Dialog Structure
 
I haven't done a writing craft post in a while. The earth still seems to be rotating on its axis just fine, but no sense taking risks.

I've had dialog much on my mind of late, trying to punch up a few scenes in the manuscripts for the circle of writers who are kind enough to give me their thoughts on my work, so I return the favor.

When I give my genre fiction survey class, I always start off by comparing a novel to your body. There's a very simple DNA level (is your story "someone goes on a trip" or is it "a stranger comes to town" and what are the main conflicts driving it: man vs. nature, man vs. man, man vs. god, man vs. self, and what genre camp, if any, it belongs) there's the "skeletal level" where you give form to your story's structure by deciding which part of the book will carry out the heavy lifting of the action and suspense, there's the "muscular/organ" level -- your characters who power the story and process the events that are fed to them, and finally the "skin" - your prose style, i.e. the decorations and flourishes of your novel.

I'm always telling people that at the DNA and even skeletal level a lot of stories are the same. Don't worry too much that you're essentially writing a "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl" story beneath the surface. The reason it's been done so many times is that people can identify with it.

But back to dialog.

Dialog works on several levels in that schema. I don't have time to do all of them here -- that would make for a horrifically long blog post, so I think I'll talk about dialog at the "skeletal" level and then hopefully in the future go into more detail. If we were talking about dialog at the muscle/organ level I'd be describing how you can show character with dialog, or if we were at the skin level I might give you some writers to examine who are graceful, or funny, or surgical with their language.

I struggle with dialog at all of these levels, believe me. "The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne," as Chaucer wrote.

So let's examine dialog at the skeletal level.

Remember, skeletal is all about structure. Structure is putting your story together in a manner so it's interesting for the reader to experience. To my mind, the two best ways to engage a reader at the structure level are conflict (a character wresting with a problem) and suspense (harder to define, but essentially it's raising questions about the outcome of a story and leaving the reader in doubt, the classic example being a ticking bomb in the same place as your protagonist).

Obviously, dialog takes place while other events are happening, but there's just something about well-done dialog that both rivets readers and moves the story along.

I like to think of dialog as automobiles for some reason, with characters doing the driving. I was always racing and smashing Hot Wheels as a kid, so it makes a vivid metaphor that's easy for me to remember. Every character, like every car, has somewhere they want to go, a different driving style and awareness of what their vehicles can do and road conditions. Sometimes, because they're heading in different directions, or going in the same direction with different sets of pathologies behind the wheel, they run into each other. Just ask an insurance adjustor.

The rarest of these it the head-on collision. How many times do you get into a knock-down-drag-out verbal conflict with someone? I suppose it depends on personality, but I'll guess implacable opposition from both parties is fairly rare. Save this one for your key scenes, like Mr. Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth ("...I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.") where Goldfinger has Bond tied down under the laser ("No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die."), or Bigwig and Woundwort tearing each other to pieces in the last redoubt at the edge of the Honeycomb ("My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run and until he says otherwise I shall stay here.")

Then there's the surprise T-bone collision, where another car strikes another from an unexpected direction. In dialog, this is an unexpected attack or revelation, intentional or unintentional, everything from red herrings to change the subject to surprise revelations timed to upset your opponent's mental equilibrium. Jane Austen was the master of the T-collision long before the invention of the automobile.

And let's not forget the good old sideswipe. Harmful to paintjobs and bodywork, but hopefully not deadly. You'll see a lot of these, one character is basically being an inattentive ass and verbally strikes another, or it's an intentional warning nudge to clear the path, or just plain old stupid fuckery getting out of hand. This might be a boss chewing out a subordinate, military rivals both fighting on the same side ala Monty and Patton, cousins who are either kissing or brawling, and good old-fashioned bitchery.

Sideswipes are really fun to write, by the way.

Finally there's ordinary traffic on the highway. Everyone's more-or-less obeying the same rules, trying not to kill each other, but they're all trying to get an advantage that will allow them to complete their trip faster. I blame NASCAR. There are still conflicts but everyone's looking for the easiest route around them. Kids trying to fool their parents or teachers, lovers keeping embarrassing secrets, Arthur Dent asking everyone where he can find a decent cup of tea...

Any one of these can be used to introduce conflict or suspense.

I read too much dialog that's none of these -- it's more like Mom and Dad's separate cars idling together in the garage. Boring! Plus it's a waste of precious story gas and it's polluting your pacing.

