The Fiction Writer's Guide to Dialogue: A Fresh Look at an Essential Ingredient of the Craft

by John Hough Jr.

Dialogue is often overlooked as a necessary and potent instrument in the novelist’s repertoire. A novel can rise or fall on the strength of its dialogue. Superb dialogue can make a superb novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Action is character.” George V. Higgins said, “Dialogue is character.” They were both right, because dialogue is action. It comprises much, if not all, of the clarifying drama of any novel. How much physical action can there be in 300 pages, even in a crime novel or a thriller? And all conflict, even physical, begins as dialogue.

Hough explains how dialogue can reveal a character’s nature as well as his or her defining impulses and emotions. He says there must be tension in every colloquy in fiction, and shows the reader ways to achieve it. Hough illustrates his precepts with examples from his own work and from that of the best modern writers of dialogue, including Cormac McCarthy, Kent Haruf, Joan Didion, Annie Proulx, Lee Smith, Elmore Leonard, George V. Higgins, William Kennedy and Howard Frank Mosher. He cites early 20th century writers who refined and advanced dialogue as an art form: Ernest Hemingway, Ring Lardner, Dorothy Parker, and William Saroyan.

Hough’s novel Seen the Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg was praised by Lee Smith as containing “the best dialogue of the period I have ever read.” Hough on Dialogue will give writers and aspiring writers a fresh look at one of the essential ingredients of their craft.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Crafts, Education

160 pages, Paperback

First published February 3, 2015

About the author

John Hough, Jr. grew up in Falmouth, Massachusetts and now lives on Martha’s Vineyard. He is a graduate of Haverford College, a former VISTA volunteer, speech writer for Senator Charles Mathias of Maryland, and assistant to James Reston at the Washington Bureau of the New York Times. His grandfather and his father edited the Falmouth Enterprise and his great-uncle was for many years the editor of the Vineyard Gazette. Hough is the author of five previous novels, including

Seen the Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg, winner of the American Library Association's 2010 W. Y. Boyd Award, and three works of nonfiction.

Reviews

[Owen Townend · Rating 4 out of 5]

"So what did you think?"
"Hough has a very particular kind of dialogue in mind."
"Let me guess. Hemingway?"
"Yup. And McCarthy and all the other macho Western writers."
"Very plain-spoken English then."
"Americanised English certainly. He did refer to Dickens's dialogue but that was about it for the UK."
"I suppose he referred to his own books too?"
"Of course. That's a perk of penning a writing guide."
"But was it useful at all?"
"There were a few lessons to be learned. The part about being particular with description midway through conversation was actually rather useful."
"How so?"
I stopped to look at him. "Description is best used to mean more than just a simple gesture. The reader can assume that two people are looking at one another but to halt proceedings and say so must be for a very pointed reason."
"That makes sense. Anything else?"
"Hough also advised book writers not to draw too much from scripted dialogue. Then again that felt more of a personal quibble about the way actor's enhance lines with their own delivery."
"Another case of the book did it better?"
"Of course."
"Anything else?"
"He also discussed the pros and cons of accent writing."
"Ahm guessin that was more abaht the Southern accent?"
"Just a mite, pilgrim."
"Shucks. Final thoughts?"
"The Fiction Writer's Guide to Dialogue has some useful hints and tips but it's very much eschewed towards Deep South literature. I assume because that's Hough's own preferred genre."
"Fair enough. Is it recommendable?"
"To those who admire American literature from Mark Twain to Annie Proulx. And who have been toying with leaving out speech marks when writing their own dialogue."
Sounds good.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a joke going around that I can't find, but it's something like:

How to draw a cat in 3 easy steps:
1) draw a circle for the face
2) draw a larger oval for the body
3) a fully shaded gorgeous drawing of a cat.

Much of which applies to Hough's book. He has a certain kind of writing in mind, muscular American dialog in the tradition of Mark Twain, Hemingway, and Cormac McCarthy. Hough himself writes literary novels about the Civil War and the Old West, and he treats those the most important topics.

Some of Hough's advice is elementary, and quite solid. Avoid words other than "said", and said is itself a pacing mechanism, a way to insert a little pause into a rapid back and forth. Similarly, adverbs can be discarded. Great dialog is poetic, hyperreal, the tense whipcracks that reveal character and emotion without a lot of adornment. But dialog is also impossible to separate from character and plot, and Hough assumes that you're able to produce fully shaded stories on command.

[Shawn Rusich · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book I've read that dealt exclusively with dialogue. It has much of the same advice as more general fiction-writing books (Self-Editing for Fiction Writers or Stein on Writing), but it gives a decent number of specific passages and analysis to go along with the points to the advice.

Some of the examples are older (Moby Dick and Huck Finn being really old but some Cormac McCarthy and Joan Didion and Hemingway) but still work.

It's a quick read.

[Sydney Gilliam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This may have been the first time reading a book on writing that I had a hard time with. I think it boils down to personal preference because it felt more like essays versus introducing technique. Regardless I did learn something and that is enough for me.

