Is Your Character Talking Too Much?

In real life, most people have a tendency to talk about what they’re going to do before they do it. We’re lying on the couch of an evening, talking to the cat purring on our stomachs, and we say something like, “I really should take that trash out, shouldn’t I?” We may even have to say it a couple times before we work up the energy to dump the cat and haul ourselves over the garbage can. We’re even more inclined to talk about what needs doing when it’s something a little more intricate than changing the Glad Bags. And there’s nothing wrong with that—in real life or in our fiction—unless we or our characters are doing nothing but talking.

Readers love dialogue. What they don’t love is when our characters spend pages—or even chapters—talking, talking, talking about what they’re going to do, instead of just doing it. I recently read a fantasy that spent literally half the book with a professor character lecturing his pupil, at length and in depth, about the ins and outs of this particular fantasy world. If I’d signed up for a college course, I wouldn’t have minded this. But after a couple hundred pages of this in a novel, I was bored and ready for the character to put his money where his mouth was.

Of course, as writers, we must find a balance that allows our characters to present logical dialogue that explains to readers both crucial information and the characters’ reactions, motivations, and goals in relation to that information. But just like Chekhov’s gun in the First Act, we have to put our info to good use. The characters eventually have to act upon it. Otherwise, they have no good reason to talk about it. And if they do act upon it, we have to determine whether the action isn’t capable of superseding the need for the original informative dialogue and/or simply making it repetitious. There’s a good reason most stories cut away right when the character whispers, “Now here’s what we’re going to do…”

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! Does your character spend more time talking or doing? Tell me in the comments!