[Xantar]

Showing Intelligence Through Dialogue

That doesn’t mean that I could ignore character development completely. Having characters who are at least not flat is important to a good story. That makes the reader care to some extent about what happens to them. There is more to the characters than Hikaru being quirky, Logan being emotionless and Carrington being a loving old father. A story in another genre addresses this by setting aside character developing moments. In other words, other stories will contain events that can be deleted without affecting the overall story and are there only to develop the characters. But since I was writing a story where the plot took priority over everything else, I couldn’t put in irrelevant character development moments. The character developing has to take place while the plot is also being advanced.

One of the most efficient ways to develop character is through dialogue. The way characters say things, what they choose to say and what they choose not to say, speaks volumes. I’m not talking about just having someone use the n word to show that he’s racist. Those kinds of two-by-four-to-the-head tactics get tiresome after a while. Dialogue works through much more subtle ways. If I detailed every character trait that can be demonstrated and every method that can be used with dialogue, this post would go on for a hundred more pages. Instead, I’ll just talk a little about how to make characters look smart. Every single character in the story had to be intelligent. Complicated conspiracies have to be created and uncovered by intelligent people or else the reader starts asking how these people got to where they are. In the following, I’m going to talk about just one way to make people look smart. Once you get used to thinking in storytelling terms, you will be able to come up with ways to show other traits.

Carrington smiled sheepishly and said, "I think I had something to say, but I don’t any more."

Hikaru laughed. "You didn’t need to say anything, Dad." Then her face turned serious. "Can anything ever be the same after this? People don’t even have to be born to live anymore."

He looked her in the eyes and said, "Hikaru, I know this may be hard for you to believe, but I really don’t care what you are. It was quite a shock to find out, to be sure, but it couldn’t have been any better for you to find out. But you’re still the same person I took in as my daughter so long ago. That won’t ever change."

She impulsively hugged him. "Thank you, Daddy." She drew away from him and then turned toward the door. Before she took a step, she said, "Aren’t you going to tell me to be careful?"

"Do I really need to do that?"

She smiled back at him and then walked away.

Here we see Hikaru and Carrington talking to each other and saying certain things while the other knows what’s really being said. When Carrington admits that he had something to say but won’t say it, Hikaru knows exactly what he wanted to say ("It’s good to have you back. And be careful"). Moreover, Carrington recognizes that when Hikaru asks if people can be the same again, she’s really asking if she herself can ever be the same again. This little mind reading establishes the close bond between them, and it also makes them look intelligent. They don’t have to have everything spelled out for them to understand what’s going on. Real people who are intelligent talk the same way. They don’t just listen to the words but also pay attention to the tone and expression of the other person, responding to what the other person really means to say. You probably do it, too. Pay close attention next time you talk to someone you know pretty well.

Some of the best conversations involve Logan because he is inherently a very neutral personality but at the same time understands the subtext of what’s being said very well. Take this short exchange for example.

"You're here to find some sort of information, I take it," he said.

"Something like that," Hikaru said. Then she had an idea. "Janitors have closets don't they?"

Logan nodded and then looked around the corner at the dead guard's body. He didn't say a word but only picked up the body and carried it to a door.

When Hikaru asks about a janitor’s closet, Logan immediately understands that she’s looking for a place to hide something and moreover that it’s so big that it can’t just be hidden in, say, his pocket. So he immediately goes looking for a dead body. As a bonus, this also establishes that he is a consummate professional who is used to dealing with these things.

"Tell me about your parents."

Another sip of the tea, and then a moment of silence. "My parents, huh? Well…I’m sorry, I’ve talked about them a lot. But I never know where to start with them. They were both short. They were immigrants from Japan, you see, and the Japanese are a bit shorter than westerners. My mother was very warm, I remember that. My father often smelled of oil. He was an engineer, a mechanic. My mother used to sit me on her lap. She shook a lot when she laughed. It was very comfortable on her lap." More silence.

"Those are all childhood memories."

"There aren't any others."

"I'm sorry."

In this last example, Anna and Hikaru are discussing their memories. At this point, when Hikaru says that there are no memories of her parents other than childhood ones, Anna immediately understands what this means (there are no adulthood memories because Hikaru’s parents died when she was a child). The previous two examples were somewhat more ostentatious: they make a point of demonstrating how well the characters understand each other. This time, Anna’s perceptiveness is demonstrated by a single line, almost a throwaway one at that. These kinds of instances are very easy to work into a conversation, and they work very well, too.