# Dialogue ...UGH!



## Yumi Koizumi (Mar 20, 2015)

Expert Writers,

When I read, I sub-vocalize (hear myself reading in my head, as if out loud). Maybe that's wrong, but I can't 'skim' fiction like I do technical materials, looking for keywords/phrases.

But I am totally unsatisfied with how dialogue is typically laid out. There is so much extra on the page, mostly _she said_, _he said_, _he mused_, _she shouted_, ... 

This is NOT what people sound like when they talk. and if the lines are short, there is more syntax/context than content! Suspension of disbelief seems very difficult with this kind of extra text. When I read it  I don't seem to mind... I tolerate it... But now writing it it seems ludicrous! Am I not cut out to write because of this trifling matter?

I've been reading all kinds of fiction for longer than I will confess, and it has always been like this. As I'm writing my dialogue, I see it as unnecessary and distracting-_very_ distracting. 

Is this just me? Is there a minimalist standard? Will readers be turned off without all this fluff? 

Argh! 

And I know about using a person's name in a response, as in, "Yes, _David_, that's correct!"

...but people don't use the other person's name in [every] response...


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## Blade (Mar 20, 2015)

Yumi Koizumi said:


> I've been reading all kinds of fiction for longer than I will confess, and it has always been like this. As I'm writing my dialogue, I see it as unnecessary and distracting-_very_ distracting.
> 
> Is this just me? Is there a minimalist standard? Will readers be turned off without all this fluff?
> 
> Argh!



It is not a trivial matter. I don't think anyone really likes 'fluff' or 'trivial' dialogue though many authors seem to go on as if it is some sort of industry standard. Dialogue is supposed to be moving the story along, adding content or furthering the action not generating filler.](*,) There will be situations occasionally where a little tripe is required just for the sake of realism (perhaps when two people are being introduced to each other) but generally conversation should have as much content value as anything else.:encouragement:

In your own writing just say "I can do better". Writing crap does not do much for your self confidence.:livid:


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## Sam (Mar 20, 2015)

There shouldn't be fluff. Ever. 

Dialogue should always move the plot or story forward; it should tell us something we didn't hitherto know; it should build and reveal character; it should be laden with conflict and urgency. 

"Hi, how are you?" works when talking to someone on a street corner. It does nothing for a novel. Skip the extraneous and boring lead-ins and -outs. Or, as Kyle would say, arrive late and leave early. We don't need to see the hellos and goodbyes. We don't need the stumbles and the stammers. Strip down your dialogue and concentrate on making it impactful and meaningful. 

If you still struggle with it, read more. Good dialogue moves fast and doesn't hang around for the minutiae. Great dialogue flows like a pint of Guinness.


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## Terry D (Mar 20, 2015)

Dialogue attributions--the 'he said' and 'she thought' stuff--can be minimized if your readers are completely clear who is speaking. They also help to break up the constant drone of a long speech, affecting the pace and rhythm of the narrative. For the vast majority of readers simple dialogue tags are invisible; the reader senses the break, the pause, without actually registering the words. Stick with the basics. There's no need for 'he exclaimed', or 'she spat', the dialogue itself, as well as the context into which you've placed it, should convey the emotion. I rarely use anything other than 'said' and 'asked', and much of the time I use no attribution at all.


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## bazz cargo (Mar 20, 2015)

I love dialogue. A writer can do so much with it: jokes, misdirects, character mannerisms, subverting clichés, and so on. Just sayin...


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Mar 20, 2015)

All of my stories are moved forward by dialogue. I never really add it as fluff. The only time fluffy dialogue seems to be used is the cheesier stuff like romance and all the cute things I like to read.

But Sci-fi and fantasy and other fiction? Yeah, I'll agree most of the time that's not how anyone would really talk in a given situation. I say all the lines I write to make sure they don't sound weird.


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## Jeko (Mar 20, 2015)

For me, dialogue tags work like the echo of reception that you get with real conversation - at least, they do when done well. 'He shouted' can work well - as long as the dialogue before it read in a shouty way anyway - because when someone shouts at you, it can take you a moment to process the fact that 'hey, he just shouted at me!'. At least, I've found that myself. There's probably a lot more interesting psychology at work.