Okay, weird, overextended metaphor, but I find it useful when I'm thinking about what a piece of dialog has to achieve.

Your best place to find dialog worth studying is often stage plays. There's no CGI on a stage, wordplay has to do all the heavy lifting. David Mamet is gloriously skilled at building from "ordinary traffic" up through sideswipes and T-collisions to full-out demolition derbies by the end -- check out Glengarry Glenn Ross.

I'm going to indulge my interest in Shakespeare (and moviemaking) here and look at the structure of the dialog in Richard III. I'm not going to examine every scene, but instead do a few major and key minor ones so you can get an idea of how to structure your dialog to move the action and suspense along. Shakespeare's ideal for this sort of thing (actually, he's ideal for pretty much everything, except maybe men wearing ruffs) because you can learn a tremendous amount from analyzing the structure of the conversations and then applying it to your own work without worrying about having to imitate the Elizabethan style. When I get too into Mamet my habitual gormlessness leads to the next few dialog scenes ending up with everyone calling each other cocksuckers.

The version of Richard III I'm using is the Ian McKellen one where he switches the setting to England in the 30s and assumes a rise of fascism, very loosely based on some of the wilder theories about King Edward VIII and Wallace Simpson and their Nazi contacts. I'm not fan of modernized Shakespeare but in the hands of Kurosawa or McKellen you sometimes find a bit of fried gold.

Okay, wait a moment while I get the cumbersome old laserdisc spinning... and we're off!

The first major dialog scene (after the bloody end to the civil war) is the famous "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York" speech. This morphs into a conversation between the morally and physically deformed Richard and himself (with him looking into a mirror, and the audience, rather elegantly, becomes his mirror). The goal of this dialog is suspense -- Richard is saying that "weak piping time of peace" holds no charm for him, he intends to "prove myself a villain." Seems he wants to be king. Several lives stand in his way, his brother King Edward (who is not in the best of health) and Clarence, and then King Edward's children. He merrily tells us that Clarence is as good as dead, he's arranged his arrest and will shortly orchestrate his death.

As Clarence is being led away to prison on a charge of treason, Richard goes to him. Seems like ordinary traffic, though Richard gets in a sideswipe at Elizabeth, King Edward's American wife, who he accuses of engineering the arrest. He has a short conversation with Clarence, promising to stand by him and entreat the king for his release. With Clarence gone Richard tells us "I do love you so that I will shortly send your soul to heaven."

Richard determines to marry the widow Lady Anne, despite his killing both her husband and his father. While mourning her husband's body in a morgue, Richard wins a balls of steel award for seeking her out there and wooing her over her husband's dead body. The conversation starts out with absolute head-on conflict, with her cursing and insulting him. He ignores every insult and praises her, answering every assay of hers with wit -- so we move from head-on collisions, so to speak, to sideswipes from her met with humble phrases. Having vented her bile, Richard T-bones her by claiming that he loves her so much he killed her husband over her, her beauty blinded him to all other considerations. He even gives her a dagger to kill him with, for if she will not love him "I humbly beg for death." She drops the dagger. "Take up the blade again, or take up me." Richard says, in the closest he comes to head-oning her in the scene. She folds. The scene ends with something approaching rapprochement, and the dialog gets back into ordinary traffic, as she assents to having him visit her.

I know what you're thinking. In fairness to Lady Anne, she's no more weak and blind than many others to Richard's treachery.

"I'll have her, but I'll not keep her long," Richard promises, offering more suspense. Not even engaged and already thinking about killing the wife. Eat your hear out, Scott Peterson.

Back at the royal residence, Queen Elizabeth worries aloud to her brother Rivers about Richard, especially since he's been appointed Lord Protector over her children -- they are heirs to the throne, and her husband is in ill health. Rivers and King Edward mollify her -- an ordinary traffic scene, but it serves its purpose. They're not arguing, they're gently nudging her to their line of thinking.

At a dinner scene, with murders on their way to off Clarence, Richard and his new bride Anne plays the wounded, misunderstood brother. There's a good deal of sideswiping here, mostly from Elizabeth, but Richard gets in his licks, mostly with quiet comments to those with doubts about this American Queen. Richard accuses her of formenting discontent in the family so that her brother Rivers may rise. Elizabeth is ready for head-on collisions with Richard but again, she's brought back into ordinary traffic, this time by the Bishop of Canterbury. Richard ignores her assay and points out that he's been a loyalist to the King even in the days when her family was sympathetic to the other side in the Civil War. Elizabeth, realizing that she's coming off as Queen Bitch, warns the Duke of Buckingham "Take heed of yonder dog, for when he fawns, he bites." After she's gone, Richard says he understands and prays for her.

