JON P. BLOCH

Creating Believable Dialogue

JON P. BLOCH is the author of the Rick Domino series, as well as other tales of depravity. In his spare time, he is chair of the sociology department at Southern Connecticut State University.

 

 

Fiction asks the reader to suspend disbelief. Although the reader knows that this is a story and not real life, on a certain level the distinction is blurred. Suspension of disbelief is especially important in the reading of a murder mystery. The reader is willing to accept plot contrivances and conventions of the genre, provided that the story is engaging and suspenseful.

Since most murder mysteries essentially consist of the crime-solver talking to one person after another, dialogue is especially important in holding the reader’s interest. It must (a) move the plot forward, (b) reveal or reflect the character’s personality, and (c) provide the reader with possible clues. And somehow, the whole thing must seem like it really could happen.

There are a number of strategies to make your dialogue believable. At the most basic level, there is what is sometimes called mystification. This means that you present the material in such a way that nobody wants to disbelieve it. In other words, the story—which again is largely carried by the dialogue—simply is much too interesting not to believe. The reader wants it to be true.

It is not possible to create believable dialogue if your characters are not fully realized. And dialogue is one of the main tools used to flesh out characters. Consider two examples:

A. “Did you kill him?” asked the cop.

 

“No, I swear I didn’t. I’m innocent.”

 

 

B. “Did you kill him?” asked the cop.

 

 

“Yeah, right. In five minutes’ time, I stopped at the store for smokes, drove back in the opposite direction to stab my SOB of a brother-in-law fifty times, and then without even stopping to buy a Handi-Wipe, went directly to my kid’s second-grade play. She played a carrot, by the way.”

The reply given in example A could be said by anyone. It does not reveal anything unique about the character, nor does it provide the reader with clues or move the plot forward. By contrast, example B does all of these things.

In real life, murder is far from entertaining. Yet when it’s a story, there’s something enjoyable about it. The reader likes the suspense; I almost want to say that murder mysteries are cuddly. They are fun to read on a rainy night. One even accepts the creepier aspects if they are presented correctly. If you entertain readers with your dialogue, they are mystified and they do not question the credibility of the story.

One proven method is to be hard-boiled. Your characters have seen it all, and so it doesn’t ruffle their feathers if someone has been murdered. This helps the reader not feel bad about enjoying the story of a murder:

“They found her body hacked into little pieces,” said the detective.

 

Mary shrugged. “Well, that’s life.”

Another common tool is humor. Sometimes extremely scary or suspenseful stories are on some level funny:

“They found her body hacked into little pieces,” said the detective.

 

“Well, people weren’t exactly standing in line to say how much they loved her,” Mary replied. “Only a total masochist could be sorry she’s dead. That reminds me—I have to call my ex-husband.”

Humor can also be found in snappy dialogue that moves the plot along quickly and keeps the reader turning pages. Rather than something flat like “Let’s drive to Mary’s house and talk to her,” try something more like this:

“Guess it’s back to Mary’s. Gee, lucky me.”

 

“Well, since you haven’t used foul language all day, I’ll come with you.”

 

“Something tells me I’ll be using plenty before we get to Mary’s.”

 

“In that case, my darling, fuck you.”

Also, confessions or speeches made by characters who seem to be disturbed or obsessed can seem particularly dramatic:

She turned away from me and stared out the window. “Snow—it’s odd, isn’t it? Homey and childlike and yet so . . . well, so dead. I think my husband should be buried in the snow. It’s really the least I can do. After—you know, what happened. It was the first time I used a power saw. Frank would’ve been proud of me. He was always trying to get me over my fear of power tools. Though I suppose death makes pride impossible.”

Juxtaposition is also effective—taking two things that don’t usually go together: “That reminds me—on the way to the morgue I have to pick up my daughter’s Girl Scout cookies.”

Also consider the narrative surrounding the dialogue. A quick example:

A. “I hated him,” she shouted.

 

B. “I hated him,” she said with a yawn.

There’s nothing particularly compelling about someone shouting that she hated someone—anyone might shout such a statement. But to say such a thing with a yawn? Say, who is this woman, and who was this man?

Finally, trim the fat off your dialogue to make it move more quickly and thus be more entertaining. If words do not develop character or move the plot forward, you may be better without them. For example, consider A versus B:

A. “I told my wife I was going to the hardware store to buy some nails. Instead, I went straight to Mary’s apartment. I was frightened, so I took a deep breath before ringing her doorbell to go inside.”

 

B. “I told my wife I was going to the hardware store. I drove straight to Mary’s. I took a deep breath and rang her doorbell.”

B is more interesting, because it moves along more quickly. Also, we get to figure out for ourselves that he took a deep breath out of fear, rather than having it all spelled out.

EXERCISE

1. Give each of your characters a confession speech. If they are distinct characters, these speeches will not be interchangeable.

2. Try taking the same statement and make it hard-boiled, then humorous, then dramatic, and then try making it part of a snappy conversation.

3. Go through all of your dialogue at the time of day you are most objective and critical (for me it’s early in the morning). See if you can make the dialogue shorter in ways that add to its interest rather than detracts from it.