The point is, as Sam said, there shouldn't be fluff. Everything that is dialogue should be said because it the character wants to say it (or has to), and everything around dialogue should help that dialogue be a stronger experience for the reader in terms of the overall pacing of the story.


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## Laughing Duck 137z (Mar 20, 2015)

One thing I've learned was once you've established a character's personality you can occasionally remove the dialogue tags. At a certain point the reader has identified the character by dialogue. Sometimes conversation clues already distinguish who's speaking.

Elmore Leonard said, "If it sounds like writing rewrite it."


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## Lydia14 (Mar 20, 2015)

Laughing Duck 137z said:


> Elmore Leonard said, "If it sounds like writing rewrite it."



Slightly off-topic, but --
Best. Quote. Ever.


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## Yumi Koizumi (Mar 20, 2015)

Blade said:


> It is not a trivial matter. I don't think anyone really likes 'fluff' or 'trivial' dialogue



I think I messed up. 

I meant that the fluff part is the descriptive, contextual part of a line of dialogue that _isn't the dialogue itself_. I think what I said came across as meaning the dialogue itself was trite of not moving story forward, etc.

I was trying to say that all the parts of writing dialogue that _aren't_ the dialogue are distracting. This because reading it in your head (am I one of the few who does that?) is then vastly different from what overhearing an actual conversation would be. 

So seeing that all the 'mechanics' or 'fluff' that isn't dialogue is necessary, I think I'm asking whether there is a minimalist method that works, or is there a completely different way of communicating dialogue that avoids as much of the contextual commentary as possible.

In my attempt to be brief, I wasted your time, not being more verbose. If I'm brief, it's ambiguous... If I'm verbose, I put people to sleep... GAK!


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## Riis Marshall (Mar 20, 2015)

Hello Yumi

We all struggle with dialogue - well I certainly do.

The problem, as has been discussed in past posts here, is when we are in conversation with other folks about 87%-93% of our communication is non-verbal - pauses, inflection, emphasis, and body-language - our eyes, our hands, whether we lean forward or back, etc. so the question is how we get this into our dialogue to make the conversation interesting and credible, _and_ as others have said here, move the story forward.

Every night when I climb into bed I pull a book - almost always fiction and usually in my genre - from the bedside table and read myself to sleep. I pay particular attention to how other writers do dialogue.

Some writers use loads of dialogue - see Gregory Mcdonald's _Fletch_ series. Writers such as P D James and Colin Dexter use it more sparingly.

Some critics argue too much dialogue is not a good idea but I can't see why a work should be judged on the fact that the percentage of total text rendered in dialogue exceeds some arbitrary number.

Most of the time I use dialogue rather sparingly and my choice is when my characters are in some kind of situation where 3rd person narration won't help me tell my story in the way I want to tell it - if this makes sense.

You can also use a brief bit of humorous dialogue to break the tension that has been building over several pages if this makes your story move forward.

All the best with your writing.

Warmest regards
Riis


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## Sam (Mar 20, 2015)

Yumi Koizumi said:


> I was trying to say that all the parts of writing dialogue that _aren't_ the dialogue are distracting. This because reading it in your head (am I one of the few who does that?) is then vastly different from what overhearing an actual conversation would be.



This is your problem. 

Dialogue shouldn't sound like actual conversation. In writing, dialogue serves two main purposes: one is establishing character, the other is moving the story forward. Ordinary conversation does little to establish character, because it is mostly populated with small-talk and chitchat, and at times it is insufferably boring. The last thing you want is for your reader to be bored. That's why dialogue mimics actual conversation, but eschews many of the nuances that characterises it. You may encounter pauses for dramatic effect, but you won't encounter stammers, stumbles, and other such hesitations that are rife in actual conversation. 