Next is the famous "killers bound to kill Clarence" scene. It's brief, but cool. Starting with suspense, the older of the two is worried that despite the execution warrant he'll be "damned for killing him, for which no warrant can save me." The other reminds him of the monetary reward for Clarence's death. It's a little scene, but it's nice. Morals among assassins. Tarantino managed to turn the idea into half a motion picture. The scene moves on to action. Clarence tries to talk his way out of death, pleading that they go to Richard, but the killers T-bone him just before his death by informing Clarence that it's Richard who desires his murder.

King Edward, sitting seaside in a wheelchair and trying to settle grudges remaining from the civil war between Buckingham, Hastings, and Rivers and his wife, has some ordinary traffic as he gets his court to forget old difference and release Clarence. Richard arrives and King Edward is informed that the death warrant for Clarence made it to the jail before the order for his release (T-bone!). King Edward has a fit and shortly passes away.

Richard is Lord Protector but not yet king. Richard plants doubt about the Queen everywhere with cute little sideswipes, saying she plotted for Clarence's death. Though to her face, he assures her that her sons are the future. No one muchly agrees or disagrees with him, so this is ordinary traffic.

Richard's mother disparages him for his deformities in a concise little sideswipe, saying he's been a cracked mirror from the start -- we get some idea why Richard turned out the way he did.

In a T-bone, Elizabeth learns that her brother Rivers has been murdered, probably at the order of Richard and Lord Buckingham. Elizabeth forsees the ruin of her family, with her sons under Richard as Lord Protector.

Richard welcomes the Prince of Wales to London. The Prince of Wales notes that few have turned up to welcome him, just the Prime Minister Hasting and a few others. Where's Rivers? "God keep you from such false friends." Richard says, nudging him in the direction Richard wants to go. Richard informs them that for their safety they're going to go to the tower until the coronation can be arranged.
The younger of the princes is afraid to go to the Tower, as his uncle Clarence was killed there.
"I fear no uncles dead," the Prince says.
"Nor none living, I pray," Richard responds. Cackling, Richard observes to Buckingham "So wise, so young, they say do never live long." Even ordinary traffic can be interesting when it builds suspense. I suspect the kids won't grow up to the full flower of manhood.
Richard promises Buckingham the Earldom of Hereford and the property of the former King there in exchange for helping him to the throne. Richard tells Catesby to sound the Prime Minister about his becoming king.

With the princes in the tower, the Prime Minister Hastings dismisses whispers about Richard's plots "the boar shall use us kindly."
"What news in this our tottering state," Prime Minister Hastings asks Catesby
Catesby says that the nation will never stand upright until Richard wear the garland of the state
"I'll have this crown of mine cut from my shoulders before I see the crown so foul misplaced," Hastings says. He gets no argument from Catesby, though this qualifies as head-on opposition.

At a meeting to determine the coronation Richard is late, and Buckingham suggests that Hastings speak for Richard. When Richard enters and hears that Hastings has spoken for him, he takes the news with joy. "No man might be bolder -- he knows me well and loves me well." It appears that this scene will be ordinary traffic, until Richard looks pained
"What they deserve who do conspire my death?" he asks the assembly.
"I say, my lord, they deserve death," Prime Minister Hastings says. Shakespeare liked to hoist his characters by their own petards, you see a similar scene in Henry V.
Richard claims he's the victim of witchcraft, T-boning the whole meeting which was supposed to arrange a coronation.
Hastings scoffs, and Richard shows his withered hand. "Talk you to me of if?" He storms out after that head-on, saying he'll not eat until Hastings is dead. "The rest that love me, rise and follow me!" Cowed in the face of such fury, the others follow. Except for Tyrell, one of the men who killed Clarence, who has plopped into Richard's seat opposite Hastings wearing a menacing-looking SS-style uniform.
"The Duke would be at dinner. He longs to see your head," Tyrell says, in a menacing bit of traffic.

Buckingham and Richard, after the deed is done, speak to the Lord Mayor of London, saying that the Prime Minister was plotting their deaths. After that T-boning, the shocked mayor leaves, promising to acquaint the city leaders with their just action.

Richard, in a bit of traffic, urges Buckingham to go and claim the bastardy of the royal heirs in the Tower.

