# Can you have too much dialogue?



## Kuro (Jan 4, 2014)

I find that the stories I write have a lot of dialogue. It does contribute to the story, but I often have more of it than I do paragraphs describing actions or surroundings.

I honestly don't know if it matters or not, but I find the novels I read have more descriptive paragraphs than they do dialogue.


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## Sam (Jan 4, 2014)

Yes, and in much the same way as you can have too much prose. You don't want your story to read like a film script, but neither do you want it to be a biography. There's a balance to be struck.


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## Morkonan (Jan 4, 2014)

Kuro said:


> I find that the stories I write have a lot of dialogue. It does contribute to the story, but I often have more of it than I do paragraphs describing actions or surroundings.
> 
> I honestly don't know if it matters or not, but I find the novels I read have more descriptive paragraphs than they do dialogue.



You can have too much dialogue. But, you can also frame quite a bit of dialogue, correctly. That's really the key. If the Reader can't tell what's going on, where, and who's talking to whom, then it's a killer. But, if you can take care of that, dialogue away!

As has been said - Strike a balance. But, that's not to mean that you must weigh dialogue and other sorts of things equally. In other words, balance dialogue _appropriately._


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## squidtender (Jan 4, 2014)

I read somewhere that you can just open a book, and without reading a single word, be able to tell what kind of a story it will be. Are the pages filled with blocks of text with very little breaks and no dialogue? Then it'll tend to be slow. Is it full of breaks, short sentences and lots of dialogue? Then it'll be fast, but have little substance. 

I realize that's painting with a broad brush (so don't start in on me, people), but it _does _make a point about looking at your work in a different way. I suggest writing it the way YOU would want to read it.


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## BeastlyBeast (Jan 4, 2014)

I'm in the same boat as you, man. I find I struggle with the prose/dialogue balance, too. What I do to compensate is add a little flair from time to time, if I must have a load of dialogue in a certain scene. For example, instead of doing dialogue like this:

"What did you bring him here for?" asked Fred. 
"I brought him here to eat." replied Derek.
"What are you going to eat, Derek?"asked Fred.
"Lamb chops." replied Derek. 

i will add a bit more description and flair, to make it more like dialogue with prose... Something like:

"What did you bring him here for?" Asked Fred, with an eyebrow cocked up.
"I brought him here to eat," replied Derek.
"What are you going to eat, Derek?"
Derek looked at the menu and a particular item he hadn't had in a while caught his eye. "Lamb chops." Replied Derek, with his mouth about to water.

this might not be a good storyline example, but it shows that if you must have longer blocks of text, add some description and prose every now and again. This way you're still getting the conversation across, but you're also covering the nuances. Hope this helped!


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## FleshEater (Jan 5, 2014)

Before I read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, I would have said yes. Now...I don't think so as long as it feels right.


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## dale (Jan 5, 2014)

obviously not. ever read "the sound and the fury" by faulkner? it's ALL dialogue. i hate the book, myself. but it's a bestselling literary classic all the same.


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## Sam (Jan 5, 2014)

There's a reason why Faulkner wrote _The Sound and the Fury _like that. He was a modernist. They played with language as a rule. 

For a writer trying to get work published in the modern era, you can have too much of _everything. _


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## Bloggsworth (Jan 5, 2014)

If Robert B Parker could get away with it, I'm sure you can, with the proviso that the conversations must be both relevant and interesting. You will have to ensure that the prose makes up for its brevity by being good enough to carry the story. Your publisher will have a far easier time selling the film rights if the book is dialogue heavy!


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## stevesh (Jan 5, 2014)

Depends on you (and your readers), I think. Robert Parker and Elmore Leonard made nice livings writing novels with too much dialogue.


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## Jeko (Jan 5, 2014)

Only if you're working to a design where Sam's balance applies; else, you have the freedom to do whatever you like.


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## Bloggsworth (Jan 5, 2014)

Try reading Roddy Doyle's _The Commitments_ in which Doyle only departs from dialogue when it is absolutely necessary.


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## Staff Deployment (Jan 5, 2014)

It can work if you do it deliberately.

I'd also recommend trying out a screenplay using Celtx. It really forces you to look at the interplay of action and dialogue without having to worry about narration.


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## BeastlyBeast (Jan 5, 2014)

Honestly, I would think there would need to be more dialogue. Dialogue and speaking is most of what fills real life, anyway, be it the dialogue we make up in our head when we think to ourselves or read a book, or the conversations we have with people. Our lives aren't filled with taking deep notice to surroundings, so why should our characters? I guess the best way I can think of it is, try to do an equal amount of both, with a slight to moderate edge given to dialogue. Actions happen quickly and the ones that don't are still quickly described - driving, cleaning, working, for example can all take hours out of our days yet only take one word to convey the entire idea. This is why I believe there ends to be a bit more dialogue than prose. Prose is quickly explaining what is happening over time, while dialogue is a real time conversation.


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## Nickleby (Jan 5, 2014)

The way I see it, a book is words, nothing but words. We think in words. We speak in words. Dialog is only a bunch of words that happen to come from the mouths of characters. Saying a story has too much dialog or too little is arbitrary. Might as well say a story should have only so much cowbell, no more, no less.


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## Potty (Jan 5, 2014)

If you manage to limit the amount of dialogue you use, let me know how you did it so I can try it on the missus.