Don't believe me? Open a book from your shelf and read a section of dialogue aloud. Does it sound like something you would hear in everyday life? I'd wager my life savings it doesn't. There's a reason for that. Have you ever walked into a room and heard someone say, "God, I can't believe she did that!" I'll bet you wanted to know what that conversation was about, who the 'she' was, and what she'd done to warrant such a reply. The reality is that that conversation might have been a boring recall of a woman forgetting to take out the garbage. But because you missed all the unnecessary chat that led up to that point, the exclamation became so much more powerful. It piqued your curiosity. 

That's what dialogue is supposed to do. It's supposed to make you want to read on. Would you want to read four hundred pages of everyday, actual conversation? 

I sure as hell wouldn't.


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## ppsage (Mar 20, 2015)

I also am much annoyed by snappy dialogue interspersed with trivial context although I suspect from a diametrically opposed starting place. I often wonder if I am the only reader who does not at all become immersed subjectively in the material, who does not ever suspend belief, and who always reads as much to appreciate the literary expression of thoughtfulness as to find out what happens in a made-up story. I mostly do not read fiction and non-fiction differently, except I am likely to read fiction much quicker because its idea density is usually much lower; in passages such as described sometimes approaching zero.


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## Yumi Koizumi (Mar 20, 2015)

Sam said:


> There shouldn't be fluff. Ever.
> 
> Dialogue should always move the plot or story forward; it should tell us  something we didn't hitherto know; it should build and reveal  character; it should be laden with conflict and urgency.
> 
> "Hi, how are you?" works when talking to someone on a street corner. It  does nothing for a novel. Skip the extraneous and boring lead-ins and  -outs. Or, as Kyle would say, arrive late and leave early.



Thanks, Sam...

I like the similar, "Arrive just in time, and leave as soon as possible". Sounds almost the same!

I hope I cleared up that I totally agree with you, and had meant to say I was trying to find a way to minimize the context/descriptive portions of a line of dialogue that isn't the dialogue itself. 

I guess I'm asking whether there are any ways/techniques to annotate dialogue that, as _Elmore Leonard_ said, "Look like writing"... It sounds like no. That we're stuck with, or comfortably predictably to use, "_he said_", "_she said_", "_Fred said_", "_said Annabel_", ...I wasn't so conscious of this until I really started to trim my dialogue down, and read it out loud. And that right there might mean no typical reader would notice what is annoying me.

I even now find myself going around saying things like, "How you doing?, she said." 

I can see where the impact of the dialogue's narrative is lessened by less dialogue, but like Riis said, less dialogue can't always be the best route. 

I'm thinking my 'question' isn't a question at all, but just something that annoys just me... 



> Originally Posted by *Terry D*
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> Originally Posted by *Terry D*
> 
> 
> 
> For the vast majority of readers simple  dialogue tags are invisible; the reader senses the break, the pause,  without actually registering the words. Stick with the basics.


Yes. I'm resigning myself to this eventuality. I just dread the  idea of my precious dialogue being delivered in such a pedestrian  manner. But odds are I'm not thinking about the invisibility part. 

More thinking to do!



> Originally Posted by *Riis Marshall*
> 
> 
> 
> The problem, as has been discussed in past  posts here, is when we are in conversation with other folks about  87%-93% of our communication is non-verbal - pauses, inflection,  emphasis, and body-language - our eyes, our hands, whether we lean  forward or back, etc.


 			 		 	 Thanks, Riss. I'm coming to the realization that my dialogue  itself needs to be delivered in a standard, blase' fashion, or else I  might alienate my readers-not with confusing dialogue, but by unfamiliar  methods of _annotation/attribution_. 

And to be clear, I'm definitely not talking about the uninformed lump  character that keeps asking the protagonist/antagonist what is  happening. I'm talking about the mechanics of delivering the dialogue  itself.

A great line I'll poorly paraphrase here once told me: Don't _tell_ them, _show_ them.

To reduce the typical presentation of dialogue, I should not complain  about the rules/guidelines I am forced to adhere to, but spend more time  on the non-verbal elements.

I'd prefer to be challenged than to feel resigned...


