GENREALITY

Used to be that most people spoke candidly with each other only when they thought no one else was listening to them. That’s the reason we’ve all had those heartfelt chats over the office water cooler, at a busy, noisy restaurant or in the bedroom with the door closed. The illusion of privacy makes us feel safe.

We can say things like “The boss is being a real jackass this week” or “Your boyfriend tried to hit on me” or “Do we have any C batteries? This thing takes four” without worrying about people outside our trust circle hearing private thoughts, misconstruing them, or even using them against us.

Everything we say in private isn’t an absolute and unwavering statement, nor is it meant to be heard by anyone other than someone in the trust circle. Yes, the boss can be a jackass, but he’s not as bad as the last one, and we really need this job — thus the need to vent in private. Our friend’s boyfriend may be a dog, but he’s also vindictive as hell and a warning about him needs to be discreetly passed along. And while the bedroom toys we play with may never be something we feel comfortable discussing in front of our church group, there are some friends who understand that if God didn’t want us to be happy, why would He build us with all these interesting parts?

The advent of the mobile phone into society has forever altered conversational privacy. These handy devices allow people to hold conversations anywhere and, unfortunately, they do. I don’t know why people who talk on mobiles think no one is listening, but I’ve heard things while waiting to check out at the grocery store that would curl your hair. Being forced to listen to a one-sided conversation is usually tedious stuff, though, and most of us go out of our way to avoid people talking on their mobiles, no matter how hot the topic.

Two-sided conversations are a little harder to resist. I am a discreet but completely unabashed eavesdropper, and I collect conversations the same way other women do journey diamonds. If you’re having a private conversation, and I can listen in without disturbing or alarming you, I will. It’s not because I’m simply being nosy, either. I want to hear what you say when you think no one is listening because I’m a writer, and that is the stuff of great dialogue.

In a sense every reader is a voyeur, silently observing the events in someone else’s life. There’s no harm in it because (unless we’re reading a biography) it’s fiction. It never happened, isn’t happening, and will never happen unless HBO buys the performance rights, after which it will be acted out on the screen but still won’t really happen.

But: the reader has a more satisfying experience if they forget they’re reading four hundred pages of big fat lies. So writers try to help them out with that by crafting their stories to be as convincing and/or realistic as possible.

For me, reading great dialogue is like discreet eavesdropping – the writer offers me the opportunity to listen in on a very private conversation while I go unnoticed by the speakers. I am their unseen audience, the secretary standing around the corner from the water cooler, the gal sitting behind them in the next booth, the neighbor sitting on her porch ten feet away from that open bedroom window next door. I am included in the characters’ trust circle but they are unaware of my presence. Dialogue offers every reader the ultimate cloak of invisibility.

Writing great dialogue requires a lot of listening as well. Conversation is an art, and everyone has their own individual style. There are regional and national differences that affect sentence structure, word choices and speaking rhythms. Some people are gifted oral storytellers and can command attention with a handful of words. Other people are for whatever reason not as comfortable with speaking, and can be almost inarticulate when trying to express themselves. And, unless you’re in a bar, every conversation is unscripted and every exchange is unpredictable. You can listen your entire life to people speaking and never hear the same conversation twice.

Dialogue is at its best when it reveals something the reader doesn’t know about the characters involved – like those intimate conversation we’re not supposed to hear but love to listen to anyway. I’m not suggesting every writer go out and immediately start trying to eavesdrop on private conversations – for one thing, you’ll probably get caught – but it’s to your advantage to pay attention to what you hear whenever you’re around other people. Even in public places people forget they can be overheard. Collect the most interesting things that you hear; learn from them, let them fire your imagination, and use them to inspire and craft your dialogue to invoke the same feelings.

Sometimes even the smallest and seemingly insignificant fragment of conversation can provide you with enormous inspiration. A few years back I was sitting in a restaurant booth behind an older couple who weren’t speaking to each other at all. I got the impression they’d just had a bad argument before coming into the place. I was finishing up my salad when the woman abruptly said, “It’s high time we put an end to this.” Her companion muttered “uh-huh” and then asked the waitress for the check. They left without exchanging another word.

It fascinated me to no end, that fragment of conversation. I took it home with me, and thought about it, and turned it over and over in my mind. What did the woman want to end? The silence? An argument? Their relationship? Why was it high time? The possibilities were endless. Her admission inspired a turnkey line of dialogue in my novel Stay the Night, and provided a trigger I needed for the novel opening, the catalyst for the plot and the reason the protagonists met. It even became my personal metaphor for my decision to finish the series with that book.

Not bad for nine words I overheard while eavesdropping in a café.

Tweet This Post

Related posts:

1. Mysticality
2. Why You Should Listen to Bad Reviews