Writing Fiction. Improve Your Dialogue With James Scott Bell

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James Scott Bell is the best-selling and award-winning author of thriller novels, zombie legals, historical romance, and lots and lots of books on the craft of writing. He's a professional speaker, teaching novel-writing and other skills for writers, and his latest book is "How to Write Dazzling Dialogue."
We discuss:
Why is dialogue so important anyway? Can't we just write lots of paragraphs with no one talking to each other?
Overuse of names and differentiating voices
How to learn about dialogue by listening and other techniques
Beware of stereotypes in characters
Weaving action into dialogue
Bad language and guidelines for swear words
Subtext
Humor in dialogue
Punctuation
On James' fiction - he writes across multiple genres
You can find James and his books at JamesScottBell.com and on twitter @jamesscottbell.

[@AnnaMaledonPictureBookAuthor]

It almost felt like Johanna interviewed a few people. "I used to be an actor." "I used to write screenplays, back in the day." "I used to be a trial lawyer." "I teach writing and I write non-fiction." "And yes, now I write in many genres, including thriller and historical romance." What a man. And with a voice like his, his audiobooks will be great too.

[@thecreativepenn]

Jim is fantastic - a role model for many of us!

[@SantiYounger]

Great conversation thanks for sharing, here I'll put a couple of my favorite parts 5:00 Dialogue Journal 6:00 Orchestra 7:00 To see and hear the character, before writing the story 11:00 dialogue tags (he said, she said) 11:30 Slow mo vs fast pace, with more description vs. less

[@monsterjazzlicks]

I am a total novice, but this video is really excellent! I like the term 'Orchestration' (RE: characters) because if you were to compose a new piece of music, very often the musician will use different instruments from different 'families' in order to gain a distinct timbre (eg. Trumpet, Piano, Bassoon and Timpani).

[@Autodidactz]

I love it when these two get together. Joanna, you're never at a loss with questions when you interview him. I don't blame you. He's a riveting character. Not a single word wasted. He gets to the point and is fully informative the entire time. I really needed help with dialogue and I came away with so much. xx

[@thecreativepenn]

That's why I keep having Jim back on :)

[@Autodidactz]

@@thecreativepenn Thank yoooou xx

[@RobbsHomemadeLife]

I could listen all day, you two were great. I will check out Mr. Bell's books

[@200_cuentos]

James Scott Bell is the man. I strongly recommend his 'on writing' material.

[@plainlyspoken]

An introvert in an improvisation course! That’s a book plot all by itself! Love the video. Love JS Bell.

[@miguela.wilder6533]

This is a great video. One of the things I like about you is I see you learning as well as sharing information. I really like that. You ask great questions, and are one of the most down to earth authors I follow. Thanks you.

[@thecreativepenn]

I love learning :) I think most authors do!

[@anthonywritesfantasy]

You are such a great writing teacher! Re: words as weapons, I once heard something you might love. "Good dialogue either attacks, or defends."

[@PHvaluequal7]

through out the video my eyes were glued to the book that stood out on the rack - right behind him. "How to write dazzling dialogue." gonna buy it now.

[@thecreativepenn]

That's a great book!

[@skywalkerneoblade]

Great questions, great answers. Thank you.

[@anne-mareegray8762]

I think you made his day, Joanna. Very interesting. Great advice about using an argument to bring up past issues (as people always do) and avoid the overuse of names - ugh hate that!

[@hans935]

I remember someone told me... Don't ask a writer, "What makes a good story?" Ask them, "What's a story you HATE?" Why? Cause humans remember negative things better. It's easier to work from the DON'Ts, if u don't know what to DO. My Note from this interview: Exposition -> Weapon = More Natural (instead of info slips) Function of dialogue as a 'pacing': Use brief dialogue and moderate the use of action = Fast pace Increase the use of action = Slow pace Don't be afraid of using, he said, she said. Only use explicit language at the right moment. //Understand that some ppl will dislike it, regardless you used it at the perfect moment. Subtext (Oh... I love this one. It added depth to this whole thing, and this is where I learned the meaning of 'Conversation' and 'Dialogue'.) - hypen - en-dash _(I thought hypen was en-dash... fortunately I look it up properly this time)_ November 2-6 - em-dash "I think I am fall-."

