I get that including every single “um,” “ah,” or colloquial phrase would make a book unreadable. We need some level of editing to keep the story flowing. And for some reason I feel this way more deeply about literary fiction than other genres.
Maybe it’s because to me literary fiction is a good opportunity to mirror the intricacies of reality, and authors of literary fiction seem to take their stories/craft very seriously. So when I come across dialogue that feels more like a rehearsed speech than a real conversation it takes me out of the reading experience a bit.
So I really appreciate it when the dialogue feels genuinely authentic and reflective of real-life speech. A friend of mine felt off about the conversations in Sally Rooney’s books (I haven’t read anything of hers yet). Apparently it was more like reading a series of carefully constructed literary thoughts than overhearing actual people talk.
I’m a bit torn. I get that dialogue needs to be engaging, but I’m also a little sick of how overly polished/formal it is in so many books I read. Any books that turned you off because of the dialogue? Or vice versa?
by brooke_157
4 Comments
I can’t really think of any examples, but I do understand the struggle, especially from a writing standpoint. I try to write it the way I imagine the conversation happening, which often means my characters ramble a lot because I do… So I try to be more concise, leave out unnecessary stuff, and break it up with “he gestured toward the bookshelf” so that it doesn’t feel like a monologue.
I recently read The Wedding People and I think that author had the same problem because she’d switch from dialogue to a summary of the conversation. So it was like rambling, but you didn’t have to actually read a monologue from someone who doesn’t know when to stop talking 😅
For me it depends, dialogue can be more or less prose-y depending on its function. If someone is saying something complex I don’t need it but if it’s supposed to have the pace of something conversational it should have the feel of something conversational too.
FWIW, “um” and “ah” get left out of transcripts (unless someone is being very uncharitable), so it doesn’t feel off to have them not be included in dialog in novels. It’s how we see normal conversations and speech written down.
A related pet peeve of mine is when books often have characters speak in unison. How often does that really happen? And when it does happen is it ever more than three words?