasing Nietzsche) not become monsters themselves, however monstrous they may feel, or however monstrous the world perceives them to be.

Desmond Reddick: There are a few that crop up. Coping with legacy is a big one, and so is kicking against the pricks, usually apocalyptic circumstances in that aspect. 

Do you write with a theme in mind, or do you just have a worldview that writes itself into your work through you? Or do work hard to keep anything that "meta" out of your work? How so?

Stephanie Osborn: I'm a licensed Christian minister, so I do have a worldview that I try to ensure that the good guys don't violate, or at least realize as a mistake when they do. Bad guys by definition are gonna violate that, and I'm not going to pull punches in my writing to soft-pedal that. Drama is all about conflict, and the conflict between good and evil is about is dramatic as it gets. But the story always comes first.

Of all the books, I think my Displaced Detective series comes closest to "writing with a theme in mind," but that theme is one of parallelism. The books come from the concept of multiple universes, and if I am actively writing about these alternate realities, as I did in the first 4 books in the series, I keep in mind that concept of parallelism -- as for instance Skye Chadwick is her universe's Sherlock Holmes, etc.

Rebekah McAuliffe: Sometimes I may start with a theme, but then as I write the story, the theme will shift on its own. For instance, Gears of Golgotha was originally meant to be a commentary on the science vs. religion debate (get it? science (Chemists) and religion (Mages?)). That was even where the name came from: Gears for science, Golgotha for religion. But then as I kept writing, it evolved into something greater.

Logan Masterson: Themes can become too heavy, but I find that focusing on the characters and plot when actually laying down the words keeps me from getting preachy. I hope that's true, anyway.

Percival Constantine: I don't write with a theme in mind. I focus on the characters and the story and through that, a theme will kind of develop by the time I'm done with the first draft.

Bill Craig: I deal with certain themes in different series because I seem them as real world problems that need to be kept in front of the public eye, human trafficking being one. I dealt with it in the Jack Riley title the Child Stealers, dealt with it again in Decker P.I. A cold and Lonely Death, And in Marlow: Mango Run, and touched on it slightly in Chandler: Circle City Shakedown.
     
H. David Blalock: Looking back at my work over the years, there does seem to be something of a theme. I would call it "Resist the inevitable". Refuse to give in, no matter the odds. Stand up for yourself and others even when it seems futile. I can't say I've used this theme deliberately. It does seem, however, to be the driving force.

Rose Streif: I do write with themes in the back of my mind, and inevitably my worldview and interests are going to color what I write.  I try to blend them in as seamlessly as possible, and I try to be understanding when people just don't "get it".  Sometimes subtlety works against you, and you always run the risk of running into that person who is so wrapped up in their own worldview that they can't possibly see yours, even when they think they do.

John Morgan Neal: I don't have a conscious theme. Mostly my stuff is born from the stuff 12-year-old John Neal really liked and wanted to see more of. 

Desmond Reddick: No, absolutely not. The themes are common, but they spring up on their own. 

When writing, have you ever had so strong a sense of theme occur in the work that you felt it overpowered the story? How did you remedy that?

Stephanie Osborn: No, never have had that happen. Like I said, the Displaced Detective series has the strongest ongoing theme of any of my books, and I think the parallelism theme only makes the whole thing stronger, personally. I think that you have to be so involved with theme that you become fixated on it, for it to become overpowering of the story. And if that's the case, you need to back off and lay down the theme and gain some fresh perspective before you try to write on it again.

Rebekah McAuliffe: The original ending to Gears. I'll admit, that first ending was complete s**t. I edited it, and the new rereleased version will have the new and improved ending.

Logan L. Masterson: As an author of genre fiction, I never want theme to be the focus of the readers' experience. I want them wrapped up in thrilling events and captivating people. A good theme is like air, ephemeral and ubiquitous.

Percival Constantine: Yeah, but it wasn't when I was writing the story, it was after I had finished it. Years after, in fact, I felt that I was far too heavy-handed with the theme of my first book. After that, I decided I'd focus more on the story and the characters and worry less about the theme in future works.

Rose Streif: I maintain an awareness at all times, and I try not to let the theme take over the story, to preach and pander, because that yanks the reader out of the flow of things and puts them at the mercy of a person on a soapbox.  We get enough of that in real life.  In any case, if you want to get a point across, it's best to put the reader in the shoes of a sympathetic character and show them by example what it is to live that character's life.

Desmond Reddick: That's interesting. No. But I'm not sure how I would resolve that situation. If I felt it was getting "preachy" (ie: a lesson versus a theme) I'd have to change it.