Apr 2021
1 / 9
Apr 2021
Apr 2021
AdairRoblesUrrutia
Apr '21

Could I get some feedback on this short bit of dialogue from my novel?

I’m not sure if I should keep this dialogue or delete it. It doesn’t have any real relevance to the plot, but I think it can showcase the character’s personalities a little bit. Let me know if you think it is boring or whether I should keep it in the story or not. This dialogue happens early in the 1st chapter of my novel. Also, any suggestions you may have on my dialogue writing style would be greatly appreciated.

Brief description of Novel: Two classmates with animosity go through their own stories of emotional, physical and psychological struggle and growth during middle school and high school, which parallel each other through the years.

Brief description of scene: Main Character sits outside his middle school counselor’s office waiting to go inside. While he waits, two middle school girls walk inside the lobby and the Main character listens to a conversation between the two girls talking about an encounter one of the girls had. The scene is written from the Main Character’s perspective and so the two girl characters are not named yet because the main character doesn’t know them yet.

SCENE:

Adair looked to his left hearing the admin office doors open. Then he saw two girls walk inside from the school quad talking.

“Yeah, no I know.” said one of the girls. Adair gave the girls a passing glance. One was an asian Girl with long black hair that went down to her back and the other was a brunette haired white Girl. He looked at his paper note that had his Counselor's name and email information. The two girls walked over to the Attendance Secretary at the counter.

“Hi, Ms. Hopkins.” said the asian Girl.

“Mr. Fuentes sent us to pick up some boxes of books that you have.” said the brunette haired Girl.

“Oh right, wait here, I’ll be right back.” said Ms. Hopkins going in the back to get the boxes. Adair just sat there waiting and looking at the note not really paying attention to what the two girls were talking about.

“So what happened?” asked the brunette Girl.

“So I was in line, and the cashier-” said the asian Girl.

-“Was it a guy?” asked the brunette Girl.

“No girl. So she looks at me and says ‘Hey you look asian where are you from?’ All polite, nice, how you doin, whatever right.” said the asian Girl.

“Yeah.” said the brunette Girl.

“Before I can say something, this random white lady in line behind me just says in a total valley girl voice ‘Oh my gawd that’s gross.’” said the asian Girl.

“What?” asked the brunette Girl confused.

“She said that to some kid who dropped like a sandwich or something on the floor. Then he picked it up and ate it.” said the asian Girl.

“Oh! Hahaha.” said the brunette Girl laughing. Adair looked up smirking for a second then he looked over at the school Counselor's door to see if she was done talking to the other student.

“Yeah, like she was all disgusted by it.” said the asian Girl.

“Oh my god, what’s wrong with people?” said the brunette Girl.

“I know right. That’s not gross. What’s gross about that?” asked the asian Girl.

“Literally nothing. Then what’d she say?” asked the brunette Girl.

“She said ‘That’s disgusting.’” said the asian Girl in a valley girl voice.

“People get mad over nothing. And it had nothing to do with her.” said the brunette Girl.

“Yeah- Exactly.” said the asian Girl.

“Then what happened?” asked the brunette Girl.

“Then she got into an argument with another lady in line.” said the asian Girl. The girls both bursted out laughing and leaned on the counter.

“What did you do?” asked the brunette Girl still laughing.

“Nothing. I just laughed, told the cashier I was Chinese and walked out.” said the asian Girl.

“Wow.” said the brunette Girl.

“Hey did you hear what happened with Ashley? She went to second base with some guy.” said the asian Girl.

“Oh my god!” said the brunette Girl surprised.

END SCENE. :blush: Thanks for reading.

  • created

    Apr '21

  • last reply

    Apr '21
  • 8

    replies

  • 528

    views

  • 7

    users

  • 14

    likes

cherrystark
Apr '21

Hey! Dialogue is one of my favorite things to write, so I'm happy to throw my two-bits in.

First off, keep an eye on your spelling and grammar. I can't see a reason why you'd repeatedly capitalize Girl and not Asian. With your introduction bit, I think you can cut a good chunk of this dialogue.

