I’ve been sitting and listening to other people’s conversations in many different places… trying to understand social interaction better… so far, I’ve come to the following conclusion (completely unscientific):
- Most conversations revolve around associatively sharing stories of one’s own and others’ experiences and events.
- Stating and defining how ”things are” in consensus,
- and very little conversation about personal thoughts, reflections, or feelings.
- This occurs within an unspoken social hierarchy where certain individuals take up more space than others and are also listened to more than others.
- The lower hierarchical individuals sometimes temporarily leave the main conversation in small groups to say something and then return to the main conversation.
- Deep conversations usually don’t happen in groups, and neither are deep and insightful thoughts particularly popular.
- Those who stand high on the hierarchical ladder often take up a lot of space, and the conversation generally revolves around that person.
None of the above insights help me much when I’m writing dialogue. For me, dialogue in a book is a tool to:
- Move the plot forward
- Convey things to the reader
- Convey character traits
So, my way of writing is far from the ”reality” as I perceive it, and that there’s much left to learn and ponder. Something I’ve tried a lot is writing dialogue without writing out who says what, other than setting the scene with a certain number of characters, saying who starts saying something, and then letting the reader follow the dialogue. The feedback I’ve received is that it can be hard to follow, but also that it creates greater engagement in that the reader ”must” focus and follow. The future will show how my dialogue writing develops over time. 🙂
All the best!
^..^