Words to the wise Mastering the art of dialogue BY CHRIS WRIGHT

The hardest part of writing a novel, besides resisting the urge to begin it with "Once upon a time," is the dialogue. I know this because, despite the fact that my own novel has never really gotten beyond "It was wet," I have an ear for these things. I am, as my fellow novelist André Breton might have said, a dialogiste. While there are few who will ever reach the dialogical heights that I have, there are some rules that will help the budding author avoid looking like a complete twit.

Authenticity. If dialogue were a car, it would not be a BMW gliding down the expressway; it would be a Hyundai grinding through morning traffic. Dialogue is full of sudden stops and starts. It swerves to avoid things and backs up when it hits dead ends. Sometimes it will start making rattling noises and steam will shoot out of the hood. In extreme cases, it will run over, and kill, a pedestrian. Consider this exchange, from my story "The Illuminated Goiter": "So, um, it’s not exactly, you know, it’s not that I, that I thought you ..." "Hiyah!" "Ouch."

Themes. In fiction, even the most banal statements are loaded with what we call "subtexts" — or, literally, "other stuff." Let’s say, for instance, that someone asks a character if he wants fries with that. Normally, a simple yes or no would suffice. But in fiction, buried beneath the surface of this innocuous question are underlying issues. Maybe our character was pelted with French fries as a child, and thus suffers from poor self-esteem. If so, he should go home, slather himself with beef fat, and eat himself into a coma.

Action. With dialogue, words don’t only say things, they cause things to happen. A character may notice someone about to get hit by a model airplane and yell, "Duck!" But it can be more subtle than this. If the character yells, "Duck!" at a goose, the goose may get annoyed and peck the character to death. Thus "action" has occurred. And remember: a novel without action is like a duck without legs; it just bobs around, never going anywhere, and is eventually hit by the jet ski of terrible reviews.

Rhythm. Compelling dialogue has a certain cadence. The playwright David Mamet, for instance, has his characters speak in trochaic dimeter: "DAMN you! EAT me!" It’s a subtle distinction, but had Mamet’s character said, "Fuck YOU! EAT me!" the rhythm would have been off and audiences would have rioted. Dialogue should be like a drum solo. If someone’s happy, it should go badda-bip-bap. If he’s angry it should go, badda-bum-baah! If he’s on his way to make a drug deal, ptshh-uh-ptshh-uh-ptshh.

Idiom. If you have a character who hails from Queens, you cannot have him say, "My goodness, Nigel! Bravo!" Instead, the character should use an appropriate idiom: "Nig-el! Cool beans!" Likewise, if you are going to put words into the mouth of Sir Francis Drake, a "Talketh to the hand" will probably not do. There are, however, limits to using idiom. The Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh will routinely have his characters say things like, "Tha’ fucken wee Hibby chancer, ken?" when there is not a character named Ken to be found. Wrong.

Poetics. Introducing poetry into dialogue can be very useful. For instance, had Hamlet said, "I might kill myself today" instead of "To be, or not to be," then Shakespeare might have ended up working the concession stand at the Rose Theatre. But then there’s this, the second line of dialogue from Ernest Hemingway’s "Hills Like White Elephants": " ‘It’s pretty hot,’ the man said." Had the man said, "It’s like the infernal air beyond Lethe, where the three-headed Cerberus slakes its gluttonous thirst," then Hemingway would have been a dolt. It’s a fine line.

Relevance. It’s extremely important to have dialogue that matches the action (see above). If a Baltimore police officer named Pete is being berated by a transvestite hooker he just busted, then "Hey, Wilhelm, pass the schnitzel" is going to leave the reader confused. Even the best of us make mistakes, however. My short story "Gringo Cappuccino" contains the line, "‘I dropped an onion on the floor,’ said Madge," when there was no onion, nor even a character named Madge.

Suspense. Ideally, dialogue should leave the reader so caught up in what’s being said that he misses his stop on the train and ends up getting mugged outside the Forest Hills station. In other words, there should be suspense. A character should never say, "Madge killed him!" He should say, "I know who killed him!" and then wait for three pages (two, if it’s a novella). Bear in mind, however, that your novel should contain a character named Madge (see above).

Brevity. " ‘I mean,’ said Robert to Roberta, picking his teeth with the what appeared to be a library card, or maybe a credit card, some sort of card anyway. ‘I cannot remember, ah, you know, what it is I said to you yesterday, that thing about things between us. What was it? I know it had something to do with, um, things. Between us. Yes, yes, that’s it’ — he stopped picking — ‘things between us have to change.’" No. Have Robert give Roberta the finger instead.

Conclusion. All novels, even Russian ones, must come to an end, and there is no better way to end a novel than with a line of dialogue. Some authors like to wrap things up with, "Hey, it was just a dream!" My own personal favorite, from my novella Sticky Eyelashes, is "Aaargghhh!", which manages to convey both urgency and mystery. And perhaps the best closing line ever came from the woefully underestimated Australian novelist Dan Clegg: "Okay, enough."

"Well, um," he said, "er ... ah ... Chris Wright can be reached at cwright[a]phx.com"