Writing Excuses Transcripts

Writing Excuses Season Four Episode 26: Avoiding Stilted Dialogue

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2010/07/05/writing-excuses-4-26-avoiding-stilted-dialog/

Key points: Stilted dialogue moves like stilts staggering down the street. It doesn't feel like a conversation, or it doesn't match the character. People don't talk in complete sentences. Fiction dialogue represents conversation, it doesn't portray it exactly (skip the ums, hums, haws, etc.). Give the illusion of reality. Write the dialogue you need, then prune it. Beware maid and butler dialogue, where characters talk about things to educate the reader, rather than because they would ordinarily talk about those things. Consider when they would have first talked about that, then let them reflect on those past conversations. Get your characters into arguments, and let them slip in the information you want as a side issue. Toss the characters into a scene and let them talk.
( Yackity-yack and don't talk back... )
[Brandon] All right. Howard, you're waving your hand. Why don't you do the...
[Dan] Oo! You have a writing prompt!
[Howard] I've got a writing prompt. This is a two-parter. Start with maid and butler dialogue with a maid and a butler who are establishing important plot points. Write the worst maid and butler dialogue you know how to write. Okay? It's an info dump and it's awful. Now go back and rewrite it. Now the maid and the butler are having an argument, a very impassioned, brutal sort of argument. The same information comes out, only make it not feel like maid and butler dialogue.
[Brandon] All right. There you are. You're out of excuses, now go write.