Dialogue is more than just the words your characters use in conversation. One of my favorite quotes about writing dialogue comes from John Yorke’s book Into the Woods. “Dialogue in books doesn’t reveal real conversations–it presents the illusion of conversation, subservient to the demands of characterization and structure.”
Dialogue in historical fiction can be a key aspect of creating an authentic reading experience. It can play a role in world building, character development, and plot. It’s not just about writing dialogue that fits the historical period, it’s another way to reveal more about the characters and their lives in a particular socio-economic setting. The language a character uses in dialogue communicates social standing, education, background, and sometimes even profession. The level of formality used in a character’s speech can reveal relationship dynamics that exist between characters. If the relationship changes, shifting the level of formality in their dialogue can help signal that evolution.
While drawing on the language of the time can help immerse readers in the historic world, it can also make a story difficult to read if taken too far. No one wants to wade through dense Middle English, except perhaps a few academics lost in old library vaults. Even dialects that are more familiar can be distracting if a reader must spend most of their time thinking about the meaning of each conversation. Authors should know that phonetic spellings are no longer an acceptable way to conveying dialect.
So what is an author to use instead? Luckily, there are many ways to ensure dialogue feels authentic without distracting the readers to the point they give up on a book altogether. If you are wondering how to figure out what dialogue sounded like in your historical period, I wrote about the best way to find sources of historical language.
Best practices for making dialogue serve your story
1. Choose a few choice words or phrases to lend a feel of the era and location without losing your modern reader. Think of these as the garnish that flavors the dialogue rather than the main dish. You can also just straight up state that a character speaks with an accent and carry on writing without using that accent much if at all. For example: He spoke with a thick brogue that reminded her of her grandfather.
2. Idioms and rhythm of speech can portray different times and places in history without using any archaic words. Sometimes all it takes is a focus on sentence construction (like word order and use of contractions) to give a sense of your characters background.
This example shows both a sprinkling of words and how the rhythm of speech can convey a historical atmosphere.
“Pray, what would your own words be, then?” …. “And the last? I offered words. Ye’ve returned but two. Ye owe me one.” Susannah Kearsley, The King’s Messenger.
3. Know the level of formality appropriate for your character in their historical period. You might even contrast a character’s current circumstances with their past by letting their dialogue slip into a more or less formal tone on occasion. Use contractions to lend a sense of informality or social status. Like anything else, too many contractions or taking them to the extreme can frustrate even the most dedicated reader.
4. Slang from a particular historical period is often very effective for conveying a sense of time and place. It can also provide insight into character background and the nature of their relationships with others.
6. Don’t use dialogue to share information that the characters should already know. It may seem tempting to share historical information with the reader that way, but it always stands out as being an awkward exchange. The characters wouldn’t need the information explained, they live in that world!
7. Dialogue tags and action tags are meant to guide the reader through the conversation so they don’t get lost. The best dialogue tags fade into the background which is why “said” is a perfectly good tag most of the time. Using adverbs or non-speech actions like sigh, take away from the dialogue itself. If you want your character to sigh, use an action tag instead. Action tags include movement, expressions, and gestures.
Instead of this:
“That wasn’t what I meant at all,” Sarah sighed.
Try this:
“That wasn’t what I meant at all.” Sarah sighed and began chopping the carrots with unnecessary force.
8. Skip the mundane. Putting something in dialogue brings attention to it so it’s usually better to remove repeated words such as ums and ahhs. The same goes for small talk and other banal exchanges. Yes, people do chat about the weather and have generic greetings with one another, but just like readers don’t need to see the character’s step-by-step daily activities, they don’t need to read the mundane dialogue. You can skip to the heart of it or summarize it.
Instead of this:
“Well, I’ll say goodnight then.”
“Yes, have a lovely evening. Goodnight.”
Stopping she turned and asked, “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”
Try this:
She said goodnight but then stopped and asked, “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”
9. Make sure the dialogue has a clear purpose in your scenes. Just like other elements of story, dialogue should only take up space on the page if it is doing something to reveal character or move the story forward. Adding emotion to dialogue helps layer in conflict and deepen characterization.
10. Dialogue is closely intertwined with character. You can’t create good dialogue until you know your characters well. Once you do though, dialogue can reveal a character’s response, emotions, and illuminate subtext in relationships.
11. Avoid monologues and keep the dialogue grounded in the scene. This is one reason action tags can be so useful when writing dialogue. Instead of two bobble heads sharing a conversation that could take place at any time or location, anchoring the conversation into a character’s movement through a specific setting and layering in internal reactions creates a dynamic scene that is inherently more interesting to read.
Key takeaways
It’s okay to use modern dialogue in a historical fiction novel! The key is to make it feel authentic while still being readable. There is a bigger risk that you will lose your reader with too much clunky archaic dialogue than the reverse. Instead, give your reader a sense of your historical world by sprinkling in just the right amount flavor into the dialogue.
