Narrative vs Dialogue which is better?

[The_Book_Keeper]

Any novel has two ways of telling a story that I like to call Narrative Driven, and the other is Dialogue Driven.
In the Narrative Driven technique, as the name implies, the novel writer relies more on narration to tell the story. Whereas in Dialogue Driven, the opposite is true.
The main agenda for this post is to find Dialogue Heavy novels and to discuss the pros and cons of both the methods mentioned above.
Note: I use the Dialogue Driven method as it helps me tell more in fewer words, but I want to see what views others have. Hence I have created this post. Novel writers who have written their novels using any of the two techniques mentioned above, kindly share the link to your work using the method given below.
steps:

-name of the method
-link

e.g

• Dialogue Heavy
• https://tapas.io/series/The-Book-of-Worlds/info

PS: and don't forget to write your views in the comments as they are more crucial for the discussion.

[joannekwan]

In my opinion, novels are best when they have a balance of both. Most novels you will find either have that balance or skew more narrative-heavy. Since it's just words on a page, descriptions are needed to ground the reader in a living world, otherwise, you get the 'characters in a blank' space effect.

Stories that are largely just dialogue, well, they read more like scripts and screenplays. They are just a step toward a finished product where ultimately, the visuals are handled by another department and are added in later.

Novels are supposed to be a finished product, however, and so need narrative descriptions to complete the big picture. Even stories told in present-tense, first-person, which is in a way a continuous running dialogue, will describe the world around the character in a narrative way like this snippet from The Hunger Games.

"Prim!" The strangled cry comes out of my throat, and my muscles begin to move again. "Prim!" I don't need to shove through the crowd. The other kids make way immediately allowing me a straight path to the stage. I reach her just as she is about to mount the steps. With one sweep of my arm, I push her behind me.

[cherrystark]

I agree with @joannekwan. There are perks to both methods but balance is key. As a writer, I've inadvertently driven myself crazy by writing too much dialogue and repeat the same things again and again, because Character A has to tell Character C, what they discussed with B, etc. I've saved myself heaps and tons of stress by condensing that moment into a couple of lines of "They talked about what B had said".

Timing, in my opinion, is critical for a story. Novels don't have the luxury of cut scenes or montages to keep the story going. Dialogue heavy scenes take time. If two characters are going to take the time to stop and talk about things, as a reader, I want them to have the time to talk it out. If you want to cover what's happened over a significant chunk of time, I'd rather have a narrative. It helps move the story along.

[therosesword]

I've said this before and I hope no one minds, I'm not trying to be a smartass or anything but... I spent 12 years as a staff writer for a SAG-AFTRA audio drama company. It doesn't make me any more qualified to discuss this question, but it does give me a unique perspective (at least I like to think it does :))

This is a question that comes up often, also in Audio Drama. You have the old fashioned narration many newbie writers use, especially if they're trying noir for the first few times (and to be fair, it is an established noir method -- I won't say trope as that feels condescending). and you have the dialogue camp. The newbie writers who try this style I speak of are the ones who mostly listen to the old time Golden Age audio drama.

In my first couple of scripts for the company I did use narration as I was writing someone else's character and writing in the original writer's "voice." As time went by, however, we moved away from using narration and did dialogue only. Having started writing with stage plays that was my forte anyway and much more comfortable.

There are very few audio dramas that catch my full attention when they use narration, one of them is Leviathan Chronicles. They have a narrator that is beyond perfect. Also they use a wall of sound and not just sporadic sound effects here and there. My cuppa tea.

All that said, one of the hardest things to deal with (and hear) with audio drama is when the dialogue turns into "on the nose" and is something like:

Hero: She walked into the room, a tall blond with two tall glasses of bourbon in her hands.

And then you hear footsteps and maybe some ice in a glass.

Better to have it like this (if you're sticking to the old style noir "feel" and this is off the top of my head for what NOT to write by way of dialogue.. it's so cliched)

SFX: Footsteps - woman's spike heels

Hero: Well, hello Blondie.

Blonde: Bourbon?

Hero: Sure. Say, how's the air up there, Tex?.

Blonde: Rarified, shorty.

SFX: Clink of tall highball glasses.

(side note: tall highball glasses will sound different than shorter Manhatten type glasses. It's a small thing but believe me, lovers of audio drama will jump on you with it, and lordy never slam the wrong car door or use the wrong phone chime.)