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## garza (Mar 20, 2015)

Yumi

Try reading some of my dialogue Let me know what you think. Find The Writer if it still is here. That's an example of pure dialogue. Also see if you can find Venus in Transit.

This tablet has no inverted commas.


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## Yumi Koizumi (Mar 20, 2015)

ppsage said:


> I also am much annoyed by snappy dialogue interspersed with trivial context although I suspect from a diametrically opposed starting place.



Thanks ppsage!

I understand your appreciation for the writing being different from your appreciation of the story. As a technical/proposal/specification writer at times, I find beauty in non-fiction when creativity and presentation combine elegantly to convey the thoughts & ideas necessary. I enjoy the psychology of wording for sales support, and the subtle compelling properties of graphics.

But this _fiction_ thing has dialogue in addition to description. Dialogue may well be my weakness for some time, as I have no experience with putting it on paper.



ppsage said:


> I mostly do not read fiction and non-fiction differently, except I am likely to read fiction much quicker because its idea density is usually much lower; in passages such as described sometimes approaching zero.



Thanks for the insight! We read non-fiction the same you & I!



> Originally Posted by *garza*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


                            Is there a way to do that? I'm not having much luck on Google or Amazon with those titles and no author... :smile:


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## garza (Mar 20, 2015)

You have to search here. I will find them and give you the links. The Writer is in non fiction and Venus in Transit is an old LM entry.


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## Pluralized (Mar 20, 2015)

garza said:


> You have to search here. I will find them and give you the links. The Writer is in non fiction and Venus in Transit is an old LM entry.



Here you are:

*The Writer*

*Venus in Transit*


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 20, 2015)

You are asking about dialogue tags.  I will stress that TerryD and Sam have given the conventional answers.

Yeah, there are writers who pretty much avoid the "said" dialogue tag. To me, when something exciting is supposed to be happening, "said" is a killer.

The problem is how to avoid it, and how _you _want to do that. There's a lot of ways.

There's using meaningful dialogue tags, but you probably knew that strategy. Here's the actual dialogue tags from one book: I asked again; Mom said too forcefully; Erica said with annoyance; I said defensively; she said in a way that made me embarrassed for the word choice; she said it as if I'd tried to throw her a scorpion; I asked her, my voice thickening; I asked; She asked; I asked; he said softly; I leveled at him; she said stiffly; he instructed.

Then there is the "implicit" dialogue tag

Mary raised her hand. "Why do you say that?"​
It's Mary talking. So, basically, the idea is to replace a dialogue tag with an implicit dialogue tag, when you can. This works really well for me, I am losing my fondness for pure-dialogue conversations.

This isn't a complete list. Did you want a complete list?


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## Pluralized (Mar 20, 2015)

> This works really well for me, I am losing my fondness for pure-dialogue conversations.



That's a comma splice. Very unconventional of you. 

As has been said a million billion times, and is absolutely incontrovertibly true, 'said' is best to use in dialogue because it is camouflaged to the reader and doesn't poke out. Even the 'implicit' dialogue tag is fine in certain usage but, like anything, when overdone sounds stilted and unnatural too. 

Understanding Sam's point above is important; dialogue isn't like natural speech. It's more efficient and more functional.


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## aj47 (Mar 21, 2015)

The only time I avoid "said" is when I see that I put an adverb after it.  Then I feel as if I need to reevaluate.


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## garza (Mar 21, 2015)

I'd forgotten I'd put 'The Writer' in Fiction. The final edit was no longer straight transcription. Anyroad, it's *here*.


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## Yumi Koizumi (Mar 23, 2015)

Pluralized said:


> That's a comma splice. Very unconventional of you.



I'm flattered that you noticed!


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## garza (Mar 23, 2015)

Pluralized - Thanks for providing the links. I've only now noticed. 'Venus in Transit' I was unable to find, and I've no copy of it myself. It was an experiment in seeing how many characters with speaking parts and development of one kind or another could be put into 650 words. The dialogue, as usual for me, plays the dual role of moving the story and revealing characters' thoughts and personalities. This was my personal favourite piece of flash fiction until 'Paper Boy', which is dialogue dependent but in an odd way. 'The Writer' is one of a long series of pure dialogue stories, a long-running experiment in character development and delineation through speech only. 

