All language subtitles for Masterclass - David Baldacci Teaches Mystery and Thriller Writing - 09.Crafting Dialogue

Before

I um sit down to write any uh scene of

dialogue, one, I have to come up with my

goal. What do I want this dialogue to

accomplish? Deepening a character or

furthering the plot or conveying

information.

But then you have to sit back and say,

what is the emotional sequence of this

scene? Are the people angry with each

other? Has something traumatic just

happened and they have to sort of flush

it out between the two? Is one going to

cast blame on the other person for

something? Are they happy? Um they just

had a big triumph or victory and they're

ecstatic and they feel good. That's all

going to impact how the dialogue is

going to play out. So what is the

conflict of any that you're trying to

work through in this particular

dialogue? Two people are talking

dialogue. People don't talk aimlessly,

at least in, you know, not supposed to.

In books,

there's got to be a goal or a purpose.

What are they trying to accomplish? Are

they trying to get the upper hand over

someone? Then they might phrase their

language a little bit differently. Uh

are they trying to voice a complaint uh

to someone? Then the language might be a

little bit different. So, not only do

you have to understand what the scene is

for, what is the emotional circumstance

of the dialogue? And sometimes people

forget that second step. And a lot of

writers, I know, they they feel like,

okay, here's what I want to accomplish,

but then they forget that the people are

really pissed off at each other, and the

dialogue comes off as a lot more amiable

than it actually should be. And then all

of a sudden, readers are like, wait a

minute, didn't he just clock this guy?

Uh, where did that go? Um, so round out

the scene in your mind before you sit

down to write the dialogue and try to go

through the traumatic events you

envision these characters going through.

How would you feel um if somebody just

told you, "Oh, by the way, I cheated

with your wife uh last night. I'm really

sorry." Uh how would that affect you

emotionally as a person or you know what

uh a good friend of yours I am sorry to

tell you just died or the FBI is coming

to arrest you. You have to get into the

emotional side of the people engaged in

the dialogue because that's going to

totally affect how they speak and how

they communicate with one another. And

sometimes it may not just be words and

maybe with a physical action, a fist or

a scream or a grunt or smashing their

head against the wall or trying to

escape somehow.

Understand what the scene is both from

an emotional point of view and what you

want to accomplish and then your

dialogue is going to be a lot better.

My rule of thumb with dialogue is to

keep it um is brevity. Keep it brief and

punchy and conveying information. um and

then moving on. Common mistakes are

going on too long, getting off a point,

going down tangents, and then losing

focus at the scene. Um or conveying

information that later on has no purpose

at all in the novel, uh or it doesn't

deepen a character in some way. So, for

me, when you go in, you're writing

dialogue, before you even sit down to

write the first line, sit down and say,

"What do I want this dialogue to

accomplish?" And once it's accomplished

the goal, you get out of the scene and

you stop. You don't go on for six more

lines. There's nothing else to do. And

then the rest of that is just wasted

time that you could have spent doing

something else of significance is

actually going to aid the story and move

it forward. I've written some really

great scenes. And you know, my my

characters are up there and they're

preaching and they're pontificating and

they're saying all the stuff that I

truly believe in, particularly when it

might come to politics or whatever. And

I just I hang on every word. this is

great stuff and then um you know I'll

give it to my wife and she'll be like oh

my god you know that's not going to end

up in the book is it it's boring and

she's right totally right so you have to

come it from the reader's perspective it

may feel very important to you to say

this but if it doesn't move the story

forward then it has to go I always go

back to the example of the Gettysburg

address you know with Abraham Lincoln

the Gettysburg address is only like 350

words long the I congressman who spoke

before him at at Gettysburg battlefield

spoke for two and a half hours. Um and

then Lincoln got up and spoke and the

speech was over so quickly most people

in the audience didn't even know that he

had spoken. But nobody remembers the two

and a half hour speech by this guy from

this congressman from wherever. They

remember the Gettysburg address which is

probably the greatest political speech

ever written by an American politician

because it was it was brief. Every word

mattered. And as a writer, I know you

can't nail that every time. You can't

get it perfect every time. But God, take

the time to try to get there.

I found that the best way to really get

good at dialogue is to listen to people

talking to each other under lots of

different circumstances and strangers

versus really good friends.

Human beings are, you know, we're a

we're a weird bunch. We can be very

friendly and open and want to tell

people about ourselves and we can be

very guarded and non-transparent

depending on the situation. And I think

in order to write really believable

dialogue, this is the critical time

where you as the writer need to be a

student of humanity, you just need to go

out and listen to people and watch their

body language. And I was a lawyer. I got

as much out of watching people's body

cues as I got out of what they were

telling me because when some sometimes

people are lying to you, if you just

listen to them, it may not sound like a

lie, but if you're watching their body

language, um you can tell that they're

sort of proaricating.

