My writing friend: This kid in my class said my dialogue isn’t realistic.
Me: What’s that supposed to mean?
My writing friend: No idea.
Me: It shouldn’t be realistic.
My writing friend: Huh?
Me: If it was realistic, it would be, like, awful to read.
My writing friend: Ya… Well… I guess… But– Nevermind. Right, I see what you’re saying.
I think most readers assume that stories or characters resonate with them because they are “realistic.” But I don’t think that’s true. I think we go for the “idealistic” — the stories or characters that remind us of something familiar, but add a more interesting layer.
Same goes for dialogue. If writers just transcribed real-life conversations for dialogue, readers would be 1) very confused, and 2) very bored. If you listen to how people actually talk, you hear so much “um” and “hmmm,” sprinkled in with incomplete sentences and half-thoughts. It happens with the most articulate people I know and I see it as endearingly human. After all, much of how we communicate in person is through body language and tone. To hell with grammar rules. As writers, though, all we have is words (and grammar rules).
When I write dialogue, I think of it as not being “realistic,” but as capturing what people would say in an ideal world, if their deepest thoughts translated perfectly (somehow) into what they verbalize. When readers say dialogue is “good,” I think they mean that it’s representative of an internal feeling, not that it sounds exactly like the conversations they hear on a routine basis.
A good friend sent this to me saying, “I thought you’d like this.” My friends know me well…
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