Meanwhile, at a picnic, the women talk. Lady Anne T-bones the whole party by discussing her marriage. She tells Elizabeth, her daughter, and Richard's mother that she now regrets the curse she put on Richard: "when you wed, let sorrow haunt your bed." Looking a little pie-eyes (we've seen her popping pills) she muses "My woman's heart, grossly encaptive to his honeyed words, proved subject to my own soul's curse."

The next big scene is another famously key one, sort of a play within a play crafted by Buckingham and Richard to make Richard seem reluctant to take the throne. It seems to be a head on collision between Richard and Buckingham, if you listen to just the words without knowing that they planned the whole thing beforehand.
"Pretend some fear." Buckingham advised Richard at the scene's opening. "Be not easily won by our requests. Play the maid's part, still answer no, but take it."

It starts out with Catesby standing outside Richard's chamber, saying that Richard is a little frightened by the appearance of all these dignitaries. "He wonders to what end you have assembled such troops of citizens to speak to him."
Richard enters, after consulting "right reverend guidance" (in the form of a couple of cosmetologists) "I do suspect I have done some offense."
Buckingham demands that he take the empty throne. Richard refuses, arguing head-on (but politely and apologetically) with Buckingham refuses even to believe the bastardy of the princes in the Tower. "God's wounds," Buckingham yells. I imagine in the David Mamet version Richard would have been called a cocksucker.
Richard, shocked by such language, says "Would you enforce me to a world of cares?"
Buckingham leaves, but with everyone imploring Richard to call him back finally relents. "I'm not made of stone."
He reluctantly agrees and the conflict fades into ordinary traffic "You may partly see how far I am from the desire of this."
Clarence, the head of the RAF, has been troubled by dreams of Richard as a beast and warns the young Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond to flee to France -- "Go my dear nephew from this slaughterhouse."

Elizabeth attempts to see her sons. She's refused entrance, the official at the gate tells her the King has forbidden it. Thus she hears of Richard's assumption. "The Lord protect him from that kingly title." I'd call that a sideswipe.

On the way to the coronation, we see that Lady Anne's moved on from pills to injections. No dialog, I just put it in because I feel sorry for her and I liked seeing Kristin Scott Thomas hike her skirt up.

While viewing films of the royal event in a private theater later Richard demands more of the already useful Buckingham.
"The princes live," he muses, T-boning the happy string of compliments from his court. He believes he cannot truly be called king while they live.
"I say you are." Buckingham says.
"I wish the bastards dead," Richard says.
"Give me some little breath," Buckingham asks, not quite headlong colliding with Richard, but this is the first time we've seen him doubtful of any of Richard's moves.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has fled to join with Richmond in France. Richard hears that Richmond is putting together an army. All he lacks is a useful conduit to the throne -- "(he) aims to marry young Elizabeth, and by that knot he means to gain my crown." Richard predicts, meaning to get in on the royal deflowering first. Of course, there is an inconvenient wife still breathing.
He tells Catesby to spread word that "Anne my Queen is sick and like to die."
Richard explains: "I must be married to young Elizabeth or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass."
Buckingham returns to the theater. "What says your majesty to my just request," Buckingham says, obviously prepared for a head-on. He demands the titles and properties Richard promised, but Richard is not in the mood to talk terms, meeting him head-on after a brief t-bone where he compares Buckingham to an annoying clock.. They part with an angry shout from Richard. Buckingham has a lonely scene with Anne in the empty theater, both of them used and discarded, and Anne predicts her death as she's no longer of use."He hates me and will no doubt short be rid of me."

Next thing you know, Anne's laying in her bed, dead. "Sin will pluck on sin," Richard muses to us. He's already in so deep a few more murders don't count for much.

Richmond lands at the coast with his army, Buckingham flees to join him.

Richard determines to destroy him quickly before more help arrives."We must be brief when traitors take the field." Richard's mostly stuck doing ordinary traffic for the rest of the play, since he's killed pretty much everyone else.

There are a couple of exceptions. As she packs and leaves to be an emigre, his mother curses him for all the misery he's brought to the royal house. Richard isn't in the mood to listen, and gives her a good sideswipe: "I have a touch of your condition. I cannot brook the accent of reproof."
"You came on Earth to make the Earth my Hell," Mum sideswipes back. "Bloody you are, and bloody will be your end."

