I
once took my car to an insurance evaluator. He walked around it in
semi-darkness and immediately told me all the details of every
collision I had been involved in. He knew exactly what to look for
and how to interpret it.
In
the same way you can open a novel in a random page, look at the
dialogue, and say with some certitude how well the particular author
handles dialogue without even reading the dialogue itself. Good
dialogue in a novel can easily be distinguished by its mechanics.
Here are three things you have to look for to spot bad dialogue:
a)
The emotions of characters are described.
Does
the author find it necessary to tell you that John is angry, happy,
sad, astonished or surprised after someone said something? Then you
are reading bad dialogue. In good dialogue, the author doesn't have
to describe the emotions of the characters involved. The words in the
dialogue should carry the emotions of the characters to the reader.
And the reader will evolve his personal take on the character. Good
dialogue allows the reader to feel the speaker's or listener's
emotions.
