The YouTube video “So You Want to Write a Novel” is making the rounds of author, publisher, and agent blogs. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll sum up: a pair of cartoon characters, one an industry member and one a would-be writer discuss the would-be writer’s future success. The audio and animation flow smoothly through wonderful computer generated, their voices remaining perfectly level throughout the piece.

It’s the second clip I’ve seen made with this software. Both clips felt wrong to me, and it took me a while to realize that smoothness is why. Speech is not level. Some words are whispered, others screamed. Even when speaking at a regular volume we put more breath into some letters. Without these natural changes in inflection, the increase and decrease in volume as we speak words, the characters convey no emotions. If the would-be author in the clip were to write the dialogue, it might look something like this:

“I’m going to be an author,” he said.
“Have you read any books,” she said.
“No. But I’m going to write a best seller,” he said.
“I’ve never even seen you with a book,” she said.
“I saw all of the Harry Potter movies,” he said.
“That’s not the same thing,” she said.

Of course even our would-be author from the video probably knows that you shouldn’t overuse the word said. No doubt he’s visited one of the many helpful websites like “214 words to use instead of said”. His dialogue would probably look like this:

“I’m going to be an author,” he declared.
“Have you read any books,” she queried.
“No. But I’m going to write a best seller,” he responded.
“I’ve never even seen you with a book,” she exclaimed.
“I saw all of the Harry Potter movies,” he informed.
“That’s not the same thing,” she protested.

Eventually our would-be author will find a beta-reader or editor. He’ll discover the different said words sound dreadful when used together. Hopefully, he’ll swap some of them for a few descriptive words:

“I’m going to be an author,” he said, passionately.
“Have you read any books,” she queried.
“No. But I’m going to write a best seller,” he declared.
“I’ve never even seen you with a book,” she said, exasperated.
“I saw all of the Harry Potter movies,” he said in a huff.
“That’s not the same thing,” she said, her voice rising.

Better, but not great. While the YouTube video lacks any emotion the piece above almost has too much. Not every word a person says needs to be described. Also, in most dialogue you can leave off the ‘he said’ ‘she said’ tags and not confuse readers. (This gets harder with more than two characters speaking. Reading good books with complex conversations will give you a feel for it. )

“I’m going to be an author,” he declared.
“Have you read any books?” she asked, confused.
“No, but I’m going to write a best seller.”
“I’ve never even seen you with a book!”
“I saw all of the Harry Potter movies.”
“That’s not the same thing,” she replied, her voice rising.

Dialogue tags break up the flow of a conversation, so I removed most of them. I threw in some non-period punctuation marks. I don’t believe in abusing exclamation marks, but they do help convey emotion. I’ll admit my last choice “her voice rising” is questionable. If her voice is rising, what’s it rising toward? In the video her next line is something about having a gun in her car, I think a death threat warrants the verb. Do you agree? Any objections to my treatment of this snippet of dialogue? Any great dialogue resources you’d recommend?