Why does all my dialogue sound stupid?

To continue from yesterday's questions posed by my friend, Heather, here is one about dialogue (my favorite thing to write!)

Heather: Why does all my dialogue sound stupid?

First of all, I laughed when I got this question, mostly because it probably doesn't sound stupid.

In my opinion, dialogue sounds "stupid" when:

a) It's not realistic enough.
b) It's too realistic.

Here are some things to think about...

Thoughts on Writing -- Questions on Setting

Last week I put up a call for questions, and one of my friends got back to me with some great ones. Here are three that focus on setting with the answers. I will likely do this again later this month, so if YOU have any questions, please leave them in the comments and I will add them to my list. You can ask ANYTHING that has to do with writing.

How do you describe setting without sounding like a nature documentary? 

Too much landscape description or being too broad in your description is what makes it sound like a nature documentary. When you think about it, in modern fiction, how often do you need to describe the landscape? Most of the time, it's not that important. Zoom in. What is important to your character at that moment in time? I am a minimalist when it comes to this department. But, my general rule? The five senses. Try to touch (hehe) on each of them. What does your character see, hear, smell, feel, taste? Obviously, you can't always apply all five, but forcing yourself to think of all these things will help you to enrich the setting. Remember, you want readers to have freedom to think; too much detail doesn't leave much up to the imagination, but you need enough of a sprinkling that you can set the stage for the reader.

How important is it to actually describe a setting?

Important. Every writer has somewhere they really thrive. Some love setting, some dialogue, some action, others prose or internal monologue. I don't usually focus as much on setting as I probably should, as I mentioned before, I like to leave a lot up to the reader's mind -- instead, I like dialogue (a post on this coming soon); I could live entirely in a book of dialogue, both writing, and reading, it's so much fun. But that's lazy. Setting is important. My friend, Linda Simoni-Wastila, is amazinggg with setting, I envy her talent. I'd love to get her answer to this question (and if she takes me up on this...I will put a link to her blog post right here...:)) But, in short, setting is extremely important. It's a tool that you can use to set the mood, manipulate the tone, and generally direct the reader's mind into the place where you want them to be. I like to establish it near the beginning. Set up that place where your characters can thrive. Then you have the ability to move within that space.

Thank you for the questions, Heather. Check out posts to come later this month with more answers!

Listening To Your Novel (or Having a Conversation by Yourself)

Want to feel crazy? Become a writer. I frequently have conversations with “myself” aloud or on paper. For this entry, I’m going to talk a little about these conversations we writers have aloud.