Yumi - Is my dialogue treatment more, or less, to your liking? It's based on listening to people critically during a 60-year career in journalism.


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## LOLeah (Mar 23, 2015)

Something that has helped me in my very minimal experience with writing dialogue has been writing the conversations as they would sound face to face in real time and then going back to add the identifying markers in the text as they are needed. Keeps me from being repetitive and makes the extras that come to me fitting and effortless. So far dialogue has been a real challenge for me and something I respect so much when it's done right.


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## garza (Mar 23, 2015)

With only a bit of effort you can write a three-person dialogue without speech tags except at the beginning. Two-person is simple as they alternate. When I finished 'The Writer' I printed out a copy and passed it around a group at the library. Not one person noticed the lack of speech tags and everyone said the personalities of the two people came through clearly. Of course this was a near verbatim transcription, as near as I could make it, so separating the two voices was no problem.


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 23, 2015)

garza said:


> With only a bit of effort you can write a three-person dialogue without speech tags except at the beginning. Two-person is simple as they alternate. When I finished 'The Writer' I printed out a copy and passed it around a group at the library. Not one person noticed the lack of speech tags and everyone said the personalities of the two people came through clearly. Of course this was a near verbatim transcription, as near as I could make it, so separating the two voices was no problem.



How do you write three-person dialogue without speech tags?


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## garza (Mar 25, 2015)

'Where's John?'

'I don't know, Buttercup.He was around here earlier.'

'Here comes Frankie. Maybe he knows.'

'Hiya, Frankfurter. How's it cookin'?'

'Hello Willy. Hi Mable.'

'Frankie, have you seen John?'

'Sweety's worried about her fresh squeezie.'

'I ain't seen him since yesterday. He and Wilbur was talkin' about goin' fishin' t'day.'

'He promised to take me into Fairweather to do some shopping today.'

'Aw, Honeybunch, has your Johnny baby skipped out on you?'

'If I see him, I'll sure enough tell him your lookin' for him.'

'Thanks, Frankie. You're not headed that way, are you?'

'Sorry. I'm sposed to meet Harrison at Seven Mile about five minutes ago.'

'Well, you'd better be on your way. Maybe John will show up later.'

'And maybe he won't, Sweetums. So you'll be stuck with me.'

'No, Willy, I've always got the dogs and the chickens to keep me company. No need for you to hang around.'

'You break my heart, Loveydovey. Say, lankyfrank, can I beg a drop at Weatherford's Store?'

'Git in the truck. I'll slow down so's you can jump out when I go past the crossroads.'


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## RhythmOvPain (Mar 25, 2015)

How I approach dialogue differs somewhat from the standard way that I read others do it.

Really, what I've discovered is that a well laid out dialogue requires attention to several factors, but key among them is paragraph structure. Depending on how much information you throw into a paragraph leading up to a monologue or conversation (insight into a character, setting, hindsight, anything), you can change how much detail you put before or after your quotation marks. 


When dialogue between two main characters is in effect, less  emphasis can be put on action in favor of quick and flowing conversation  that the reader can follow without over-complicating matters. That being said, I do tend to put small details in the dialogue just to make things seem more alive and vivid to the reader, but will not run away from a simple "you're absolutely right" or "no" if there's just no damn reason to get into any more detail.

To me, a good book is like a good movie. If two people are sitting down and talking (ala DeNiro and Jackson in Jackie Brown) there's very little reason to be descriptive between conversation unless a character does something ("You're absolutely right," he said, then grabbed the cup from the table and took a long sip), or a character enters the room, or the scenario flips randomly due to an action that one of the characters does.

