Showerthought: I spent 3 years writing dialogue that sounded like nobody talks

I was working on a short story for my local writers group in Austin last month and one of the members, a playwright named Jenna, read my first page and just said 'people don't actually say that.' She pointed out three lines where my characters were explaining their feelings too perfectly, like they were reading a therapy script. After that I started listening to real conversations at coffee shops and realized normal people interrupt, trail off, and avoid saying what they mean half the time. Now I go back through my drafts and cut any line that sounds like it was written by someone trying to sound smart. Has anyone else had that moment where you caught your own writing sounding fake and had to fix it?

3 comments

3 Comments

wyatt_green3115d ago

Man that Jenna sounds like a real one for being that honest. My buddy Marco went through this exact thing for his podcast script last year. He wrote this whole dramatic scene where two friends fight then make up perfectly and say all the right things. He played it for his girlfriend who just stared at him and asked when people actually talk like that in real life. So he started recording his own group chats and phone calls with permission and transcribing them. Total mess. People talk in circles, repeat themselves, use the wrong words on purpose. Now his rule is if it sounds too clean he rewrites it sloppy.

jenny_coleman15d ago

That "too clean" rule makes sense for dialogue but real honesty isn't always messy. Sometimes people actually say what they mean clearly, it just depends on the person.

jesser7915d ago

Yeah I gotta kinda disagree with you there. I get what you're saying about clear honesty existing, but @wyatt_green31's buddy's experiment proves the point pretty well. When people actually talk raw and unfiltered it's never that polished. Sure sometimes a person can say exactly what they mean in a straight line, but that's usually after they've already thought it through or rehearsed it in their head a few times. The messy stuff is the initial gut reaction, the stuttering, the backtracking. That's what feels real in a story or a conversation. Clean honesty can come off like a prepared speech even if it's genuine.