An important feature of dialogue-heavy scenes is to "frame" the scene. Imagine if you were the protagonist overhearing this interaction. Most people try to ignore other people's interactions with music, fidgetting with a toy, even looking at the patterns in the rug. If the protagonist's behavior is framed, we're not going to be paying attention to everything being said between the two speaking. This also opens up the protagonist to be distracted by other things while he "people-watches"

For your dialogue itself -- you are too wordy. As a general rule, a dialogue tag isn't needed after every linen of dialogue. If we know A and B are talking, natural conversation rhythm is one person talks, then other. You can pepper in the occasional dialogue tag but action phrases like: Dan set down his soda. "Dan's line." This can be really helpful to readers to clue them in on who's speaking, without using a dialogue tag. It's okay to interupt the line with a periodic tag or action. It also works to switch up how the girls are referred to with the snatches of conversation the MC hears: the first girl, her friend, etc.

Best of luck with your series! I hope my comments make sense.

FancyDreamer
Apr '21

I agree with everything that @cherrystark commented.

I feel like you need to break up the dialogue a bit with some action taking place. Like maybe input the MC's own thoughts into it. Did he feel the girls were being silly? Did he find the obnoxious?

Also instead of saying "said the Asian girl" write something like "The Asian girl dramatically threw her hands in the air." Doing small things like this can create more interest in dialogue. I also recommend potentially finding other words for said and asked. It's not too important to do this, and stories are fine without finding different words, but it could add a bit more variety in your dialogue.

Puck
Apr '21

I struggle with writing dialogue but I want to give you my feedback. It´s not boring to read but there are some
things. I had to read the sentence:
“No girl. So she looks at me and says ‘Hey you look asian where are you from?’ All polite, nice, how you doin, whatever right.” said the asian Girl."
three times to understand. I don´t how to phrase this in english but it is too complicated to read.
Then another thing, the random white lady already said "oh my gawd that´s gross" and then she mentions that she said "that´s disgusting" after
that which is unnessary to mention.

Overall the dialogue feels real to me and it does not give me that "nobody talks like that in real life" feeling, good job

joannekwan(ง ˙o˙)ว here to help~
Apr '21

Good points above, but I'll also ask: What is the point of this dialogue? Will Adair meet the kid that dropped the sandwich?

Otherwise, this dialogue could well have just been summarized in a paragraph, especially if Adair wasn't really paying attention to it as you said after Ms. Hopkins left the scene and this story is written in third-person limited perspective.

Not much is revealed from this exchange aside from there was a kid who ate a sandwich dropped on the floor, the girl with long hair is Chinese, there was a rude unidentified woman, and Ashley got to second base. Are any of these important to your story? I just feel this scene is bloated with a lot of dialogue that doesn't really serve any purpose.

AdairRoblesUrrutia
Apr '21

Yeah, like I wrote in the post. There is nothing really plot relevant to this dialogue. My thinking was, that the point of this dialogue would be to give a glimpse of the characters personalities a little bit in their dialogue. That's why I wanted to see whether I should delete it or not. Do you think this dialogue helps to show the characters personalities or should I delete or maybe shorten it some? And just have their personalities revealed later as the story progresses?

joannekwan(ง ˙o˙)ว here to help~
Apr '21

If the girls are going to be important characters later on you can definitely keep the scene.

I would tighten and shorten the banter between them though as well as add additional info to characterize them.
Like when the brunette asks if the cashier was a guy, was that because she was interested that her friend had an opportunity to flirt or something? If so, that could be expressed a bit better since I was a little confused about the interjection at first.

So it could read like

The Asian girl began, "So I was in line and the cashier—"
"Was it a guy?" asked the brunette with wide, hopeful eyes and a mischievous grin.

jkb4753
Apr '21

I think you should keep it if you like it. I think that can be a rule, too.

Too many stage directions at the beginning. We don't need every single beat, is there a way to get to the story faster? Cut the or reduce everything from "yeah no i know" to "so what happened." You're telling us: why the MC is there, why the girls are there, what the girls are doing. I don't think we need all that.

Make the dialogue tighter by combining lines. Your writing is almost exactly how a real conversation would sound, a lot of "i know," "yeah exactly" and stuff like that. You can reduce that in a written piece.

Can she tell the story faster without being interrupted? The brunette interrupts the asian a lot. I understand its their banter style, but it makes the story hard to understand. I don't think I understood the story at all, frankly.

My advice is let the asian girl tell the story in one go. Let the brunette have a big reaction, then they can have a shared reaction. Get this down to a hundred words, maybe 150.