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The modern consensus is 50 - 50. However, the most important thing about dialogue is does it carry the story forward?
Dialogue and narrative can both be a pain in the backside if it is boring the reader.
Personally, rather than have line after line of conversation, I would intersperse it with narrative. Maybe someone is doing something with their hands that distracts a character. Anything to break it up, so it doesn't seem bogged down. Narrative and dialogue serve one purpose only, moving the story forward. If that's not happening, the reader will stop reading.
Good luck with it.
Reiner
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Reiner:
Pretty much all my dialogue drives the plot forward. I guess I'm better at telling a story in the voices of the characters than in my own.
I'll work on interrupting with description and action, though. I do think I need more of that.
Thanks for your advice!
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Interspersing the dialogue with the scene's surroundings and what the five senses are experiencing is often a good way to enrich the scene and keep the reader interested. If you're unsure, try reading published books and see what kind of balance they have. At the end of the day you need to be comfortable with what you produce.
Good luck with it.
JD
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I think a 70-30 ratio works best, but it depends on the scene. Just be careful to reidentify the speaker every so often. Otherwise the reader loses track of who's speaking.
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Thank you so much for your advice, everyone. I've fiddled with my dialogue accordingly, and am very happy with the results.
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I really am stumped for advice on this one, but perhaps, if you notice its becoming dialogue heavy, try to break it up by describing in words the people's responses. I am awful at explaining so I'll just give you an equally awful exampl :P
"Pat, why did you leave class earlier?"
"Because (insert reasons)"
try this instead
"Pat, why did you leave class earlier?" Phil asked as he caught up with her. Pat shrugged, yet he could tell she was hiding something. She finally looked at him and said, earnestly.
"Because (insert reasons here)"
As I said, lousy examples. but I guess thats a way of breaking it up a little. It does not necessarily decrease the storyline, but it breaks it up, and adds more words and scene description. AND more words is always good because most big publishing companies have a 60 000 word minimum requirement, anyway for full length novels.
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When I said "it does not necessarily decrease the storyline", I meant "it does not necessarily decrease the amount of dialogue". Sorry I'm really not having my head in the game today :S
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Thanks, SHJ.
I'll try to be conscious of that and add in reactions when I can. And I liked your example!
BTW, I already have 74,136 words - and I'm only halfway through my plot! Yikes!
Happy writing! ;)
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Yeah, the longer the better imo! :P If I'm reading a book, chances are I like it, and I wouldnt want it to end, so the longer it lasts (unless it is filled with fillers, like harry potter 4) the better imo ;)
I was stunned too, after I had outlined every chapter, I estimated the total word count would be almost 200 000.
Yikes, indeed.
But yes I find simple scene descriptions a good way to break up too much dialogue. Just some simple "she nodded" or "he was twirling his thumbs".
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