[@martyknox4]

Loved this interview I have many of his books. Just watched Upstart Crow on Brit Box,. I laughed so hard. The interaction between the characters knowing the historical time is so funny. I could just see Will Shakespeare with all the same doubts and self-criticism of new authors. Witty dialogue, pathos, and so true. The snobs versus the common writer.

[@GillianFelix]

Awesome interview

[@marvamason]

I love this video. So very informative and so helpful. I went back to my WIP and cleaned up the dialogue, primarily removing all of the names within the dialogue context.

[@thecreativepenn]

Glad it was helpful!

[@dixondark2231]

Great video Joanna! Some of these things I started doing by chance and it really helped, such as reading dialogue out loud as I wrote. Writing is a hobby, not a profession for me and I always enjoy your videos. You did an especially nice job of interviewing Mr Bell. Thank you for discussing subtext, I look forward to experimenting more with this. My best to you.

[@cjpreach]

Great Ideas from Bell, as usual. His books on writing are so very helpful to me.

[@anthonyperry7296]

An interview and a one to one.What a great man.

[@sunnisukumar]

Fantastic, Joanna and James. I picked up some gems from this interview. Thank you for doing it.

[@oldproji]

I love Dickens for both characterisation and dialogue. The secret I have found is to only add a small amount of flavour to a character's accent and let the conversation do the rest. Dialogue should be "conversation" and not the carrier of information. All writers should not only listen to what people are saying, but also how they say it. I never use hard core expletives and never will. There are better ways of exposing character.

[@Silverdrop-y4j]

I found this both fascinating and informative as well as reassuring in terms of how to establish different characters in dialogue. I also write notes on my characters with images and snip it’s of dialogue, one or two lines that I feel help define a character. As well as physical attributes etc. Other people have looked at me as if I’ve lost my marbles when they see that, but for me it is something I have to do or my characters would be very one dimensional and lack lustre. The idea of taking a method acting class is both terrifying and intriguing but I now feel it is something I should look into. Thanks so much for this video. 👏

[@margobarrett589]

He has one of my favorite voices; so inspiring! Makes me fall back in love with literature anytime I hear him.

[@TimBullins]

I just saw this and felt I should point out that all people who read books written in English aren't from the same culture or native speakers. Here in Asia, people DO say the name of who they are talking to quite frequently. We are living in an international world and can't ignore other cultures.

[@Erikhengstrumcontent]

I have this book in my personal collection!

[@amswan]

it's interesting to see how you alternate mirroring each other's body language

[@nklover24]

Great interview! This helped me realize writing great dialogue isn't as hard as I thought it was. Looking forward to reading his books.

[@Juhani139]

Aww, lovely interview. Especially loved the banter and when the lady laughed and giggled. Adorable. About the swearing issue: Some people are easily offended by it, myself included. But the writer needs to be true to the character. If that is the kind of stuff you write then go ahead and do it. You'll find an audience who will be more open to that kind of thing. Note, however, that the more PG your story is, the wider the audience will be. You have to decide who your audience is. I write short stories and recently, even though I hate swearing, the soldiers in the story swore and that was just the way it was. You can get around it by saying "he swore" or "cursed", but swear words, used sparingly can give great emphasis to a scene. The great thing about Fantasy is you can make up swear words, which won't offend readers since there is no baggage connected to the words. (For instance in the Mistborn series : "Rust and Ruin! That hurt!" It is a pity that I and many of my friends are so sensitive to crude material, since we miss out on things like Game of Thrones. I really wish there was a PG version. :)

[@blackhawksfan2525]

Well, crude stories or language (or crude characters within a story) may narrow the reading audience. That's just a consequence of writing a book, I think. Some readers (like yourself, it seems) can deal with it, if it fits within the character. Others are just going to be offended right off the bat, and might miss out on a story they might otherwise enjoy. The author can't really do anything about that, and shouldn't let it affect how they develop the story/characters. No book is for everyone. I tend to enjoy reading dark characters who use profanity and are capable of terrible things, because they seem more realistic. I tend to get bored with characters who are always happy or never use bad language, because they seem fake and contrived. It's really all about individual taste.

