Dialogue & Descriptions

When writing dialogue it's very important to incorporate details to keep the reader grounded regarding who's talking and where the dialogue is taking place, lest you have what I call "floating head syndrome". FHS results in making your characters all but heads floating in white space leaving readers to struggle flipping through the written conversation. They will get confused, bored, exasperated, or worse yet, the troublesome trifecta; when readers suffer from all three side effects of FHS. You're book will be put down and may not receive another glance.

Typed words are powerful; they can teleport a reader to another world. As their eyes skim across pages, their imaginations transport them to the place the author wants them to go. But the mental teleportation process is only successful if the writing invites the reader to go there. Description is one of the key components in this process, and dare I say, it may very well be the golden key. The second description stops, so too will your reader. Who would want to visit realm with nothing in it to explore but more nothingness? The problem; however, is that with many authors and writers, when dialogue starts, often do the descriptions stop.

Having said that, descriptions within dialogue must be done carefully else you could wind up detracting from the meaning of the dialogue, or break apart an important flow. It also does not mean adding who said what at the end of every sentence. That will quickly get tedious for your readers to plunder through and it also does nothing to fix the main problem of FHS. Sure you know who said what, but really what does that matter when you have no context for where the dialogue is taking place and how it's being said? (Writing "He said gleefully" does not count either, by the way.)

The importance of knowing how people said something and where it's being said may seem trivial to you as a writer. After all, the image in your head is clear and sharp. But the message in your head will not be conveyed to readers unless you type it out. By doing so you will not only fix the problems and headaches associated with FHS, you will convey how you feel about your characters and thus provoke readers' emotions as they will either mirror your sentiment or create their own feelings about the characters. Perhaps your loving protagonist is throwing herself on the marble floor of the post office in an unusual outburst brought on by the cold manipulative antagonist who is grinning ear-to-ear as they stand at the doorway watching in their typical calculative manor. But how did we get to this point? The descriptions you carefully intertwine into your dialogue will set up this ultimate situation.

Adding descriptions within the dialogue can be as simple as explaining what a speaking character is doing as they deliver their conversational two-cents, and how they are delivering it. When they say their line, are they hunched over on the coffee table, hiding their damp eyes as they stare at the neglected floor which hadn't been vacuumed in weeks since their depressed state started? Or perhaps they're standing rigid against the wall as if they themselves have become part of the building's infrastructure? Or simply convey a character's tone is say for instance, dismal and weak; the wavering undertones a stark contrast to the typical go-getter personality they proudly wore.

Don't forget to add, too, people walking around if your characters are in a public or crowded area. The attention of one of your conversing characters can be temporarily diverted to what I call NPC's. A gamer term meaning non-playable character, these are just background characters that don't essentially matter to the plot of your story, they're just used to make the reader feel grounded in the world. Perhaps during a serious conversation, one of the important characters is distracted by the lady in the leather green pants and the cheetah print halter top. Wouldn't you be distracted by such an outfit? That's exactly the point! If you'd be distracted by it, why not one of your characters? Or if the conversations between characters is supposed to be kept private yet they can't get away to some place more secluded, would it not make sense if one or more of the characters lower their voice anytime an NPC gets too close for comfort? Or hush each other when their voices get a little too loud because they think they're not being listened to? Believe me, it would make much less sense if a group of characters stood together in, say, a busy park and were allowed to be left perfectly alone. You're readers won't believe it either. They may also forget a park's involved at all if such details aren't strategically placed. Again, strategic being the key word here.

You can read more about this process in my other article, Writing Descriptions Within Dialogue - A Word of Advice.