When I first started writing legal briefs a couple of decades ago, almost every brief started with the phrase “Comes now the plaintiff/defendant….” As legal writing evolved, legalese (rightfully) lost ground to readability. But to this day, when I start the first draft of a brief, whether I write the words or just think them, that first draft starts with that phrase. I have no intention of keeping the phrase, but those first four words give me a formula that settles any nerves I have about what I’m writing and helps me get over the mental block of deciding how to start. It is a routine that comforts me.
With every brief I have finished – and by finish, I mean it is written, proofread, edited, and edited again – the very last thing I do before filing it with the Court, even if I’ve done it throughout the writing process, is go through the brief one last time and check that every single one of my cites is still valid. I think it’s good luck to do so. So, checking the cites that one last time is a ritual.
In my creative writing, dialogue is something I am still struggling with. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I have to remind myself that dialogue in fiction should be thought of as a “greatest hits” version of the dialogue we hear around us every day. If you don’t believe me, count the number of “ums”, pauses, “likes” and various other filler words you hear in the normal conversations around you and then imagine seeing those same conversations in print verbatim. Worse, imagine having to read those conversations. (If you are in the legal field, you already know lawyers do that every time we have to read a deposition – testimony taken by a court reporter outside of court. Trust me; it can make reading and listening difficult.)
Dialogue not only needs to be a “greatest hits" version of real-life conversation, but it also needs to be broken up periodically. Dialogue tags (“Sally said,” “Eric shouted,” “William asked”) help keep the reader straight on who is speaking. But an individual’s routines and personal rituals also can break a large block of dialogue into digestible chunks. For example, if two of your characters are discussing the latest murder in the kitchen at breakfast, one of them might be fixing coffee during the conversation while the other person is toasting a bagel. Both activities call for short actions that can be interspersed with the dialogue to set the pace and flow you want your characters’ dialogue to maintain.
What suggestions do you have to help break up chunks of dialogue and make your work more readable?
