In a recent critique I received of “Killing the Immortals,” a couple of people mentioned that they thought there was too much dialogue, particularly in the early going. It’s an interesting criticism that I hadn’t heard before. The first 2-1/2 chapters are pretty dialogue heavy, while the second half of the third chapter is completely devoid of dialogue at all.
The line of criticism isn’t necessarily helpful on its face, simply because it’s very much a personal preference. That is to say, one man’s “too much dialogue” is another man’s “not nearly enough dialogue.” It’s not so much a general critique as saying “This story didn’t quite work for me,” which is tough to know what to do with. If you try to chase these people, you may lose others who liked it the way it was written. “You can’t please ’em all” certainly applies here.
That having been said, is there a takeaway from the critique that I can use? Maybe I do over-use dialogue. It’s worth exploring, just as any reasonable criticism is probably worth at least giving a look at.
Is my dialogue use a crutch? That wouldn’t be a terrible shock. For all my journalistic writing, I’m still an infant when it comes to fiction writing. A year ago, I hadn’t written a word of fiction since starting (and not finishing) a really terrible story in high school. Now, I’ve got a novel and a novella published, along with a couple more short stories in various stages of editing. So, sure, I’ve gotten a decent bit done in a short time. But I’m insanely new at this, so I probably have crutches.
What would it be a crutch for? For me, and others, I think it could potentially be a crutch for a lack of experience and comfort with painting a picture with words. I’d done it some in my non-fiction writing, but it wasn’t typically something I was expected to do, except for on longer features. Now, it’s something I have to think about quite a bit. Does using dialogue let me allow the characters to tell the reader what’s happening, instead of having to describe it myself? Perhaps. On the other hand, dialogue also allows me to show the reader the emotions of a character through their words, rather than stretching to come up with some facial expression or bit of body language to avoid just coming out and saying “That dude’s angry!”
So, there are two sides to it. And dialogue isn’t exactly easy to write — or, well, good dialogue isn’t exactly easy to write. And the possibility exists that the critics were responding more to dialogue they didn’t think was very good, rather than it necessarily being too long. In other words, maybe they’d have been a bit more forgiving of dialogue they didn’t think sucked. I can’t really know that much, but it’s possible.
Does my dialogue suck? Well, clearly, I don’t think so. I can assure you, the one thing I’ll never do is put out some writing I already know sucks. If you become one of my beta readers, on the other hand, all bets are off. You should probably brace for some suckitude. But my general readers, never. That, of course, doesn’t actually mean it doesn’t suck. I could be biased. I haven’t heard that criticism from anyone else, but maybe they were the first ones to be brave and bold enough to bring it up? Ya never know.
In the end, I think the criticism is valid, if a bit non-helpful. I think it’s a good lesson for any writer to appreciate all criticism that isn’t just some form of “You suck, and your mother should be ashamed of you!” Don’t get offended. Think about what the person said, and try to examine to what extent it might have some validity. That’s especially true, I think, for those of us who are self published, and aren’t exactly getting reviews pouring in all the time. I’ll take what help I can get. So, to those anonymous critics, thanks. I’ll keep my eyes out for any dialogue over-creep in the future.
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