[@JTuaim]

I write poetry and find curse words offensive in a poetic setting. I write other things and I avoid swearing as much as possible. I'm aware that writing influences people and I don't like giving license to foul language. We have too much of that in public. I grew up in the fifties and public cursing was a jailable offense back then. So I guess I'm jaded in that way. To each their own. I might not like what they do, but I'll defend their right to do it. And I'll defend my right to turn away as well.

[@BonnieDragonKat]

Mr. Bell has a great sense of humor! I loved this podcast!

[@emmanuelray6196]

Love the interview, this guy gives out some informative information.

[@MARKMANNINGMEDIA]

Thank You So Much Joanna , I found this really useful and your Questions were the ones I'd have wanted to ask !. Best wishes from Ireland , Marko

[@JoshuaFinancialPL]

you are great. super content and so wonderfully chipper! thanks for educating and entertaining :)

[@ROGERSfilmProduction]

It took me a while to realize that you guys wern't in the same room.

[@clintcarpentier2424]

4:00 I've actually met people who would use this to try to fish out a conversation. And when you nod, or otherwise acknowledge the memory, or even if you don't remember, they will continue on trying to reel you into a non-convo. Pure fucking agony. I saw a woman do this at a xmas party as she lamented that fewer people came to the parties, which she organized. Another one is people like my wife. There have been times where she laughed while watching a movie as I passed by. Intrigued, "Oh? What happened?" And the answer I would get, was a play-by-play of the whole fucking movie. I'm not saying this dialogue shouldn't be deleted. I'm just saying, these dialogues - or more often monologues - exist. Here's one. I was heading somewhere, and noticed a woman I hadn't seen in about twenty years, she's chatting with some people. While back then, I was young and dumb and she was still somewhat pretty, now she's still ten years older than me, and sporting an Italian mustache. Now I have a dark history with her and her ex-husband, so I didn't bother to look at her as I passed by. She barks my name, so I acknowledge her existence, she chirps her name, and then throws her arms out expecting a hug. I guess I was supposed to forget what a cunt she was. These non-convos exist, and yes, they are as painful to the person receiving them, as they are to read. "Yeah mom, you've told me that story."

[@howardkoor2796]

Sensational interview

[@mrsiz218]

Going through your backlist. This is gold!! Thank you! You used the f word twice in one book and got flack for it? Omg! My books are loaded with f bombs! Lol

[@thecreativepenn]

I think if you're consistent, it doesn't matter :)

[@SysterYster]

Thank you for telling me about the dashes and ellipses. I've been using the "..." for both trailing off and interruptions. I'll have to fix that now. XD Good thing I'm not quite done editing my book yet. :D

[@GordieEggleston]

This is at 26:06

[@monsterjazzlicks]

I am trying to write a short story without any formal training. I said to myself I am NOT going to swear at all in the book. But in order to correctly portray one of the characters I feel he NEEDS to use profanities (here and there). So it was interesting to hear Scott Bell's views.

[@jmiogo]

Very helpful. So glad I found this. Thank you. Sub.

[@ausaiden]

Good interview. Some great information provided in this video. Cheers.

[@bradgiacona5582]

What a fantastic interview!

[@jonathanlarch]

Just bought Mr. Bell's book! Thanks for the great information!

[@thecreativepenn]

It's very useful :)

[@Bodybartender]

Great chat! Well informed

[@Aaron_TheRed]

this was great and i litterally went out and bought this book right after watching this

[@natsune09]

On the topic of accent, be careful. My favorite writer, Sheridan Le Fanu, weakest aspect was when he wrote dialogue with a character that had a heavy accent. It was hard to read and understand everything they were saying, and so a lot was being lost in his use of an accent. It is fine if the point is that something will be lost in the accent, but it can be lost and impact the story telling. You may understand what a person with a heavy accent is saying and meaning, but not everyone will. This can also be important when using very difficult vocabulary in dialogue. Your reader may think it means something else, so you need to be careful when using accents or complicated language. If you are looking up in a Thesaurus to find a fancy or rarely used word, then your reader will probably too, and then you as the writer is screwing up the pace and the story being told.