[Liz Busby · Rating 2 out of 5]

34% and I'm done.

I didn't find this book very useful. It talks a lot about what dialogue can do and then gives examples of when various authors are doing it. But it offers little in the way of practical instruction. You are left to figure out from the examples how to accomplish these things. It reads like someone trying to prove that dialogue can characterize, not someone trying to help you understand how to do it.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd mixture. The good: interesting guidelines about what makes good dialogue. The bad: the supposed examples of good dialogue randomly range from excellent to execrable. It's like the author is parroting guidelines he has heard from others but has a tin ear for dialogue himself.

[Allan Walsh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book Review – The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Dialogue by John Hough, Jr.
The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Dialogue by John Hough, Jr. as the title suggests, is a non-fiction guide to writing dialogue.

The Cover: The cover and title clearly represent the non-fiction genre.

The Bad Stuff: To be brutally honest, this book did not inspire me to keep reading. I skimmed most of it because it didn’t hold my interest. I thought a lot of the examples were dated and while I understand the author’s use of them to demonstrate his point, I found the book a tad boring.

The Good Stuff: While this book failed to get my mind racing with interest, the content is valid and may very well help some authors to improve their writing of dialogue. As a personal preference though, this book was not for me.

Overall, I didn’t find this book much use. I do acknowledge that there is merit to the content though, and because of that I’m giving this book a yawning 2 out of 5 golden bookmarks.

[Lynn Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Hough Jr.'s book was so helpful in the first 5 (of 8) chapters. His advice proved insightful and sharpened up the dialogue in my novel draft. It was worth having the book for those 5 chapters.

After that, Mr. Hough spent about 50 pages talking about how characters speak/accents, which really bogged down my reading (and I gave myself permission to skim some pages, which I rarely do in a book). Out of 136 pages total, 50 pages is more than sufficient on that topic. He used examples with very heavy regional dialect that likely do not apply to a large percentage of writers. I'm guessing that particular subject fascinated him!

Expect LOTS of examples of dialogue from different novels. Some were helpful but not all and many used profanity (heads up).

[Ann Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important Info Delivered in a Fun Way

This book is chockablock with important information about the all-important art of writing dialogue, and it’s delivered in a really fun, relatable, readable style. I highly recommend it as a good quick overview or refresher for all fiction writers.

[Stan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a lot of examples of good dialogue but very little instruction on how to write it.

[Janet Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an author, I've read several books on dialogue. John Hough gives lots of examples you can us in your writing right now.

[L M Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It really helped me understand the basics of dialog and see my own writing more clearly

[Eloisa Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic guide. I have post-it's throughout my copy and refer to it often in my writing process.

[Nisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t finish this. It was too lengthy and rambling with a ton of overly long excerpts from dated books. I found some of it helpful but lost interest around 70%.

[Christopher Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential for every writer. Digestible, yet much to think about. I immediately started putting some of the ideas into practice.

[Antonia Deignan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read with lots of dialogue hints and treasures for fiction writers. Loved it.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent resource if you want to improve the dialogue in your fiction.

[Colton Stock · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Make every word work for you.”

[Joanna Bair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Other people have recommended other books on dialogue to me but this was by far the most helpful one I have read.

[Vanessa Rubin · Rating 5 out of 5]

enjoyed it!

Very Practical, great examples, gets to the point. Look forward touching up my own dialogue in the book I wrote.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a review of this book in The Vineyard Gazette and ordered it (thanks for the gift card mom) from Barnes and Noble along with Daughters of the Samurai. I think this might be the only writing book on craft I have ever read cover to cover. (I have over 20 books on writing on my shelves that I own). The author's approach was so straightforward and contained such great examples that it rocked my world. I had been struggling with how a student should approach writing dialogue for a young child. There it was, a chapter on dialects and accents that was brilliant. I think that anyone trying to write dialogue should read/own this spare book. It has guidelines but then shows when the "rules" are broken and why. It has greatly helped me as a teacher working with all age students. The dialogue has to reveal the character or advance the narrative, otherwise, use narration. I am going to recommend this to anyone working in any genre (okay, maybe not the poets).

[Elham Nosrati · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a helpful book to improve dialogue writing. I liked this book as its teaching language is simple and understandable. In addition, it has many examples from a number of best fiction authors to help the reader understand the lessons.
The other thing that I liked about the book is that sometimes the author has mentioned his own preferences for a special case and then he has also mentioned other possible options.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This does what it says in the title. It is a comprehensive guide on writing good dialogue and how it can be used. There are lots and lots of examples and the author provides quite lengthy narratives on many of them. I found this very wearying and gave up about two-thirds into the book. I'm going to take another 'how to' author's advice and read lots of plays to help improve my dialogue writing skills.

[Julie theriault]

a good book about writing dialogue

[Sarah Yoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of dialogue writing. Once I've learned to apply Hough's tips, I'll round out my understanding of dialogue by exploring another writer's perspective. Gotta keep learning!

[Roger Mendoza · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a short helpful book.