So, become a student of humanity. Go out

and about, listen to people. Even if

it's on your own house talking, your

kids are talking, your wife's talking,

your husband's talking, whatever. Listen

to people. you know, listen to them on

the phone where you only get one half of

the conversation to see what it sounds

like and feels like. That is really the

best exercise. Just live in it in the

real moment and then go back home and

see if you can duplicate that to an

astonishingly accurate degree. And if

you can, all of a sudden, your dialogue

is going to sound a lot better.

But then you really have to get into the

head of your character. Um, you know, an

example for me would be Amos Decker.

Again, um, he's different. You know, he

processes information differently. He

has no social graces. He has a hard time

relating to people. So, that's kind of a

wash on that side of his life. He can be

abrupt and abrasive. So, if that's how

I've built his character, I can't let

his dialogue be sound like, you know,

um, uh, someone, you know, someone who's

just upbeat and bright and normal and

all that. It would just be a total

disconnect. So get into the heads of

your character is going to tell you what

are they going to sound like and what

are the words they're going to use and

how are they going to interact with

other people. If you've written them out

to be sort of a milk toast and doesn't

like to make waves, then he's not going

to jump up and down and start screaming

at people either. That would be totally

out of character unless you have some

other plot point that allows him

plausibly to do that. So for me with

Amos Decker, I understood that he

doesn't like to communicate with people.

So he would be abrupt and abrasive and

the language, his sentences would be

short. he would make really startling

observations not caring uh the impact it

had on people's feelings because that

was not something he could really relate

to or understand. So that shifted his

entire dialogue, you know, the the

arsenal of dialogue that I would allow

him to use. Um I've softened that over

time in in several books, but in the

very first one that was his character

and to be true to him, that had to be

his dialogue.

I think it's always a good exercise to

read the dialogue out loud. And you

probably you you probably heard this

advice from other writers as well or if

you've taken courses. Um read the

dialogue out loud. That's kind of the

best way to test your ear, not just your

sight. Um and that's really how you can

tell if something is ringing true or it

sounds kind of false or contrived. You

don't want dialogue to feel contrived.

If you're really worried about a

particular scene that may go on for a

little bit, you know, have a friend,

significant other, someone you trust

read the dialogue with you. I mean,

actors do that all the time. Uh, when

you're when you're doing a script, just

it it's a good way to determine is this

does the cadence, is the pacing, does it

sound right, uh, that people are talking

this way. Um, and and I oftentimes when

I'm writing dialogue, I will just as I'm

typing along and I stop and I just go

back and forth. I'll do the whole

dialogue and I'll say it out loud and

you know back and forth all the way

through and then I'm like, "Yeah, you

know, that part sounds good. This part I

need a little bit of work on this part."

So sometimes it's as simple as just

saying it out loud.

Technical information, particularly in

the world that I read and genre, it's

unavoidable. It just it permeates

everything that I write about whether it

be the federal government, law

enforcement, military. It just spies,

intelligence, clandestine units around

the world. That's just that's just the

world. 9 mil 9mm Glock is a Glock

handgun. A SIG. SIG is a sig sour

pistol. Everybody would know what that

is. Um trace is trace forensic evidence.

Um in post-mortems, you know, you you

weigh you weigh organs and you get laser

sight lines. You know the trajectory of

bullets. you know, you might just say

drag instead of trajectory of bullets.

Um, so there is a shortorthhand that you

kind of need to understand and that

research will allow you to understand

that better. And I I would say as as a

writer, you got to you have to balance

it because keep in mind that the reader

may not have any of these specialized

skills. And the last thing you want to

do is lose the reader because you're

using all these idioms and you know

colloquial terms they may not know

because you want to be really cool about

the fact that I know all this stuff and

I know the shortorthhand because these

characters are doing the shorthand. Got

to be really careful about that because

the reader is lost and they're like what

the hell did he just say? Then you've

done no service to the story at all. But

in limited doses uh where it makes

really good sense and would not confuse

a reader and you have to keep this all

in mind when you're writing it. Then you

as writer can do that. You can

shortorthhand stuff because people are

not going to just say it all out.

There's no reason for them to do that.

