I used to believe that I had a bit of a gift for dialogue and to a certain extent I still believe that to be true. I have the ability to write interesting dialogue in a number of styles ranging from hard-boiled noir to geek teen speak and from wistful romance to pop-culture laden monologues. The problem with my dialogue though is that, when read out loud, it sounds a lot more like what people in the movies might sound like rather than what people in real life might sound like. I think I’ve made progress in crafting more realistic dialogue over the past few years but I still have some way to go.

 Back in 2011 we did a dialogue exercise in my Professional Writing and Editing Class whereby we had to record a minute long conversation between a group of three of us and then transcribe that conversation to paper. It was more difficult than I had anticipated mostly due to the fact that there were other groups doing the same thing at the same time but also because conversations generally move a lot faster in real life than on the page or even on the screen. My attempted transcription is just below followed by my effort to shape the transcribed dialogue into prose.

***

Me: Hello. Yep it works.

Brayden: Err that was a three. I’m going for zero. That was a five.

Me: You want it to get to zero though don’t you? Isn’t that what it’s meant to be?

Brayden: Where you want it to be? Nah I think more than zero is like too much. Hence the red.

Me: I should remember this from umm scr… T.V. production.

Brayden: What about this?

**Clap**

Me: I didn’t even see it.

Brayden: It went to 10. Wha heyyy. Luke enters the room.

Me: And walks with purpose.

***

‘Hello?’ James enquired hesitantly, ‘yep, it works.’

‘Err that was a three,’ Brayden offered without conviction, ‘I’m going for zero. That was a five.’

The men continued to stare at the peculiar device.

‘You want to get to zero though don’t you?’ asked James, ‘isn’t that what it’s…’

‘Where you want it to be?’ Brayden finished his thought for him, ‘nah I think more than zero is, like, too much. Hence the red.’

Brayden was speaking more assuredly now although James remained tentative.

‘I should remember this from umm, scr… T.V. production.’ James said to no one in particular.

‘What about this?’ Brayden asked before clapping loudly. The dial on the device moved so quick as to be almost imperceptible.

‘I didn’t even see it,’ exclaimed James.

‘It went to ten… wha heyyy!’ Brayden cut himself short as the 3rd member of their group returned from a phone conversation, ‘Luke enters the room.’

‘And walks with purpose,’ added James relieved to have something else to talk about.

***

I’m not exactly sure what this proves. Maybe that real life conversations aren’t terribly interesting? Maybe that having a conversation about recording a conversation is one of the most inane things you can do? Either way, I’m pretty sure good dialogue needs to be relatable to real life speech while at the same time advancing the plot and/or revealing character. ‘Cool’ dialogue is okay every now and then, especially if you’re Quentin Tarantino, but it does get rather tiring.