Overheard in the stands at a ballgame: overdressed lady asks for a hot dog “with the works.” Vendor replies, “Lady, this is Yankee Stadium. You get a hot dog, a bun, and some mustard. That’s the works.”
And that’s how you learn to write dialogue. You listen.
Yes, there are a thousand ways to write bad dialogue. It’s a shame we encounter them in books we’ve paid for.
I don’t think I would be any good at writing dialogue.
Just write what people say, and clean it up a little so it reads easily. Piece o’ cake.
“The overworked accountant waited breathlessly for the minute hand to land on XII.”
Tells me more, I gots to knows, does its ever land on the XII?
Don’t ask me, I didn’t get the joke.
I have written a few books. But mine were not novels or fiction books, thus did not require a lot of dialogue between individuals. And for the few places it did, I think the dialogue turned out just fine. But to write a whole book, one with hundreds of pages of interaction between characters, now that–would be biting off more than I could chew…to hot to handle…way over my head…jumping into the deep end…up shi# creek without a paddle…get my drift?
Seriously, in my book “Reindeer,” there is one three-page section that does read like a novel “The Annihilation of Lord Lamech and His Estate.” But even that has no dialogue. I had thought about turning that short piece into a whole story, it already has a setting, background, history, and interesting events going on, but that would require a lot of dialogue, which I do not think I could handle.
Yeah, you keep writing your Bell Mountain books and I will read them. I am now halfway through the first one…I have to keep reading…is there a bell on the mountain, do Jack and Ellayne ring it, if they do what happens, does Martis find them…does the colossal bird eat anyone, another horse, perhaps??? … don’t tell me, I will find out in the next day or two.
I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the surprise.
I finished the book, and now I know the answers…on to the next one…