What I like to do is inhabit my stories

with people who are both really in that

world and speak that language and then

also have people who are outside of that

world uh that sort of act for me. they

sort of stand in for the reader. That

allows a plausible way for the people

with these specialized skills to slow it

down a little bit and say, "This is what

I'm talking about. This is what I'm

referring to." And that's the way you

can break down tech information in a way

that is very plausible and true to the

story. Because who wouldn't ask those

questions if you were in the middle of

all this and you didn't know what was

going on? You, the reader, would ask

those questions. I I don't I'm not

getting this. And then lo and behold,

here's a character in the book that

conveniently asks the question you had

on your lips and it gets answered that

way. So technical, you know, technical

language, I need it. I use it in my

books all the time. U but I also try to

juxtaposition it next to some element

that allows me to explain uh to the

reader through another character in the

book exactly if it's really really

complicated what they're talking about.

But don't believe that your readers

don't believe that you have to dumb down

your to your reader. Uh pe people are

smart. People read a lot. They have a

lot of access to stuff online. they may

know more than you think that they know.

Uh so don't try to make it too

simplified because then that insults the

reader and that's the last thing you

want to do.

So this uh dialogue that I'm reading

from is from the last mile.

It's about maybe a quarter of the way uh

through the book. Now to set this scene

up, Amos Decker was a college football

player. He played at Ohio State and then

he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns

and he played not even a season for them

because that's when he got leveled on

the field and almost died. So his career

was over. He had his traumatic brain

injury. But this guy knows a lot about

football and the young man that he's

talking to in the scene is a high school

football player who's played his whole

life. This kid also knows a lot about

football. And the scene is set up that

Decker has gone to this kid's high

school. He's the son of a woman who's a

suspect in a crime. So Decker's going

there to talk to this kid to see what he

might learn about, you know, sort of

surreptitiously about the mother through

the son. And the son is at football.

He's at a high school football practice.

So the team is playing, you know,

they're practicing and the kid comes

over and he's talking to Decker. And

Decker is trying to gain the kids trust

a little bit. So here's how he does it.

Decker said, "What's your best running

play?" Tommy is a young man's name. We

call it the firecracker. Fake the A gap

blast to the fullback. Pitch to me on

the left edge. I cut back to the B gap

and then make a stutter to clear the

line. Let the tight end do a cutback

scraping the backer and I hit the corner

and I'm gone. Always good for at least

10 yards until the safety makes a

tackle. We run it on third and long

because the box ain't stacked and the

secretary's playing cover too soft

thinking we're going to pass.

There are two other people in this

scene. Linda Davenport, who's a clinical

psychologist and she's part of Decker's

FBI team. Ross Bogart, who is all FBI

special agent, and they're listening to

this as well. So, here's Linda uh

Davenport.

I didn't understand a single word of

that, said Beused Davenport. If it makes

you feel any better, neither did I,

commented Bogart.

Decker glanced over at the other players

running a formation. So, you obviously

run the tight end on that side of his

job to scrape the backer. Yep, said

Tommy. Extra blocker, right? But he's

not being properly utilized. He looked

back at Tommy. Okay, tell your coach to

scratch the stutter. The blast would

have frozen the interior lineman anyway,

so don't waste the time. You want to hit

the B gap at speed. You let the left

tackle crash down to seal the edge. The

guard comes around to do the scrape on

the backer that allows the tight end to

release and you follow his butt down the

field. He engages the safety with his

left shoulder if the guy comes up and

tries to make a play and forces him to

the outside. Well, you push off hard to

the inside. If the corner's in soft

cover, too, he probably will have

already committed to the outside edge

because of the pitch. You'll have a

receiver on him blocking, so you don't

have to worry much about him. If you've

got decent wheels, you're home free down

the seam for a lot more than 10 yards.

Maybe endzone if you're fast enough to

beat the angle the other safety takes.

Tommy broke into a broad grin. Damn,

man. Thanks.

That is a scene where there are two

people who know a subject matter

intimately. Um, and they're talking

about it as if they know it intimately.

They both understand this foreign

language.

What I did that was a little bit extra

and I did it for this reason. I included

two people in there, Davenport and

Bogart, who know nothing about football.

So the reader probably halfway through

is going, "What the hell are these

people talking about? I'm totally lost."

But then they see Bogart and Davenport

go, "What the hell are they talking

about? I'm totally lost in this." The

reader knows, you know what? It's okay.

This is not going to be vital to the

investigation is going to be ongoing.

This is a way for Decker on a oneoff to

sort of gain the trust of this kid by

talking about his subject matter. This

kid really is interested in football so

that then he can then talk to the kid

and gain some information that will help

the investigation going forward. But

that is a particular scene where two

people with really intimate knowledge of

a particular subject area uh subject

matter are going at