Okay, a few pointers because that was old style (and would NEVER fly past my old boss except as a parody) but...

The First line is obvious saying the woman is blond. But how to convey someone tall? Rely on old old old time westerns and noir, tall women were quite often nicknamed "Tex" to imply the old adage "tall Texan".

And, also, unless she bends down to talk to the guy, there will be a slight difference where the voice is coming from.

All the above said...

Switching to novels for me has been difficult as I pretty well suck at description. On the other hand, it makes me work harder and that's a good thing. I hate having to write "he/she said" though. Drives me nuts.

Write hard, write true

[cherrystark]

Switching to novels for me has been difficult as I pretty well suck at description. On the other hand, it makes me work harder and that's a good thing. I hate having to write "he/she said" though. Drives me nuts.

As a theatre person, I love audio dramas. They are such a unique twist on storytelling and are such a cool part of history (War of the Worlds).

I think your experience does give a different perspective on storytelling. My background is in the theatre and I want my work to eventually be translated to screen. I think more in terms of dialogue because that's what's truly mine as a writer. Everything else can be adapted by other artists. If my dialogue isn't conveying the character's personality, background, etc, the character is going to fall flat.

I do feel where you're coming from regarding description. It's hard for me to take the time to describe a room, for example, because it doesn't matter much to the story. A room's often just a room for two people to talk in.

[therosesword]

Have you tried any of the newer audio drama? Some of the things being by young (and by that I mean new to the field not age) producers knocks your socks off. Especially if they're using binaural sound.

I disagree with you about only dialogue conveying a character. You just have to look at the art on someone's wall, or the clothing they wear or how their room is set up to get a feel for the person. I've had people walk into my apt and see my walls covered with art and they just grin and say "this is so you!".

In the latest novel I have up one of the characters is a hard, tough little swordswoman, who likes pink hair ribbons. You find out later she really is sweet. But the pink gives her away.

But, that's how I perceive things. It all adds to the whole.

Write hard, write true.

[Prisim]

In my opinion, novels are best when they have a balance of both.

This right here is exactly what I was going to say.

Much like show vs tell, it's better to have a balance rather than rely too heavily on one or the other. They get boring or repetitive and can often be a chore to the reader when it leans too far in one direction.

[domisotto]

Well, for your specific novel, you have a room to grow. The story is atm bare bones, with noticeable grammatical problems. I would suggest working on the grammar first, punctuating your dialogues properly, then putting on a bit of meat and fat on the bones of your story with editing. What you lack right now is anything to anchor me in your story, either the atmosphere or the character richness or clever dialogue.

[cherrystark]

Have you tried any of the newer audio drama? Some of the things being by young (and by that I mean new to the field not age) producers knocks your socks off. Especially if they're using binaural sound.

I haven't. I'd love some recommendations.

I disagree with you about only dialogue conveying a character. You just have to look at the art on someone's wall, or the clothing they wear or how their room is set up to get a feel for the person. I've had people walk into my apt and see my walls covered with art and they just grin and say "this is so you!".

I only meant this more in terms of scriptwriting because a performance piece is a collaboration. A set designer decides how the rooms look. Costume designers decide how clothes look, etc. Strictly from the novel writing position, yes. We fully get to decide how our characters turn out. My character dresses like Rosie the Riveteer and is constantly surrounded by clutter because she loves to make things.

[therosesword]

Understood. I've done sets, designed costumes and gathered props (several years with a traveling dinner theatre) .

[Teddy-Stonehill]

I write in pretty standard novel prose, but I've always had a talent for dialogue and struggled a bit more with descriptions.

That's partially because I'm not a very visual thinker, so even as a reader, I have a tendency to skim past descriptions and not pay a lot of attention to them. It's something I consciously work to improve on, though.

The Saintess and the Villainess | Tapas

My current project, The Saintess and the Viillainess, is actually pretty light on dialogue for the first few chapters because there's a lot of important narrative info to get through. There's a lot of internal monologue, though, which is actually pretty different from how I usually write, but it's the genre convention so it feels appropriate. I'm having fun writing in a slightly different tone from my usual.

[rajillustration]

I'm a big fan of the balance of both, as mentioned earlier, but I think that it depends on the type of novel. Like I'm doing a straight up novel, and I'm wordy so I just embrace my need to sometimes leave you some descriptive paragraphs. But if I were doing a light novel or something for a younger audience I'd be 75% more dialogue driven.

