Women dialog

[SummerMorning]

All right, I'm going to stop talking before I start to sound like one of those Literature professors with the wild white hair, intellectual glasses, and a face that resonates with a desire to spend the day half into a bottle rather than deal with smarmy assed kids.

Hhmhhhhmm...

Hehhhmmhh...

hhhh...

ROTFL!

 

[SummerMorning]

As in so much in fiction, the key is not to make your dialogue authentic, but to make it believable. You don't want it to be real; you want it to seem real. There's a big difference.

---dr.M.

This reminds me of the debate painters had regarding how to paint a horse galloping. There were two schools of thought and then the camera obscura was invented. Suddenly the truth would be revealed! The world would see which group of painters was right!

So they set up about 20 cameras and had a horse gallop past and took the stills. And they found out that both of the schools were painting the galloping horse wrong - but that both types of painted galloping horse looked more 'believable' and in motion than the actual, photographed horse - the photographs looked like stiff horse statues, no life to them at all...

...so there you have it, they were both wrong, but if you want a horse to gallop in a still, you'd better not use a photo.

 

[BlackSnake]

I believe rather strongly that spoken dialogue is not the same as good written dialogue. In other words, copying down what people say verbatim in conversation simply will not give you good dialogue in print. There's far too much non-verbal communication, broken syntax, unfinished sentences, and hemming and hawing in transcribed speech for it to make any sense as dialogue.

...

---dr.M.

There is a lot of great stuff here.

Dr Mabeuse, your first point is my main problem. A phrase that I use to use a lot is "see what I'm saying"

I the dialog my goal is not only to write the dialog, but also to describe how it is said. I noticed so much going on in conversations that had to do with the meaning of what they were saying that I feel it's nearly impossible to write.

Conversations involving guys, I can easily move from one character to the other and describe their gesters along with their dialog and convey the meaning of what they are saying.

I've been only cranking out roughly 3k words a day, and it took me an entire day to figure out that I would be better off punting.

This is a real challange for me. One that I want to do once, well.

All of the comments thus far have been helpful. Thank you all for your input.

The characters are the guy's mother who is a proud blant slut (in her own opinion); neighbor one, who has secretly slept with the guy and loved it; neighbor two, who has the hots for the guy and wants the experience; and mother's friend who tries to be as big of a slut as the mother.

 

[SummerMorning]

I'm taking my * out of this fire. Never been one for incest...

 

[BlackSnake]

I'm taking my * out of this fire. Never been one for incest...

The issue transends a praticular story. Like some of the posters have stated, individual relationships play apart in the way they communicate with each other.

It's difficult at best. What I've been reading here is helping me to understand some of the things I need to concider when attempting to write dialog for female characters.

 

[BlackSnake]

There are lots of books (non-fiction) about the differences in the way men and women talk. If you really want to capture authentic dialoge, I would recomend reading a few of these books from your local library (I'm always plugging the library)

You might learn more about the ways that you comunicate too.

I'm learning a lot from this thread.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I'm learning a lot from this thread.

Of course you are, but don't stop there!