Brand Sanderson Lecture 10: Dialogue Mechanics (2/8)

[@clemclemmie5683]

The point is to use a tag that doesn't call attention to itself. Dialog tags aren't supposed to be 'interesting' to read, they are only there to identify the person speaking. Some think that you need your tags to be different each time so it isn't boring and repetitive. But simple tags allow the reader to read the attribution quickly (as if it wasn't there) so they focus on the dialog. An unusual tag can pull the readers focus away from the important dialog and stop the flow. Hope that helps.

[@moachaen]

Stephen King specifically calls this out and recommends to keep it simple.

[@REALmikegordan]

Every once in a while, it might be worth calling attention towards what the person is doing as they are talking. Think of it similarly to reading a person's tells. Study a character's mannerisms and motor skills as they communicate. Mixing in a bit of body language and movement can actually help guide readers in their own way as well.

[@Liopot68]

I like how Cormac McCarthy used dialogs in "the Road"

[@r47926]

For reference, the writers that are named as being really good at dialogue (7:43 and 8:15) are Terry Pratchett and Orson Scott Card. (Had trouble understanding it at first.)

[@katsilva4277]

"Don't use too many beats". *Kelsir smiled. Kelsir smiled again. And again. And again. 'Someone wipe that fucking smirk of his face!'* God love ya, Brandon.

[@oberoth111]

I have taken 2 creative writing classes and neither of them explained this stuff in detail so thank you for putting this up.

[@Draugo]

The main problem I have with Brandon's approach to attributions is that they might be invisible on the page but on audio books you notice every one of them and they get really annoying really fast. In my mind that's the main difference between Robert Jordan and Brandon. Listening to the early Wheel of Time books I'm pretty sure there's less than 10 attributions per book and instead you get the speaker from context clues which sounds very natural. Listening to Brandon's books (including the Wheel of Time books) dialogue is basically "X said, Y said, X said, Y said, Z said, X said...". You can pretty much tell which dialogues in Wheel of Time are written by Brandon and which are the rare snippets left by Robert Jordan by how many attributions there are in the dialogue.

[@TheClassicWorld]

I hate too many tags, as well. Very boring. But, of course, it is better than somebody short of mastery trying to leave out every tag because you simply get lost.

[@GnarledStaff]

I need to look into this! I feel like certain types of people read the “saids” but I have to do more science.

[@michaelmano7261]

I needed an audio book for that comment

[@endymionas]

This. He teaches correctly what has to be done: no confusion about who speaks. But he doesn't know how to do it best: by showing through distinctive speech, and not attribution.

[@fleurafricaine5740]

Distinctive speech comes in handy. If two characters are similar there can be differences in syntax, word choice, flow, vocab, and the like. If the characters are very different in their speaking leaving out attributions is even easier (Huck & Jim dialogue is clean. Huck & Tom dialogue would have been a mess).

[@Mayeur000Donz]

Brandon's point about paragraphs being read as a beat, so dialogue and actions ought to share that space is something I agree with, so it surprises me just how many professional authors do seperate them by lines, and often. I'm unsure if it's just different tastes, but these alternate approaches seem way less intuitive to me.

[@TheXLAXLimpLungs]

13:50, I can't place it but I remember distinctly being told to ALWAYS change it each sentence and NEVER use said. I trust the actual author, whoever taught me that I wish never had.

[@contessa.adella]

This lecture is pure gold.

[@rustykoenig5489]

Brando bein the heisenberg of authors right here

[@dakotabaker628]

One day I want to meet this man. And on that day I want to sit in a comfortable chair with my Starwars socks on, my Jurassic Park boxers pressed and ironed and a cup of warm coffee in my hand. I want to take a sip of that coffee lean across the table, hold out my hand and shake Mr. Sanderson's hand and say "Thank you."

[@Gurucha]

He'll cough into that hand and hand it a gummy bear.

[@privateNukem]

Fuck, you killed me.

[@Fangornmmc]

@Alvosploio a beat is something like: 'Carin grinned' or 'James smiled'

[@ephilbin]

6:16 Shoutout to the guy with the Symphony X shirt. Paradise Lost is a 10/10 album.

[@sqdtnz]

There's also something like... direct versus indirect speech, if I remember correctly... Which is about whether you actually write the speech/dialogue, or just 'summarize' it, or parts of it, like: "Hi there", I said. "Hey, how are you?", she replied Becomes: When I greeted her she asked me how I am Ignore the stupid nature of that example, but I can't find much about this 'technique'. Any advice on it?

[@Althor413]

sqdtnz I prefer the direct dialogue. It feels more engaging, more like "showing." Indirect dialogue feels more like "telling." Just my opinion though.

[@SaddenedSoul]

+sqdtnz Months later, I know, but I think it depends on the circumstances of the dialogue. If it's a character retelling a scene you've already shown, for example, then there's no need for the play-by-play dialogue unless another character responds to it in an important way. Insignificant, conversational dialogue can also be glossed over--unless, again, the exchange teaches us something special about the characters. Personally, I just use my ear for a lot of these and cut accordingly.

[@johnarouet9947]

The second one is passive, use the first, in 99% of the times.

[@legobrickology9167]

You note that there are still ten words in each, whilst you may feel the former goes on for longer, the latter is passive and telling rather than showing, I think we are to use the former.