[@monsterjazzlicks]

This is a truly KILLER interview ;-)

[@doortowanderland2501]

this has been so helpful! thank you both!

[@heykaylc23]

Lots of great information in this! Thank you

[@jenniferdyer]

Excellent info. Thanks!

[@onehappydawg]

On the “F word” issue. Or any cuss words for that matter. No one has ever read a book or watched a movie and afterwards said, “That was a good book/movie, but what would’ve made it a great book is if there would’ve been more cuss words.” Cussing in books and movies is weird really. You are writing a book to sell. By including the “F” word you just alienated a group of people who may have bought your book because it’s a great story but now they won’t. I think great writers can bring out the emotion in a narrative without using a cheap cuss word to express it.

[@wyattsmith5559]

Really helpful thank you both.

[@netmasterx]

I was nervous before starting to write fiction, now I'm borderline terrified! I.e. how many things that can be wrong other than grammar, spelling and the basics of writing... :-(

[@thecreativepenn]

You'll get better with practice :)

[@henbane2247]

The only writer I can think of who writes in a phonetic accent is Irvine Welsh. He does that really well

[@thecreativepenn]

But most can't get away with it :)

[@thesecretoktober]

Excellent video. I found your questions intriguing and James Scott Bell's responses informative. What I especially liked was your questions on punctuation. On a side note, what software program did you use for this interview. I found the large split screen of you two during your interview very helpful, as well as the book cover images that appeared between the two of you. Thx!

[@thecreativepenn]

It's eCamm Call Recorder for skype - you can also use pamela.biz for PC

[@thesecretoktober]

Thanks! I appreciate it.

[@donaldsheagley6262]

Good writing advice.

[@mel3687]

I'm surprised you asked about punctuation rules because his American rules will differ in ways from the British style. As Mark Twain said: "We're two nations divided by a common language," with different spellings, grammatical usages, and punctuation nuances. The biggest discrepancy, which happens to be most relevant here because we're discussing dialogue, is in the speech or quoted passages. The U.S. treats the punctuation as *part* of the quoted passage whereas the U.K. does not. *U.S.* = " I heard him say, ' Of course I don't love her . ' " (full-stop/period inside) *U.K.* = " I heard him say, ' Of course I don't love her ' . " (full-stop/period outside) The U.K.'s application is more logically-based. The punctuation denotes the end of the sentence or dialogue, not the end of the quoted speech. There are also discrepancies between the double quotation mark versus the single quotation mark, though this is less of an issue because British English is beginning to adopt the American preference for double quotes.

[@archaeobard1]

I know this is from yonks ago, but I had a thought about the screenplay script mention of True Detective. I remembered from years ago that avid fans of various TV shows would create their own transcripts of episodes for the dialogue and post to the net for their fandom. Obviously it doesn't have much by way of stage directions, but for dialogue it works. I did a quick search and lo and behold, it has been done for True Detective transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewforum.php?f=185

[@monsterjazzlicks]

I wonder if the 'quirky' lab techs in the CSI (NY/Miami/Vegas) are there to serve the role of humor and to act as a 'lightener' from all the many 'dark' scenes?

[@GordieEggleston]

My view on using the F-word is that it demonstrates laziness or insecurity on the part of the author. Instead of showing anger they think the use of the F-word will do it. I know there have been times when I've read the F-word in my mind and I see the author rather than the characte3r... that the author is frustrated. So in a way, overuse of the F-word takes readers out of the story world.

[@AdamSweeney85]

Joanna, If I absolutely have to use exposition to explain a character's backstory, I tend to pull back from dialogue and have omnipotent narration take over (or main character's inner thoughts if the story is in first-person). It's the only way I feel comfortable doing so. What are your thoughts on this, if any? I've been blocked with my writing for far too long now and I'm starting to think this is part of the problem. Well, I hope you see my comment. I dig your channel. Cheers

[@thecreativepenn]

It would be best to talk to an editor about this - I'm not an expert on your writing :) Here's a list: www.thecreativepenn.com/editors

[@peterblyth112]

I love how Joanna is worried about two uses of the F word in a novel - most of mine have it more frequently than that per page (i'm writing about soldiers - soldier swear, hence swearing like a trooper). One book(Rapax) had an F bomb in the first line until I added a scene at the beginning, moving it back to chapt 2 "They say it started when someone F***ed a monkey..."

