What the Heck is "Good" Dialogue?

Dialogue is hard.

I usually try to let the dialogue flow naturally out of my brain and onto the page, but sometimes, I'll try this and suddenly find that my dialogue is flowing naturally into the middle of nowhere. Perhaps you've encountered something similar.

So I've begun to wonder, what exactly is "good" dialogue, anyway?

And I think I've come up with a decent answer: dialogue is "good" whenever it achieves the purpose for which it was written.

Pretty vague, I know. I said it was a decent answer, not an amazing one. Cut me some slack.

But that brings up an important point: dialogue should always have a purpose. I don't usually deal in absolutes like "always" when it comes to story writing, but in this case, I honestly can't think of one legitimate exception. Dialogue needs to accomplish some task, and as the writer, you should be aware of what that task is.

And of course, you might use dialogue for any number of purposes, some more dramatic than others. For instance, I think the typical purpose for dialogue is simply to convey information to the reader. Certainly, all dialogue does this to some degree, but sometimes it's much more important than others. You might be explaining the way some key aspect of your story works (the distinction between different social classes, the reason why certain people can use magic, etc.), in which case, the information you're providing is probably the most important feature of your dialogue. So you would want to make sure to explain things clearly, rather than try to make it all sound terribly witty. Contrast that with a different purpose for dialogue, like say to flesh out a relationship between two characters, and we have ourselves a bit of a conflict. Obviously, not every piece of dialogue is meant to be very enlightening for the reader; a lot of the time, dialogue is merely meant to portray some minor emotion that a character feels and nothing else, in which case, I would say that dialogue is still "good," because it accomplished its goal.

I would consider dialogue to be "bad" if it serves no purpose whatsoever. Of course, you might be able to argue in some vague, grasping fashion that some piece of dialogue does, in fact, serve some purpose, but the point is to be completely honest with oneself about this sort of thing, so if you can't rightly pinpoint a specific purpose for your dialogue, then there's a decent chance that hunk of dialogue should be done away with.

However, perhaps the most difficult aspect of distinguishing "good" from "bad," in this case, is the fact that, sometimes, the purpose for which we employ our dialogue is itself a bad idea, a bad purpose. Take, for instance, the two examples I mentioned before. If you're merely trying to "convey information" when your characters are sharing their hopes and desires, then you're probably not doing your dialogue justice. Likewise, if you're trying to "flesh out your characters" when you're telling the reader all about the inner workings of society, then you'll likely encounter a similar problem. It might not always be so easy to spot, but hopefully you get the basic idea.

So what then? Perhaps you do accomplish your "goal," insofar that your dialogue does achieve some semblance of conveying your desired information, but maybe your goal isn't the right one to be striving for at the time. In that case, you'd need to focus on rethinking the entire premise of your dialogue - not just what your characters are saying, but actually where and why and how the dialogue takes place. Sounds like a pain in the ass, I guess, but sometimes the best course of action really is a pain in the ass.

Personally, I absolutely hate throwing out large chunks of text, and sometimes, I'd rather try to chisel away at something that doesn't work for nine weeks, instead of starting over from scratch like I should. And of course, if I do actually throw something out, then I don't just delete it, but tuck it away in some other place, where I can go back later and be appalled at how bad it is, because somewhere in the back of my head, I think it still might be of some value.

And I just started rambling about my bad writing habits for no reason. I apologize for that. I should probably cut that out of this post, but I really don't feel like it for some reason. Maybe it'll make this post seem more endearing. OR MAYBE I'M JUST BEING TERRIBLY IRONIC. BAHAHA.

More importantly, when it comes to dialogue, the most essential thing to remember is that it should serve some purpose, and being aware of that purpose is the first step in turning that dialogue into something really worthwhile. Otherwise, we're just kinda guessing. And I dunno about you, but I have awful luck, so I'd rather not depend on that.