[Macarenaoftime]

I like narrative more. Dialogues sometimes feel unnecessary while I'm reading. This might have to do with the kinds of books I usually read.

[Tamaki_Leon]

Honestly, I prefer dialogue over narration. Mostly because of preference, but reading dialogue is always enjoyable compared to reading narration where I feel the need to skim through it.

I find having dialogue and the like more memorable and allows for a more complete satisfication of reading. Compared to reading novels with a lack of dialogue, it just feels very, eh. I want to know the interactions of the characters within the story and not the writer to just tell me about the world.

For narration on background, emotion and the like, I do like reading them. But when it comes to description, Id rather read the important ones and have my imagination run wild than a useless description that doesnt help at all. Ive seen many just description like there is no end and it is just tiring to read through.

For useless dialogues, I do sometimes feel like skipping these, but without these so called 'useless dialogues', it feels like youre just reading the important moments and not the build up and their daily lives moment y'know? I want to be able to connect with a whole lot and not just through their adventures.

But in the end, a blance of both is needed to have an enjoyable novel to read.

[JWZagst]

Most of the stories I write are heavily narrative driven, because there are many aspects that cannot be conveyed through verbal cues of the characters, and even if they could, it's unrealistic to have a character commenting out loud on everything they are experiencing. The sights, smells, and sounds of the environment -- what a character is feeling and thinking and believing -- these are all best told from a narrative perspective. Before your character ever utters a word, you should paint a picture of what they are experiencing so the reader better understands the motivations for the dialogue.

[JWZagst]

For example, here are the first few paragraphs of my novel:

As the Sun hung low over the horizon, it bathed the Willamette Valley in its radiant light, a slow morning breeze rustling the green treetops with a clear blue sky above. In the Northeast neighborhood of Sullivan’s Gulch, a small single-story home sat nestled among larger houses, the humble abode where Mallory lived with his father, Detective Nathaniel Dane. The halls were quiet as the two slept, at least for another minute or so.

Inside the boy’s room, the walls were plastered with posters depicting various anime art, science fiction series, and fantasy world maps from different games and books. There were quite a few shelves adorned with figurines, some still in their packaging. Across from the door sat a large corner desk, equipped with dual monitors and an RGB-lit gaming computer that Mallory had built himself. On the other side of the room there was a twin-sized bed, a teenager snoring under the Star Wars comforter.

“Huh, what?” Mallory said as he jumped up, confused. He then noticed his alarm going off, the clock on his nightstand flashing 6:30. He sighed as he slammed the button to turn it off, and then pulled himself from bed. He was wearing a pair of black Batman boxers and a tan Firefly t-shirt, wrinkled from his tossing and turning, hanging loose on his thin, scrawny frame. He stood at nearly six feet and three inches, but he had been underweight his entire life, leaving him looking awkward and lanky.

As he walked through his messy room, he ignored the comic books, textbooks, drawings, pens, markers, and protein bar wrappers strewn about. His father had asked him repeatedly to clean the pigsty up, but he had been so busy with his new internship that he had let it get a bit out of hand. He slipped on a pair of black-framed glasses and headed down the hall to the bathroom, relieving himself and then looking into the mirror as he washed his hands. His dark hair cascaded down over his bony shoulders, framing his pale, zit-covered face. He looked into the reflection of his deep brown eyes behind his glasses, hiding a mind with a wealth of knowledge not common among other sixteen-year-olds.

[nostalgicroxas]

I wouldn't say one is better than the other since you need both to write a good novel.

Take for example Moby Dick. It has chapters specifically designed to teach you about whaling that are informational and set 100% outside the "world" of the novel's storytelling chapters. Do you need them to tell the story? No. Does it enhance your personal understanding of the story? Yes. Moby Dick was written for people who have no exposure to the whaling world, business or the dangers of it, and as such the book has become a time capsule in it's actual structure, maintaining a history of sorts of how something was done, and why, and then showing us how it was used. (tldr: read the book, read it's informational chapters after you finish cover to cover, then go back and read it a third time just the novel chapters. your brain will thank you.)

