ARE YOU BUILDING THE WORLD MOSTLY IN DIALOGUES?

You have a great world. I can see the world almost coming to the page, but you are not giving the finishing line, the conclusion lines, the narratives that will make the 'me-who-is-half-inclined-to-your-world' completely fall on it. Why? Because you're only writing dialogues one after another. 

Now think about it, have you ever heard a movie on a radio? No? Why? 

Because, it doesn't have the visuals, the transition effects, the motions, the acting, the facial expressions of the characters. Hmm ... well, the radio, at least, can have sound-effects. But in books? If u give only dialogues with only 'he said' 'she said' 'Sam or Mike said' ... ahem! I'll quit faster thanks.

In books, you have to give EVERYthing a movie gives me: Dialogue is just one thing. Put the sounds effects, the transitions, the acting, the motiongraphy, the screenplay, even that background music. 

What do you say? You can't give background music in your book? Read NAME OF THE WIND. See how the author did it. 

So, you can give me all the movie effects easily in books. 

Just add the conclusion lines in your narratives. Giving only dialogues will leave me 'guessing.' And I'll think: "Ok, maybe this character means this ... or perhaps this character means that..." 

So when the reader half guesses, what the author has to do is just add that conclusion line in the narrative and control the mind of your reader. Something that will almost feel like--"I am meaning this, by the way, did you, readers, notice that cool thing I did back there?" Yes, you heard me right. Repeat until your readers understands and memorizes the thing. Leaving me guessing is like leaving me hanging in front of mango-juice or the guava juice while doing my grocery. But the moment you draw the finishing-line and 'tell' me in a subtle way that 'the character actually did this, by-the-way' in your narrative, then it'll be like what my man does when I'm stuck choosing the flavor. He puts both on the cart. And I move on. So make me move on. Draw the conclusion for me. That way 'you--the author' control the story. If you don't do that, the readers' mind controls it, and there's a saying in Bengali--one mind is art; many-mind is chaos. 

Here's an example, with no context given to you at all:

MC said, "No. I don't want to go." ... 

Here, we have almost no narrative. Still, I'm guessing the MC was asked to go somewhere, but he/she doesn't want to go. But I'm 'guessing' many other things like his emotions and context, which are mostly guess, and I don't know which is right.

But if you say, 

"Her mother asked her to visit that man, just out of courtesy. 'No. I don't want to go,' she said, not angrily, not much. But perhaps with much disbelief, that her own mother will ask her to visit that man, the man who...." 

Alright I just made it up. You see, dialogues alone can't run a book for long. It's the narratives and the 'emotions/ thoughts' in the narratives that run a story much better. Because readers instantly connect. Readers instantly know what they must feel. 

Psychological perspective of why just-dialogues don't work:

In dialogues, I'll have to switch quickly from one character to another. If you give fewer narratives, I'll have to switch too fast, from one person to another, and soon I'll lose track of who is saying them. But if you give narratives more, I'll have 'time' to catch up. Just convert much of your dialogues into narratives, build your world in narratives instead of dialogues. 

Dialogues are initially for building the 'Character', not for building the 'World'. 

If you are using your characters to 'tell' me this world has this tech or that dragon, then you are basically 'Talking-The-World/Context'. You're using your characters to serve 'your' purpose. Remember, the characters exist to serve 'their' purpose, not yours. 

You can't give only narratives either. Otherwise, those paragraphs will become monotonous. Rather, you must plan out which part of the conversation feels unnecessary, and which information can be rather given to narratives. It will make the prose shorter. And readers wouldn't want to skim. Make your Characters talk less, build the world in prose, and it'll make me want to see, just how this character speaks. If you make the characters too talky, I'll start skimming and I won't want to hear him/her anymore. Because, the moment you make a character say something, you're not only building the story/world but also the characters. So be careful what you make them say/ think. 

So, that's all for this article. Remember: Dialogue is an important story device. You use it to 'build the character' not the world or settings. Just remove those 'filler' conversations and make your dialogues rich. So that whenever your character opens their mouth, I just want to hear them, and drink in their words. 

If this post helps you, please share it. It inspires me to write more such posts.

Mistakes to Avoid in the 1st 10Pgs in a Novel: Part-1

Why readers skim through?

Confusing actions that make your page dry

Read more on Novel Writing 

***A few other writing bloggers liked this article and posted it with my name as the guest author. If you find me there, support them, too. We all are trying to make the craft more available for the authors who are desperately looking for the right materials, despite the fact that life and living push them hard at the walls most times. If you can relate, please know, you're doing a great job! Hats off to anyone who stays in the creative lines of work, and hats off to their near ones who support them.

#First 10 Page mistakes all authors do

#Make the opening pages right

#What's wrong in the first few pages?

#How to make the first pages engaging?

#How to write the irresistible opening of a fiction?

#Fiction writing.

#Writing the first chapter

#Are you writing only dialogues?

#Dialogues in fictions