Saying goodbye to Elizabeth at the airfield, she's still careening around sideswiping right and left. "A queen in jest," she calls Elizabeth. "Where are the peers who flattered you?"

We get one final major dialog confrontation as Richard's army prepares for war. He calls Elizabeth to the camp as tanks and guns entrain. He attempts to be courtly saying he has matters of state to discuss, keeping the discussion to ordinary traffic.
"Where are my children? Where is my brother Rivers and your brother Clarence?" she T-bones, though perhaps it's more of a sideswipe, since opposition from her is not unexpected.
Richard, using the same mollifying tone that worked so well on Lady Anne, says that he's interested in helping her family.
"I've no more sons of the royal blood for you to slaughter," Elizabeth says, determined to go head on with Richard.
"You have a daughter," Richard T-bones.
Elizabeth is horrified. She thinks that Richard is threatening her daughter's death. Richard attempts to calm everything down into ordinary traffic, saying that he wishes only her safety.
"In that safety died her brothers," Elizabeth says, not obeying Richard's traffic signals.
Richard persists, saying that he can raise Elizabeth's family's fortunes. I'm not sure if this constitutes avoiding a head on by T-boning. Y'all can draw your own conclusions
"What state,what dignity, what honor can you bestow on me and mine?" she asks, finally getting back into a regular conversational traffic pattern, though she's clearly suspicious.
"I do love your daughter and intend to make her Queen of England," Richard T-bones.
"Send to her by the man who slew her brothers a pair of bleeding hearts," Elizabeth begins a litany of his crimes, and we're head-on again.
Richard doesn't want to fight. He tries to appeal to what he thinks is her desire for high social status, and tells her that there are many advantages if she'd win her daughter over to the idea of marriage.
"Make bold her bashful years with your experience, acquaint the princess with the sweet silent hours of the marriage joys....lead your daughter to a conquerers bed," Richard says.
She refuses. Richard finally goes head-on with her and says that the marriage can prevent more civil war. "Death, desolation, ruin and decay, it cannot be avoided but by this."
Now it's Elizabeth's turn to calm things down. "Shall I be tempted by the devil thus?" Bit of a sideswipe, I think.
"Yes, if the devil tempt you to do good." Richard says, in his soothing tone.
"But you did kill my children." Geeze, mothers get so resentful when you kill their kids. Wonder why that is?
"But in your daughters womb I bury them wherein that nest of spicery they will breed," Richard says. If that yucks her out, she doesn't show it.
"Shall I go win my daughter to your word?" Elizabeth asks. Wow, ordinary traffic.
"And be a happy mother by the deed," Richard says, thinking he's won over another woman in a foul mood. Note to self: Need to study the Richard method.
"Write to me very shortly and you shall understand from me my mind," Elizabeth says, wanting to part with ordinary traffic.
"Bear my true love's kiss," Richard offers her, and practically slips her some tongue. Ugh.

Elizabeth leaves, and were not left in suspense long as to her answer long. She breaks a land speed record marrying her daughter to Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. There are some scenes where we get the contrast between Richard's restless night before battle, troubled by nightmares, and Richmond's "just shagged a hot princess" connubial bliss.

That's pretty much if for major dialog scenes. There's some minor bit of business where Richard takes Stanley's son hostage to assure his aid in the coming battle, but the rest is really just fighting and the "a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" scene (this version rather cleverly uses it when Richard's jeep gets bogged down in loose soil). Then there's a little head-on between Richard and Richmond before Richard is killed.

So there you have it. Here's what I take away from this -- one of the most useful of dialog structures is the T-bone, where someone throws the discussion in an entirely new direction. Notice the plenitude of them. It's the dialog equivalent of a sudden fistfight.

And be sure to toss in plenty of sideswipes; they tend to be real audience-pleasers.

My problem, and that of a lot of amateur writers, is too much uninteresting-to-mildly-informative ordinary traffic, or head-to-head arguments. Shakespeare, three hundred years before Python's Argument Sketch, knew that simple binary verbal conflict is bereft on intellectual meat. Shakespeare husbands his verbal fireworks, there are only about three big head-on scenes (Lady Anne vs. Richard before he fools her, Buckingham vs. Richard when Richard finally crosses the line by positing that the princes be murdered (though Buckingham doesn't argue that point, he just demands Richard keep the previous promise) and the final Richard vs. Elizabeth confrontation, though even that key scene never gets truly head-on because Richard is trying to win her over.

I hope you found this useful.