Greetings friends and enemies.

Earlier today I received a critique on my novel pointing out that my dialogue comes off as scripted and rushed. The over-all character interactions were described as heavy-handed. 

Up to this point, I've tried to keep the dialogue functional. If it doesn't add to plot or character growth, I don't include it. I think that may be a reason why it comes off as unnatural.

This in mind, I would like to address the issue but I don't know where to begin. I was hoping to get some guidance?

For an example of my dialogue I've got a chunk from my most recent chapter in the spoiler tag. 

‘I’m not arguing that!” Mordai says, his frustration catching up with him. “I just… Okay. Let me put it this way. What’s done is done, but you need to at least clear things up with Quinn. I know you like to watch Snowflake flounder, but Quinn might be the only person who can save him from her husband. Do you want your stubbornness to be the reason your supposed ‘friend’ gets tortured to death?”


“That’s not fair!” Honey exclaims. “You can’t put that on me! I warned him to not get involved with her. It isn’t my fault!”



“Fault isn’t the issue here,” Mordai rubs his temples, trying to relieve some of the pressure. “It’s about doing the right thing, you know? I don’t see why you’re making such a big deal out of it. It’s just an apology. A string of words. Hell, there is even a formula for it.”



“I don’t like to apologize if I’m not wrong,” Honey protests.



“You are wrong!” Mordai growls. “You know what, fine. I’m going to go talk to Snowflake. You just stay here and be a selfish piece of shit.”



“Wait,” Honey holds up a hand as Mordai turns to leave. “I’ll go talk to Quinn, but not because of what you said. I’m doing it because as the leader of this party I need to make sure everyone gets along.”


“You know what Honey? Do whatever makes you feel better, for whatever reason you think is best,” Mordai turns on his heel and storms off toward Snowflake.

I think you are misunderstanding the critique itself; I'm pretty sure the guy is telling you that the interactions themselves feel unnatural and scripted, not that the way characters speak is unnatural, though I can't really judge that based on one small example you provided.

If my line of thinking is right, then my advice would be to flesh out the personalities and the reasons your characters act in certain ways. What are their motives, how do they differ in their thinking, what led them to act in one way and not another? In TV-series we usually are just thrown into action and for example see a kid who is doing drugs and are shown how he gets caught by police, then other things happen and he comes back onto the good path, heh. The scripted version would be where we aren't told (along the way) what led the kid to start doing drugs and how those past experiences changed him, while the natural version would be when we are aware of the kid's circumstances and can think 'Oh, no wonder he ended up acting in this way'.

PS: The common 'mistake' I see is going the easy-way and assigning certain character tropes to your own characters and basing their actions / personality purely on them. Instead of knowing that a princess is acting spoiled and dishonest because of how she was raised, we are just told she is 'acting like a tsundere' and that remains her main trait for the rest of the story. Yay, so interesting, ha-ha.

The only parts of that dialogue that sounded awkward were these two quotes

"I’ll go talk to Quinn, but not because of what you said. I’m doing it because as the leader of this party I need to make sure everyone gets along.”

"You know what Honey? Do whatever makes you feel better, for whatever reason you think is best,” Mordai turns on his heel and storms off toward Snowflake."

The first quote sounds unnatural because nobody talks like that. It's weird for him to say that he has to do it because he's their leader and it's the job of the leader. You could've just shortened all of that had had him say. "Fine, I'll do it. But I'm only doing it to keep the peace." The second quote would have sounded better if they'd said "You know what, Honey? Do whatever makes you happy." Based on what you've posted it seems like your problem is that you over explain people's motivations in their dialogue. Think about how you would talk to people if you were in the same situation and then write it that way. Keep things simple and to the point.

[Deleted]

'Caladbolg' pid='824171' dateline='1494926278' Wrote: I think you are misunderstanding the critique itself; I'm pretty sure the guy is telling you that the interactions themselves feel unnatural and scripted, not that the way characters speak is unnatural, though I can't really judge that based on one small example you provided.

If my line of thinking is right, then my advice would be to flesh out the personalities and the reasons your characters act in certain ways. What are their motives, how do they differ in their thinking, what led them to act in one way and not another? In TV-series we usually are just thrown into action and for example see a kid who is doing drugs and are shown how he gets caught by police, then other things happen and he comes back onto the good path, heh. The scripted version would be where we aren't told (along the way) what led the kid to start doing drugs and how those past experiences changed him, while the natural version would be when we are aware of the kid's circumstances and can think 'Oh, no wonder he ended up acting in this way'.

