This week’s video points out a common and annoying dialogue pitfall and explains how to avoid it.
Video Transcription: One of the biggest challenges for any writer is the necessity of creating realistic dialogue. It’s surprisingly difficult to recreate the patterns and nuances of human conversation. If you can write ace dialogue, you’ll have agents, editors, and readers all clambering at your door. However, on your way to this enviable state, make sure you’re not falling into one of the most common—and, in my personal opinion, one of the most annoying—dialogue pitfalls: the overuse of direct address.
Direct address occurs whenever one character calls another character by name. As in, “Hey, John, could you give me that wrench?” Direct address accomplishes several things, most notably identifying the character being spoken to and applying a certain amount of emphasis to whatever information follows. Used in moderation, both these accomplishments are admirable and necessary tricks of the trade. However, used to excess, they can become both ridiculous and frustrating, as demonstrated in a fantasy I read that had the characters calling each other by name in practically every line of dialogue.
How often do we call each other by name in real life? Pay attention to direct address in your own conversation, and you’ll be surprised how little you actually call people by name. As a general rule, direct address is used only at the beginning of a conversation, when we’re trying to get someone’s attention, or when we’re trying to emphasize a point. Emphasis, in all its forms, must be treated with caution by the writer, since it’s far too easy to neutralize its effect through overuse. Every time one of your characters calls another by name, stop and reevaluate the line of dialogue. Would it be just as strong—or or perhaps even stronger—without the occurrence of direct address?
Related Posts: Are Your Characters Talking Heads?
Do You Know to Use Emphasis in Your WRITING?!
Info Dumps Don't Belong in Dialogue
Video Transcription: One of the biggest challenges for any writer is the necessity of creating realistic dialogue. It’s surprisingly difficult to recreate the patterns and nuances of human conversation. If you can write ace dialogue, you’ll have agents, editors, and readers all clambering at your door. However, on your way to this enviable state, make sure you’re not falling into one of the most common—and, in my personal opinion, one of the most annoying—dialogue pitfalls: the overuse of direct address.
Direct address occurs whenever one character calls another character by name. As in, “Hey, John, could you give me that wrench?” Direct address accomplishes several things, most notably identifying the character being spoken to and applying a certain amount of emphasis to whatever information follows. Used in moderation, both these accomplishments are admirable and necessary tricks of the trade. However, used to excess, they can become both ridiculous and frustrating, as demonstrated in a fantasy I read that had the characters calling each other by name in practically every line of dialogue.
How often do we call each other by name in real life? Pay attention to direct address in your own conversation, and you’ll be surprised how little you actually call people by name. As a general rule, direct address is used only at the beginning of a conversation, when we’re trying to get someone’s attention, or when we’re trying to emphasize a point. Emphasis, in all its forms, must be treated with caution by the writer, since it’s far too easy to neutralize its effect through overuse. Every time one of your characters calls another by name, stop and reevaluate the line of dialogue. Would it be just as strong—or or perhaps even stronger—without the occurrence of direct address?
Related Posts: Are Your Characters Talking Heads?
Do You Know to Use Emphasis in Your WRITING?!
Info Dumps Don't Belong in Dialogue
- September 29, 2010
24 Comments
- K.M. Weiland
- Posted in dialogue , direct address , emphasis
, editor Jessica Strawser elaborated on this common feeling amongst writers:
, the writing life is always a balance, no matter how talented or successful you may or may not be:
and 
. Both books feature unquestionably evil characters, particularly the blackmailing lawyer Josiah Tulkinghorn in Bleak House and the French murderer Rigaud in Little Dorrit. Both are excellent characters and chilling antagonists in their own right. And yet, both books feature lesser antagonists who garnered a much larger share of my hatred: Harold Skimpole, in Bleak House, is a selfish, lazy fop who manipulates his friends into paying his debts, all the while declaring himself as innocent as a child. William Dorrit, father of the title character in Little Dorrit, insists that he and his family forget about their past in a debtor’s prison, even to the extent of neglecting those who secured their release.
, editor Bret Anthony Johnston, sums up successful writing in one sentence:
does a good job disproving this fear. Her book, which features a narrator who has lived more than a thousand years, includes much backstory and explanation, in which the narrator reveals his extensive history to readers. Much of this history is dramatized, but much of it includes lengthy narrative, unbroken by dialogue or definable action. In fact, the first half of the first chapter is almost entirely narrative. At first glance, this may seem to be a major gaffe on the author’s part. Doesn’t she know readers are bored if they have to go more than two paragraphs without somebody talking or doing something?
