Ever read something that reads like a screenplay… or worse, you’re the guilty writer?
While I often have fun creating dialogue-only short stories, and this style can teach you how to include critical physical details in speech, sometimes our characters talk too much. Creating either an exchange that should be cut or feels directionless to the reader.
Other times it seems logical at first to relay information from one character to the next, but if the reader has read it before, they shouldn’t have to reread it.
Beyond simply deleting what is said you have options I call it: SPIT.
- SUMMARIZE
- Have your narrator sum up what is said, i.e. “Bill told Dan everything that happened the night before.”
- In first person, you could sum it up, “I listened to him rattle on about a strange night. I laughed when he mentioned the fish people.”
- PARAPHRASE
- Have the narrator explain what is told, using less conversational language– yes, this is an info dump, and I am often surprised by really well-written infodumps that didn’t waste my time with banter or were overly descriptive.
- IMPLY
- By jumping forward in a conversation, you can imply that things were said. Whether it’s the end of the conversation or moments later.
- You can also jump ahead and have a character ask if the other heard anything they said, and then shift to a paraphrase or a ‘I stopped listening once you said . . .’
- TRIM
- Cut out every other response or really edit the conversation down to what needs to be there. In our everyday lives, people talk too much too often, and it can be enticing to mirror that in our writing, but when people ramble, so do the readers’ minds.
Either way, it’s a good idea to strike a balance between dialogue and description. And sorry for the acronym, but it should make it memorable . . . right?
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