A dialogue can make any story more interesting. But what makes a good conversation between your characters? What are the pitfalls in erotica?

When I was a jury member of the Smut Marathon – an English writing contest for erotica – the contestants were challenged to write a story containing dialogue. The challenge seemed easy enough:

A man and a woman (strangers to each other) are stuck in a lift for hours.
What happens while they are there? What do they say? What do they do?
Please use at least 30% of dialogue in your story and for this round no scenes that can be classified as BDSM.

The biggest pitfall is that the story could easily become a cliche: Elevator brakes down, they have unexpected sex, suddely elevator works again and they go their separate ways. Last time, I gave some tips on how to prevent cliches.

After this many rounds, I expect the remaining writers to be capable of writing and to be able to come up with an original plot. As a jury member it gets more difficult to assign my votes. Getting noticed by originality might be the best way to stick out and score some points.

Dialogue and the importance of punctuation

The story of this round was not only supposed to be interesting, realistic and original, but it also had to contain 30% of dialogue.

There are different rules for punctuation in dialogue. I really don’t care which one you choose, as long as you stick to one consistently. I use the Dutch rules of ‘Het Genootschap Onze Taal‘.

Here are some general rules for using punctuation in dialogue:

A. Start spoken text on a new line

When somewhere in your text someone starts to talk, you have to start that spoken text on a new line. Every time someone else begins to speak, you begin on a new line again.

They walked across the street. He started to talk.

“Why would you do that?”, he asks.

“Well, that’s just how it goes”, she answers.

The exception is when the person that speaks, first performs an action.

He shrugged. “I just think it’s weird” and he walked down the stairs.

B. Place spoken text in between brackets

Whether you use single (‘) or double (“) quotes, is not so important. It is a matter of taste. Just do it consistent. I use single quotes when I want to accentuate a word, or want to let the reader know that it is meant metaphorically, or cynical. You might also do that by making that word italic. The same goes for a quote within a quote:

“I told him: ‘don’t do it’, but he just wouldn’t listen.”

I always use double quotes for a quote or spoken sentence.

C. Punctuation within or outside the quotes?

All rules of punctuation also apply in principle for quotes. A spoken sentence starts with an uppercase and ends with a point, question mark or exclamation mark. There are no real rules for using combined punctuation marks. When you quote an entire sentence, all punctuation is within the quotes:

He said: “I don’t like that kind of stuff!”

The girl asked: “Shall I undress myself?”

When the sentence starts with the quote, the point drops (a question mark stays), and the quote is followed by a comma. After a question mark or exclamation mark, the comma can be left out, but that is not necessary.

“I don’t like that kind of stuff!”, he said.

“Shall I undress myself?” the girl asked.

Thoughts are usually not written in between quotes.

Tomorrow I will ask her, I thought.

There is a lot of doubt about the correct place of the comma when spoken language is interrupted. Even language books and – sites give different advice. I always place the comma in the quotes, when it also appears in the quoted sentence, and outside when that is not the case:

“Basically,” he said, “we had a wonderful evening.”

The complete quoted sentence is: ‘Basically, we had a wonderful evening.’

“Why”, my friend wanted to know, “does she act so weird?”

The complete quoted sentence is: ‘Why does she act so weird?’

On the other hand, some publishers of novels and fiction, apply different rules. The stick to the rule that all punctuation should go in between the quotes. Again, I couldn’t be bothered, as long as you do it consistently.

D. Watch out for ‘Dialogue tags’

A dialogue tag or dialogue label is an attribute that goes directly after the spoken text, and that gives meaning to the quote. In the sentence ‘”It is hot in herre”, he said’, the part ‘he said’ is called the dialogue tag. A dialogue tag is some kind of clue of the writer to the reader about the spoken text. And although they might come across as clarification, they can be rather boring  and possibly interfere with your story.

Dialogue tags can be distorting to the dialogue, especially when they relatively take a lot of space:

“I’m trying to concentrate”, Ben said.

“For what?”, Anna asked.

“For this report”, Ben said. “Something wrong?”

“No, nothing”, Anna said.

When the rule is that you use a new line each time someone else speaks, you might leave out some of those meaningless tags.

“I’m trying to concentrate”, Ben said.

“For what?”, Anna asked.

“For this report. Something wrong?”

“No, nothing.”

You might even prevent dialogue tags by having the personas use each other’s names:

“I’m trying to concentrate, Anna!”

“For what?”

“For this report. Something wrong?”

“No, Ben. Nothing.”

There are basically two camps when it comes to sing dialogue tags. One says that you should only use the verbs ‘say’, ‘ask’ and ‘answers’, because all other tags might just distract the reader. They argue that the reader just doesn’t really see the word ‘say’, as opposed to other more descriptive tags.

The other camp believes that ‘say’ is boring. They argue that people never just ‘say’ something. They whisper, shout, argue, moan, etc. Supporters of this style think these words paint a better picture for the reader.

In any case, just make sure that your dialogue tags don’t draw too much attention. Especially adverbs (‘he said passionately’) distract and it gets worse if you use other verbs (‘he argued passionately’). Many readers will think that the author is overdoing, when you write like that. Besides, it is also a classic example of ‘tell’ in stead of ‘show’.

“My dog is dead”, he said sadly.

Never in the history of mankind has anyone ever said this in pure joy. ‘Sadly’ is highly overdone. But if you insist on letting the man drown in his sorrow, ‘show’ it:

“My do is dead”, he said, while he kept looking at the ground.

Or even:

“My dog is dead”, he said and tears began to run down his cheeks.

Dialogue in erotica: so much more than ‘dirty talk’

When you think of a dialogue in an erotic story, the term ‘dirty talk’ might come to mind. Even for some seasoned authors, it is uncomfortable and that’s why dialogues are often avoided. This makes a lot of erotica just a description of sexual activities that can go on for pages in a row, without the personas even saying as much as “yes, right there.”.

And that’s a shame. A good dialogue brings authenticity to the personas. It is a great way of characterizing the relationship between the different personas, without having to explain it explicitly. Just put yourself in their shoes, so whatever your persona’s saying fits with their character and experience. Even in between the sheets. An older classy lady will probably say something different during sex, than a streetwise boy. Therefore, dialogue is a very powerful way to apply the principle of ‘show, don’t tell‘. A short conversation can tell a lot about the feelings of your persona. In stead of writing ‘John thought she looked stunning’, John could also just say “My god, you look amazing!”.

A well placed dialogue can show the mood like nothing else can, especially when the sex becomes awkward. or when the persona is shy. The most important thing is to have your persona talk like real humans do. What would people really say when put in that situation? Especially in this assignment (the elevator) that was of most importance. The spoken texts must fit the persona and it must feel realistic.

Also be careful with sounds like ‘oh’ and ‘ah’.

“Oh, yes! Oh oh oh, aaargh. Mmmm, yes, yes, yeeeesssss!”

First of all, it is very difficult to write down the sound of a very stretched noise. What do you think is the difference between ‘hmm’ and ‘mmm’? Sentences that only consist of cries and screams. just don’t read easily. Maybe it is better to show in a different way what is going on. An exception might be a sound in the middle of a sentence:

“When you touch me like that, then … ah …, yes, right there!”