[@thecreativepenn]

It depends what market you're aiming for, and also what your readers are used to :)

[@peterblyth112]

I recently sent a copy of the most recent wip to my work email as an impromptu back up. Work IT held it because "the attachment seems to contain large amounts of profanity" ... oh well. If I woke up to an alien apocalypse i'm fairly sure I wouldn't say "well dearie me this is most vexing"

[@miguela.wilder6533]

Is there a period after the em dash? Also, is there a period after the ellipsis? Meaning, is there three dots and a period, or just three dots.

[@karlpillay8360]

It looks like they're in the same room

[@edenarchive4150]

For me, 'he said' 'she said' always sounds to awkward, boring and inorganic when reading it on a page.

[@PedroRodriguez-dl5yt]

Dialogues must be clever, in the manner of Philip Roth. Dialogues without content are nonsense.

[@WalkTalkVent]

To the writers out there... as an avid reader... I can attest that the word "said" is not invisible. Everybody says this for some reason. How can someone say to avoid redundancy and at the same time say, "but said is invisible to the reader." Where did this bs come from... where is this study everyone thinks exists. Please do not believe this.

[@sebastianwinkler5243]

Whenever a master of his craft divulges something like a general set of rules we have to keep in mind that they mustn't be taken to the extreme. Obviously that's not what they're doing themselves, and I take those rules as a starting point, a rule of thumb, for my own writing. Mastery is being able to break those rules intentionally, and knowing exactly how this is going to have a different effect, and you only learn those things by measuring them from a perceived "norm". I honestly have never read a book that followed those "rules" dogmatically, so, from my pov at least, no need to become concerned about the future of literature ;-)

[@Juhani139]

I understood it to mean that it is less work for the reader, invisible in the sense that the reader does not have to look at that attribution and then work at imagining what the character is doing. Anyway, that's what I understood it to mean from the context of his whole answer to that specific question. I agree that it is not invisible, one does read it, but it goes quickly and speeds things up, as the guy said. It's just a quick indicator of who is speaking.

[@peterblyth112]

Said is less visible to the reader than using lots of different synonyms, there is of course a difference between invisible and less visible..

[@SteventheShoehanger]

I use said only when I want to make sure my reader knows who is talking.

[@SysterYster]

When it comes to accent, I'll rather just point out that they have an accent than trying to actually write it. I hate it when people do that. First, because if you're not familiar with the accent, it just gets weird and you end up pronouncing that wrong anyway. Second, it makes it much harder to read. And you have a reading impediment of some kind, that's not nice. It also slows down reading and makes the reader take more note of the fact that they're reading a book. It can also easily offend people.

[@RitCore]

I can see this is not a place for a 13 year old like me...

[@pablocastelo7090]

- Can we just write lots of paragraphs with no one talking to each other? - That would be wonderful if you didn't want to sell. Immediately, that made me think of Borges, Schwob, Broch, and Plutarch. I could not help to think how wrong this guru is. A limited view of the literature world, perhaps? A myopic sense of pragmatism?

[@henbane2247]

HP Lovecraft had very little dialogue as well. Maybe it depends on how you want to tell the story

[@SysterYster]

People reacting more to the f-word than the contents of the book itself... so typically human. XD Reader: OMG, she swore! Book: Ritual murder of children. Reader: *shrugs* It's the same with TV and talk-shows and stuff. Bleeping the swearwords out. Just tell the people in the show to not swear, or let them do it. It's the watchers who chose to watch or read the thing. It's so hypocritical. XD

[@zhaya_gallery]

“ i like how she laughs a lot”....and I’m not writing fiction here

[@JonTanOsb]

If only I could turn him down and turn her up. He is way too loud.

[@Razsteroid]

This lady must be sitting on a yoga ball or something. Bouncy bouncy bouncy...

[@jchinckley]

Don't nod all the time. It's quite distracting.

[@thecreativepenn]

My more recent interviews are audio only so that is not a problem.

[@br2485]

I disagree. The visual helps me engage.