But at the end of the day I think it really just falls on the person who's writing how they want to convey their messages. From time to time I just can't find myself satisfied with a simple "he said/she said," but English allows for a lot of literary freedom in that respect. It's all story telling at the end of the day. How you convey a thought should be directly proportionate to the validity of that thought, and how you write it should be how it would be described IRL.

Otherwise the reader is left wondering what's missing.

Just my two cents on a subject that took me too damn long to get down pat.


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## garza (Mar 25, 2015)

From what you say I suppose you would not enjoy books or stories that are as dialogue dependent as mine are. I use dialogue to tell most of the story and to describe characters - not physical description, but internal description. Physical description is most often left to the reader. 'Paper Boy' and 'Venus in Transit' are typical. 'A Man Called Changsai' and 'The Writer' are atypical - the former for its use of physical description, the latter for its lack of much of anything but dialogue. 

All the ghost books I've written have been heavy on dialogue, and clients, agents, publishers, and public have all found them to be good reads - at least, so they say.

In the quickly composed sketch above, I've tried to show how more than two characters can be delineated in dialogue without tags. The piece is heavy handed on purpose to illustrate the kinds of devices which can be used. In a properly written story the speech characteristics would not be so obvious.


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 25, 2015)

Hi garza. The three-person dialogue was impossible for me to follow. Is there a clue I missed about who is speaking for 'Frankie, have you seen John?'

I take it you are trying to use names, but it's hard when people are called different names and you have a fourth person not in the conversation.

The two-person dialogue was fine. Thank you for posting that example.


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## garza (Mar 25, 2015)

The primary means of differentiation I use in a three-person dialogue is speech pattern. In the sample, Mable is the only person speaking straight forward, standard, English. Thus she is the one who says 'Frankie, have you seen John?' Having the characters call one another by name is a sort of cheesy cheat, but if not overdone can work. Having Willy use a different pet name for Mable each time was intended to tell you something about Willy. What, I'm not sure. I'm never completely sure about what my characters are thinking, so their dialogue reflects what I think they might be thinking. I can't read minds, after all. I can guess what the Leader of the Opposition is thinking as he listens to the Prime Minister speak, but in my report on the sitting of the House all I can do is report what is said, not what I think someone may be thinking. That carries over into the fiction I write and is why I never tell what a character is thinking. I can only show what I think they are thinking by what they say and do. 

That should clear everything up nicely, I should think.


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## T.S.Bowman (Mar 26, 2015)

Yumi Koizumi said:


> Thanks, Riss. I'm coming to the realization that* my dialogue  itself needs to be delivered in a standard, blase' fashion, or else I  might alienate my readers*-not with confusing dialogue, but by unfamiliar  methods of _annotation/attribution_.



No. What is going to Alienate your readers will most likely not be "unfamiliar" annotations.

What will always alienate a reader is confusion. You can be as unfamiliar with the annotations as you like, provided you are making it clear to the reader who is speaking. As Terry pointed out, most speech annotations are invisible to the reader anyway. Even if they aren't the familiar "he said...she said" they are more than likely get treated the same way by the reader.

I use a lot of dialogue in my work. It's relatively easy for me to write and I really enjoy it. I would bore myself to tears if I tried writing a bunch of descriptive stuff, so I use my characters and their conversations to move things.


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## Carousel (Mar 29, 2015)

I agree 100% with Gazza. The premise that the narrator can tell the readers what the characters are actually thinking when engaged in a conversation has always seemed a touch alien to me.
My approach to dialogue is to make it as natural for the reader as possible i.e. that they are eavesdropping on a real conversation or as close to that as I can get. I use dialogue first to continue the storyline, second to flesh out my characters and, if I’m having a good day, to marry those two aims together. 
Tags are a necessary inconvenience so I try to avoid repeating the simple ‘he said’, ‘she said’ tags as much as possible.

One other point is conducting certain topics for conversations in the wrong place. Soaps are centred on relationships, at least in the UK they are, and the usual environment for group discussions in British soaps is the local pub. But if a guy tried to discuss his problems with his relationship with his mates you would probably see them physically backing off. English men almost never discuss interment details of their relationships with their male collages, it’s just not done.


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