[@Maerahn]

The idea behind it is to *show* what's interesting (direct dialogue,) and *tell* what isn't (indirect dialogue.) To use your example: if the two people greeting each other are only doing that, i.e. they're friends or acquaintances, and this is literally just them exchanging pleasantries - in the same manner as you'd say "hello" or something when you first pick up the phone, i.e. it's just a formality you do by habit - well, that's not interesting to the reader. It's like describing them putting on each item of clothing individually in the morning instead of just saying "he got dressed and went downstairs." So in that scenario, it's best to TELL (i.e. "When I greeted her she asked me how I am" or even "they exchanged pleasantries.") HOWEVER... if these two characters are sworn enemies/rivals, or they haven't seen each other face-to-face since one of them screwed the other over really badly... well, THAT's interesting! The reader's going to be itching to know how this meeting's going to go down... is there gonna be a fight? Is the Betrayed One going to bring up the Betrayer's betrayal? There might be a *whole lotta subtext* going on underneath those surface "Hi, how are you?"s, and a skilled writer will be able to bring that out in spades, juxtaposed against these seemingly benign greetings. The tension comes from not knowing if one of them's suddenly going to break, dispense with the whole polite chit-chat-bs and yell "You stole my CHEESE, you cheese-thieving harlot!" 😊 Hope that's helped.

[@xChikyx]

i would had asked this: in a scene with multiple characters, how do you avoid saying "said" too often? If we have 5 characters in the scene, all talking, saying "said" too often makes it look too monotone and repetitive, while not addressing who said what could be confusing for the reader. In these cases is where i use the saidboukisms, but, is there another way to do this effectively?

[@xChikyx]

@3:36 my method is using the saidbookism as well as actions before the characters talk, so it doesn't get monotonous

[@Maerahn]

Action beats; have the character do something before or while they speak. Example: "I never said the moon was made of cheese," Sarah said. "You implied it though," John said. *Marty rolled his eyes.* "This is a ridiculous conversation, I can't believe we're even having it." As Brandon said though, go easy on the action beats - it's very easy to overuse them too (it's something I'm also guilty of, for sure.) It's best to mix up the 'saids' and the action beats, so you're not over-relying on either.

[@xChikyx]

@@Maerahn thanks, I use a mix of both, and using some asked, answered, replied, etc sometimes when there's a lot of "said"s together. Also "she said [action]" works pretty well. She said rolling her eyes, for example. Tagging the dialogue with the action included gives me a complete different image than the action beat before the dialogue, so I use that a lot too to convey variety :)

[@clemclemmie5683]

I was curious about the use of 'replied' in Brandon's work, so I did a word search. He uses 'replied' as a tag at least 39 times in Way of Kings. He used it a total of 35 times in the Mistborn trilogy. So it seems like he is actually using it more. He also seems to like 'hissed' as a Said Bookism.

[@Maerahn]

I've been told 'hissed' is only an appropriate one to use if what's being said has a lot of 's' sounds in it, like, "Seriously." If the words being 'spoken' have no 's' sounds in them it's impossible to 'hiss' them - the shape your mouth makes when you hiss means you couldn't pronounce non-'s' words properly, if at all.

[@TheClassicWorld]

Of course, he may be using the noun form of 'hiss'. :P

[@annahd94]

39 times in a 1000 page book? Haha, I wouldn't be saying he's using it much.

[@commandoslayer]

5:27 don't use to many...?

[@katherinepierce9933]

beats. Those are things like "Karen grimaced".

[@Alvosploio]

What is a "beat"?

[@TheClassicWorld]

He means descriptive beat. Namely, in place of dialogue tags, 'she said': 'I may just.' Lucy flung her arm at his face. 'I may just.'

[@thatoneuser8600]

@@TheClassicWorld nice circular reference.

[@mrcloudlion]

I don't know if i understand. So your supposed to use 'Said' fairly often for your audience to skip over them when they read?

[@bobbyh2720]

yes

[@GnarledStaff]

Use “said” to make sure people know who is talking. Take the word out if you can but It is better to use “said” too much than have people confused as to who is talking. Alternatives for “said” are unnecessary and should be used only in rare circumstances.

[@drewavera]

Great information! Thanks for posting

[@howardkoor2796]

Another master class

[@fernandomgm]

Thanks a lot! Great as usual.

[@Dank_Engine]

I think Rowling's use of "book-isms" makes sense given her younger readership.

[@Liopot68]

If you read Conan Doyle, instead of said he used "ejaculated". I'd love to see someone using that nowadays... and not in 50 shades of grey, obviously

[@edbookwormhi6566]

I've seen a post with a picture of one of the Harry Potter books having used it, though I'm not entirely sure which one or where(it was in reference to Slughorn though so either 6 or 7)

[@Liopot68]

@@edbookwormhi6566 Interesting, but not interesting enough for me to read the Harry Potter books :D thanks!

[@mat7cut]

Does that one kid who clearly is just asking questions to sound interested annoy anyone else?

[@kylewilzon8612]

No offence to Brandon Sanderson, and this has nothing to do with the substance of this lecture, but think god he got stylist.

[@aidenmcmullen4351]

noice hat

[@mineonlyhooves]

That fuckin hat...

[@redberyl9157]

As a light novel reader. This is kinda useless. You can actually understand who is talking Without "said" Example “I really like you” Instead of “I really like you” he said Even that there is no “said” you can understand who is talking, as Long as you know who started talking

[@miguelalmeida3756]

That is more for long dialogues, a large group of people talking (like 7 different friends) or when there are at least 3 people talking, and 2 of them are defending the same argument, for example: "-No Jack, there isn't an excuse for what you've done! - said John, almost exploding in anger " -Agreed, your an idiot for even thinking about that!" - said Henry, supporting his friend. (That Henry part isn't 100% necessary) In this example, you can clearly see that one is supporting the other, and in this case, it's good to show who said something and who didn't. The idea of supporting someone should be shown this way, it looks better and makes sense. I've seen a "said spam", just like the guy on the video explained, in actual decent books, and that is indeed annoying, especially when your reading out loud. I'm not saying he is totally wrong, but there are many cases where that is annoying, and as you said, most of the times you can tell immediately who said what.