The power of the throwaway phrase

[John Dean]

I have written before in my  blogs about the power of dialogue to breathe life into stories and, as I work on my latest DCI Blizzard crime novel, it is doing it again.

Yet the dialogue that is jumping off the page is not all dramatic revelation, it also includes those little phrases that give readers the sense that real people are speaking and not just created characters.

I use, for instance, use phrases like ‘if you ask me’, ‘if memory serves’ and ‘if I had my way’, little phrases that make the dialogue sound more realistic. None of them are necessary, you can  delete them all and the sentences will still make sense but they do add a dash of colour.

Getting the dialogue working is crucial to the momentum of writing; on so many occasions when I have found the writing process slowing down, the solution has usually been to let the characters talk while I type what they say.

You can be sure that there will be two results. One is that by letting things flow, you will have grossly overwritten and some harsh editing will be required, but, more importantly, by using the technique, complete with those little phrases, there will be something to write in the first place. They might not all survive the editing but they will have done their job – if you ask me!