Most writers have heard the adage, Show don’t tell. The idea is that action is superior to dialogue, description, and backstory. Telling your reader what is going on, what happened before it went on, and how your characters felt as it was occurring, is not the ideal form of storytelling. I recently read something from playwright and film director David Mamet that reinforced that concept… with a twist.
The perfect film is the silent film, just as the perfect sequence is the silent sequence. Dialogue is inferior to picture in telling a film story. A picture, first, as we know, is worth a thousand words; the juxtaposition of pictures is geometrically more effective. If a director or writer wants to find out if a scene works, he may remove the dialogue and see if he can still communicate the idea to the audience. (Mamet, Bambi vs. Godzilla, pg. 152)
Importing that idea into the realm of literature invokes a different set of problems, namely, that in literature our medium is words, not images. Nevertheless, I wonder if Mamet’s test could actually serve an author. In other words, a writer can find out if a scene works by removing the dialogue and seeing if the idea can still be communicated to the audience.
Of course, this forces us to rethink the place of dialogue in the story. Most authors tend to see dialogue as showing, rather than telling. But is it? Dialogue can reveal (show) a lot of things about characters and plot. But isn’t it equally true that dialogue can become a writer’s crutch, a tool to simply tell us what’s going on?
Either way, realistic dialogue is a necessary part of a good book. But if Mamet’s observation is accurate, does that mean that the best books have less of it?
I might be inclined to think the literature version is slightly more nuanced. Instead of a character's fetish for, say, devil's food cake – instead of "narrating" it, like, "Many years passed as he suffered under the heavy hand of devil's food cake addiction," – it should be shown through his actions and maybe dialogue. Show him stockpiling Little Debbie's boxes, eggs, and milk. Show him gaining weight and baking a whole lot. Take the narrator out of the story and show through action and conversation.
A good way to show character through dialogue is to quote what OTHER people say about the person, like in the Great Gatsby party scene. We know what Gatsby's like because of what people say about him. That depends on what POV you're working with, too.
Great post. A lot to ponder. Thanks, Mike.
Great post. I totally agree. When it comes to dialog, less is best. especially in books. Authors (even the best ones) try to convey way too much information through dialog which makes the dialog forced and unnatural, which is why whenever a book is made into a movie the movie rarely ever contains the original dialog from the book.
Dean Koontz is about the worst. His dialog is just plain silly at times. But I still love his books.
So here is a question, can you apply your same test, (take out all dialog and see if the meaning remains) to the Bible. Would it stand up?
No.
I can't agree. So many stories rise to greatness when the dialogue moves the story forward. Dorothy Sayers comes to mind. Sometimes she'll write an entire page without any beats, but you know exactly who is speaking, and the way she handles each speech propells the story. Key phrase: the way she handles each speech. Dialogue can be done painfully. But so can any aspect of storytelling.