Controlling Dialogue

I made this post in response to someone on the Litopia forums, but I figure it might be useful enough to post here. They asked how to organize and display dialogue between 4+ people in a scene without confusing the heck out of the reader.

Since the end of my book involves 4 people traveling together (and having conversations along the way), I have a bit of experience with this.

Four way dialogue is easier than you might think. In most cases, it's a series of two-way dialogues. You won't usually have a scene where the lines play out like this:

Joe: I say one thing.
Mike: I say something different.
Susan: I disagree.
Jane: I disagree with that disagreement.
Joe: It's my turn to speak again!

Usually, they will play out more like this:

Joe: I say one thing.
Mike: I say something different.
Joe: I disagree.
Susan: I hop in and agree with Joe's disagreement.
Joe: I reaffirm my disagreement.
Mike: I declare that you are both stupid.
Jane: I wonder why we can't all just get along.

As you can see, this conversation is mostly between Joe and Mike, with Susan and Jane interjecting occasionally. In this case, you can treat it like a normal two-person dialogue, but must make sure that whenever Susan or Jane speak, you make it clear that they are doing so, and then when you return to Joe/Mike, you say which one of them is responding first.

Another common form of dialogue goes like this:

Joe: I say one thing.
Mike: I say another thing.
Joe: I disagree.
Mike: I say you're an idiot.
Susan: I support Mike on his statement.
Mike: I say you have no right to be speaking, because I outrank you.
Susan: I argue that this isn't about rank, this is about doing the right thing.
Mike: I don't think you know the first thing about morals.
Susan: I'm offended.

As you can see, the conversation switched from one two-person dialogue between Joe and Mike to a two-person dialogue between Susan and Mike. This case is even easier to deal with -- just make sure you indicate who is speaking during the transition, and then go back to treating it like a two-person dialogue.

A third pattern for dialogue is the 'moderator' method, as follows:

Joe: I say one thing.
Mike: I say another thing.
Joe: What do you think, Susan?
Susan: I agree with you.
Mike: You would, you suck-up.
Susan: You shut up!
Joe: Now, now, calm down. Let's hear what Jane has to say.
Jane: I don't care either way, just stop arguing.
Joe: All right, well, I think we can agree that we either need to choose Mike's idea or mine...

In this case, Joe is clearly in control of the conversation, which gives YOU greater control of the conversation, particularly if it is your main character. The current speaker in this dialogue is usually whoever the moderator is paying attention to, so it's pretty clear who's speaking because the moderator usually spoke to them first.

Note that dialogues can quickly switch between these different modes, starting off with a moderator mode but devolving into a two-way conversation with interjections when two people get into a heated argument. The important part is knowing which pattern you're using at the time, and transitioning smoothly.

In fact, dialogues with 4+ people are all about transitions. If a new person is interjecting or taking over the conversation, you have to indicate that. The dialogue tags you use are up to your personal preference, but I recommend using action to display which character is talking, to avoid having 'he said/she said' on every other line. It also makes it less of a 'talking heads' scene. I also recommend you place tags BEFORE speech during a transition, and AFTER speech when you've settled down to two people. If Susan is jumping in on the conversation, don't use:

"I hop in and agree with Joe's statement," Susan interrupted.

Because the reader gets to the end of the line before they realize that someone jumped in at all. Instead, use:

Susan interrupted, "I hop in and agree with Joe's statement."

That way, it's immediately obvious that a new person is talking.

As I said, 4 person conversations really aren't that difficult unless you intentionally make them that way, by having each character alternate speaking in 4-line sequences. By examining what patterns you're using and using proper transitioning, you can make conversations of 4, 5, or even 100 people work out smoothly.