But then look at writing that has ... sparse direction. Lots of YA books are written this way, for good reason, the young reader can easily interject themselves into the part or role of the protagonist. "I cannot be the protagonist because I do not look like, or like these things the protagonist is or likes." That argument goes away when your protagonist is bland and dry in description.
Or, it lends itself to mystery. Like the original Sherlock Holmes mysteries. They were written to be narrative driven, but information driven in what they give. Stuff that is explained or seems interesting in the narration of the narrator character (who is not Holmes) is something you recall and think of when trying to piece the mystery yourself together, because otherwise you were given so few or so many details. Modern mystery stories give you something that is either a one-of in your face that you know 100% it's going to be a lynch pin (that dam in Frozen 2 is 100% so present in the opening shot of it, that if you as an adult, didn't think it was going to be the lynch pin in that plot, I cannot help you).

Getting to the side of too descriptive you lend yourself to, mystery and intrigue also, but of a different sort. I've tried to read The Hobbit, multiple times, and it's just... so dry. The conversations between characters are like an oasis admist this terrible dry desert of infodump that I couldn't care less about. Narnia (The Dawntreader) is so full of descriptions on so many fronts, but also so open, that you can almost imagine anything - yes it's a boat, yes it looks like this specific boat, but unless you know what that kind of boat looks like, you could imagine it looks like The Black Pearl or any other generic galleon that'd fit nicely in A Muppet Treasure Island that it wouldn't matter. All you need to know is it's got a deck and it's open, and it's got sails.

The same thing with writing. If I were to say something like "the red flower in his breast pocket almost glowed". Well, okay, it's a red flower. Awesome imagery. My mind goes to "omfg it GLOWS" before I go "omfg this specific species is glowing but it can't in MY world".
"The red carnation"
"The red tulip"
"The red rose"
"The red poppy"
Like all of those flowers mean seperate things in different ways. One is where are they native on the planet. Two is what do they symbolize in pop/modern culture. Three what do they symbolize in my culture? In the culture of the book? If it's a glowing red rose, does that mean I'm in Disney's Beauty and the Beast and it's a magic rose that is linked somehow to a curse? If it's a poppy, a flower that in some folklore is linked to symbolizing blood as in death and rebirth, does that mean this character will die? What about the color of a tulip or carnation? Is it budded, or open? Is the rose a bud or open? Does it matter?

I guess what I'm getting at is you can build important imagery off of each and every choice you make in both instances of Narrative vs Dialogue.

That does not mean your readers will pick it out. (See the thread in here about "Advice you don't want to hear" basically.)

There's also examples on both sides of each working rather well. And, while I strongly loathe the book and am this close to burning my third copy of it, The Scarlet Letter is another "classic" example. I won't spoil anything, but book makes a point of pointing out flowers outside the jail - blooming flowers. Do they symbolize her womanhood, her hope for life, her triumph over adversity of the social structure around her, or is she a witch, and they're just blooming because she's super magical?

The lack of information given to the reader is equal to the amount of information given. The same could be said about people who symbolize the sperm whale in Moby Dick as something pure and good, and that by battling the raw wildness that was made impure by the whaling, is (one) man conquering nature, in that he can now live forever. It could also symbolize the man chasing his youth.

Another thing to do is look at examples of Character Narrated stories and see of they remain that way entirely or if they, at some point, revert to being omnipresent in their narration. The example off the top of my head is that Egyptian trilogy by Rick Riordan. Narrated by two siblings for part of it, and then the other part is them bickering back and forth over an "audio recording" for us to "listen to", but it's a book so we're reading it. Is what the girl sees what is actually there? Or is she absolutely going crazy because she's like twelve and suddenly had her dad ???murdered??? in front of her?

I personally try for a happy medium. In edits I will go back and look at something and see that I've.... "said" something happened and I rewrite it to "be" instead. ""While looking at his papers, he wondered why there were so many."" -> ""While looking through the large mountain of papers a passing thought went through his mind: why the heck are there so many? Did I forget to do some yesterday or did they actually multiply?"" It's not a distinction that's needed, but it's akin to that flower example from before. Does it matter if the red glowing flower is a rose? Should it matter? If it should, I need to address it either there or somewhere else.

[JamesMulhollandFilm]

That's interesting. In comics, I use Narration to say two things, what it says directly, but also how it connects to the scene that the narration is happening over.

I just uploaded 3 pages of my new series and you can see what I mean by reading them pages. You don't get the full context of the narration until the end of the story though, so that's the only problem.

Blue Streak | Tapas