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## FleshEater (Jan 5, 2014)

I have to agree with Beastly Beast. How do we get to know people? By talking to them. Likewise, when done properly, a reader can get to know a character just as well, if not better, through dialogue. Yes, actions speak louder than words. But readers' emotions should be driven by how characters act and react to situations, and also to the personality they portray through the thing we all love...language. And what better way to express that than by having them verbally interact with other characters, just as we would in the real world?

That, I believe, fuses the perfect balance. That doesn't mean there can't be too much of one or the other, however.


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## Sam (Jan 6, 2014)

Are you saying you want to include the mind-numbing and tedious conversations that people have in the real world?  That's neither interesting nor character-building to me. I fully endorse using dialogue to help the reader get to know the character, but it had better be relevant or I'll be putting the book down and likely never lifting it again. I have little time for small-talk in the real world, and even less time for it in a novel.


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## Potty (Jan 6, 2014)

Sam said:


> I fully endorse (see what I did there?) .



Someone's been putting soured milk in Sam's coffee again and I want to know who!


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## Sam (Jan 6, 2014)

Sorry, haven't had my morning cup of tea yet.


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## BeastlyBeast (Jan 6, 2014)

Jeez. Someone's still laughing at my little mistake there. Lol


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## Tettsuo (Jan 6, 2014)

This balance folks are talking about is not a tightrope, it's a highway.  There's a great amount of variation between writers and how much or little dialogue they write.  Only when it's in the extreme does it come off as "bad".  We have so much room in-between the two extremes, that writers can really bring a lot of variation to the fold imo.


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## Kuro (Jan 6, 2014)

Tettsuo said:


> This balance folks are talking about is not a tightrope, it's a highway.  There's a great amount of variation between writers and how much or little dialogue they write.  Only when it's in the extreme does it come off as "bad".  We have so much room in-between the two extremes, that writers can really bring a lot of variation to the fold imo.



I like this explanation. I'm thinking all dialogue is bad, but perhaps a lot of dialogue isn't necessarily a bad thing.


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## BeastlyBeast (Jan 6, 2014)

Sam said:


> Are you saying you want to include the mind-numbing and tedious conversations that people have in the real world?  That's neither interesting nor character-building to me. I fully endorse using dialogue to help the reader get to know the character, but it had better be relevant or I'll be putting the book down and likely never lifting it again. I have little time for small-talk in the real world, and even less time for it in a novel.



i didn't mean to put all dialogue, or to put tedious dialogue that didn't add to the story in.  what I meant was that dialogue moves almost every story along. Except in cases like poetry, where the goal is to describe elegantly, dialogue helps move the story along and helps you get to know your characters. Imagine if your favorite books had no dialogue in them. The parts where dialogue used to be we're replaced with 'mc1 and mc2 had a conversation that led to them concluding that x needed to be done.' The story would be really boring, or at least much less exciting, wouldn't it? I'm not saying that you need to include Menial conversations, such as your mcs visit to the tax collector, or a silly text conversation your character had with someone while on the crapper... You just need to include enough dialogue that mere prose isn't the only thing driving the story.


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## FleshEater (Jan 6, 2014)

Sam said:


> Are you saying you want to include the mind-numbing and tedious conversations that people have in the real world?  That's neither interesting nor character-building to me. I fully endorse using dialogue to help the reader get to know the character, but it had better be relevant or I'll be putting the book down and likely never lifting it again. I have little time for small-talk in the real world, and even less time for it in a novel.



Tisk. Tisk. Tisk.


Of course the dialogue has to be relevant, and also move the plot forward. I haven't read a novel yet where the characters are discussing how they fixed the drain the night before, or what time they got up.  

Everything must be relevant, including narration outside dialogue. If it isn't; it gets the ax.


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## Justin Rocket (Jan 6, 2014)

You can never have enough excellent and relevant dialogue just like you can never have too much action.
But, the more dialogue-dependent your story is, the greater the quality of that dialogue must be.


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## Staff Deployment (Jan 7, 2014)

Justin Rocket said:


> the more dialogue-dependent your story is, the greater the quality of that dialogue must be



_Waiting For Godot_


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## Morkonan (Jan 7, 2014)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead...


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## Deleted member 49710 (Jan 7, 2014)

Staff Deployment said:


> _Waiting For Godot_





Morkonan said:


> Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead...


those are plays, kids, with actors and maybe sets; standards differ. I believe we're talking fiction here.


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## Phoenix Raven (Feb 9, 2014)

Nickleby said:


> The way I see it, a book is words, nothing but words. We think in words. We speak in words. Dialog is only a bunch of words that happen to come from the mouths of characters. Saying a story has too much dialog or too little is arbitrary. Might as well say a story should have only so much cowbell, no more, no less.


I would agree. Obviously the reader must know what is going on. If Bob and Jane are talking, where are they as they talk. What sights, sounds, and smells are in the area. Once that is clearly stated then the dialog should be fine to go on a while as long as it carries the story.


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## Phoenix Raven (Feb 9, 2014)

Sam said:


> Are you saying you want to include the mind-numbing and tedious conversations that people have in the real world?  That's neither interesting nor character-building to me. I fully endorse using dialogue to help the reader get to know the character, but it had better be relevant or I'll be putting the book down and likely never lifting it again. I have little time for small-talk in the real world, and even less time for it in a novel.


When I want to convey that two characters talked but it had nothing to do with the plot I wouldn't use Dialog, I would narrate it. Something like this.

Jane and Sue woke up as they always do, Tired and groggy until they had their morning coffee, They sat together at the kitchen table disusing the weather and other irrelevant matters until they finished their drinks.


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