PS: The common 'mistake' I see is going the easy-way and assigning certain character tropes to your own characters and basing their actions / personality purely on them. Instead of knowing that a princess is acting spoiled and dishonest because of how she was raised, we are just told she is 'acting like a tsundere' and that remains her main trait for the rest of the story. Yay, so interesting, ha-ha.

Normally I would be inclined to agree with you, but almost all of my characters to date have had their back stories presented. In the little clip I showed for example: Honey is a former gladiator-slave that was orphaned. Mordai is a street urchin that was chosen by the god of Justice to be their prophet. This explains why Honey is selfishly looking out for herself and why Mordai is trying to the right thing, at least in my mind.

'Enzo' pid='824174' dateline='1494943710' Wrote: The only parts of that dialogue that sounded awkward were these two quotes

"I’ll go talk to Quinn, but not because of what you said. I’m doing it because as the leader of this party I need to make sure everyone gets along.”

"You know what Honey? Do whatever makes you feel better, for whatever reason you think is best,” Mordai turns on his heel and storms off toward Snowflake."

The first quote sounds unnatural because nobody talks like that. It's weird for him to say that he has to do it because he's their leader and it's the job of the leader. You could've just shortened all of that had had him say. "Fine, I'll do it. But I'm only doing it to keep the peace." The second quote would have sounded better if they'd said "You know what, Honey? Do whatever makes you happy." Based on what you've posted it seems like your problem is that you over explain people's motivations in their dialogue. Think about how you would talk to people if you were in the same situation and then write it that way. Keep things simple and to the point.

Thank you! That helps a lot.
So... hypothetically a character does something that the readers think doesn't make sense. Should I explain the psychology of it to the readers as the author, or should I try to explain it in story without over explaining?
An example of this would be a character not fighting back when something bad happens to them. The psychology could be explained by situational learned helplessness, but not every reader is going to understand that.

'Faze' pid='824179' dateline='1494962562' Wrote: From by noob view, it simply too long for a normal people to talk like that.

you are putting too much into a dialog, usually, a person doesn't tell why they do things, just what they want.

example this:
"You know what Honey? Do whatever makes you feel better, for whatever reason you think is best,” Mordai turns on his heel and storms off toward Snowflake."

if it was up to me:
"Fine, do whatever you want.” Mordai turns on his heel and storms off toward Snowflake.

a frustrated person won't explain things too much unless asked.

That makes sense. I think you're right in line with Enzio and their theory of over explaining. I'll keep this in mind as I continue with the story and also in the eventual rewrite.

It's hard to say when I don't know which exact piece of dialogue was criticised, but I have one general piece of advice: A dialogue is an action scene.

Wait, *what*?

An action scene is any scene bound by a chain of causality. One action happens first, the next action is a reaction to it, and so on. Think about a fist fight, for example. One character takes a swing. Another sees that and starts to dodge. The puncher sees the dodge and launches the punch, correcting his aim. The punch hits. The punched guy gets thrown off his feet  and sent across the room.

It's one thing after another, but they're all tied. Each action has a cause and brings an effect. You can't send the guy flying without a punch, and you can't punch him without taking a swing. At the same time, taking a swing will bring a dodge. An effective action scene works like Newton's Third Law - action and reaction.

In this respect, dialogue is essentially an action scene. It's a string of actions tied in a chain of cause and effect. Person 1 says something, Person 2 reacts. It may be verbal or non-verbal, but it's always a response to Person 1. Then Person 1 replies to Person 2, and what they say depends on what Person 2 did before. Every line of dialogue has  a cause and brings an effect. That's how people talk in real life - they listen to each other and react.

A 'natural' dialogue generally follows this pattern, while a 'scripted' dialogue often has some problem with the cause-effect chain. For example, the characters may say things for no reason ('Chara A gives an infodump speech out of the blue'). The characters may be talking out of sync (as though they were talking to themselves, not each other), or their replies may be inadequate (too long or short, over-elaborate or too simple, screaming for no reason or being too calm, etc.).  There are many more examples, but you get the idea - the lines have to flow from one another. When they don't, there's a problem.

The 'scripted' dialogue is often a result of the writer directly tampering with the cause-effect chain. The characters say something because the author wants them to, not because they've got a reason to. In this case, it may really feel like they're reading a script. "Why did you say it?" "Dunno, the writer told me to."

This is why writing dialogue can be so difficult >___< That's also what makes well-written dialogue so amazing, though. Think of that episode of Fate:Zero where Kotomine and Gilgamesh talk in a salon. It watches like an action scene - and when you look closely, it actually *is* one.