If you look at the SOL forums for almost any thread that goes on for any length, you'll notice that it's not unusual for them to wander off subject. Many of the conversations I've been in on tend to do the same thing, especiall when there are multiple people involved.
I have NOT noticed that in dialogue in stories on SOL, where comments tend to stay on subject in the stories I've read.
Is that deliberate, you think, or just coincidence?
Some of each? Certainly, for me, I think it's grown as my confidence as a writer grows. It's much easier to think 'I'm writing a conversation about X' and write that conversation. Extraneous things are extraneous, so they don't get written.
The more I know the characters and see how they're going to react and talk, the more they go off on tangents. Eventually, one of them says, "Wait! We're sidetracking. Where were we? Oh ... that!"
I suspect it's very much writer-specific. I would have felt far more apprehensive about it earlier on, when I was just trying to make dialogue feel natural at all. Tangents are more natural, like you say, but up the difficulty level.
I do still have focused conversations, and they're more common than not, but part of that might be attributed to a first-person mostly-reliable narrator 'remembering' a more focused conversation that happened when 'relating' it to the reader, which is how I think of first-person narration.
Tangents often make the conversation more alive, though. They can also make points that are useful to make while not needing an entirely separate conversation. I had occasion to rewrite a conversation earlier tonight (messed up continuity with a previous book) and the resulting rewrite tosses in a tangent where a couple of characters get a nice little interaction about each other that wasn't there before. It adds something to their story without burdening the 'real' conversation that's mostly what's going on.
Pretty much this.
I suspect it's very much writer-specific. I would have felt far more apprehensive about it earlier on, when I was just trying to make dialogue feel natural at all. Tangents are more natural, like you say, but up the difficulty level.
In order for a story conversation to go off in a tangent, the characters must have a well defined character and backstory. This is incredibly hard and time-consuming (for a writer), especially in short stories where the emphasis is more on plot rather than characterisations.
The other downside to well written characters, is that the character has to obey their character, and not suddenly change how they tackle issues in their fictional life. Doing so is jarring, unless your character has a multiple personality disorder.
Grey Wolf is right, as you're not recounting random conversations. Instead, you're covering specific events. For example, if they remained, they may talk a bit longer, yet since it's not related to the story, there's no to include it.
Also, I tend to prefer, 'jumping into' a conversation, so you bypass the whole "Hello, how are you?" "How're the wife and kids?" and "How have things been going lately?" to dive directly into the pertinent conversation, bypassing all the pointless jibber-jabber.
And since I've always specialize in multi-person conversation, with a much high ratio of dialogue than nearly any industry or genera standards—which mostly focus exclusively on one or two-personal conversations—it saves a LOT of pointless space (i.e. word count).
Usually (though not always) I skip most 'intro' stuff. The exceptions are usually either some phone calls (when the callee wouldn't know who was calling) or people who haven't seen each other in a long time (when 'How are you?' is actually a serious question with real answers).
Multi-person is obviously trickier in all sorts of ways. Fun to write, though!
What's best about multi-person dialogues is that there's always someone who'll say something which surprises everyone—again, even the author—as that character just has a different outlook. And those 'unexpected revelations' can really change the dynamics of the story.
Though again, my main focus is on the apres-sex than the sex itself, as that's when the protagonist's usually surprise me the most—revealing long suppressed details I never gleamed, even 23 chapters into the story. Again, it's those 'magical moments' when a story truly surprises that most make them feel 'alive'.
But you're right, phone calls are most often 'out of the blue', so you need to establish the context before getting to the point. But then, since telephone conversations are more focused than just general gab, it's more of a special case almost as much as telepathy is in a sci-fi story.
@Grey Wolf's point
"Tangents often make the conversation more alive, though."
I meet a good friend at our local pub for beers and conversation about once per week.
Our conversations range widely. How's work? The children? Grandchildren? Weather. Did ya hear about Cindy and Bob? Ya know the sort of stuff friends speak about.
Between sips of beer it's blah, blah, blah on subject A. In the middle of that, one of us will veer off to subject B, blah and blah. More sips the beer and quiet for a few moments as we each contemplate our proverbial navels. Then blah, blah, blah on subject C. All of this blah, blah, blah in a span of 15 or so minutes.
Then, back to blah, blah, blah on subject A. Then off on another tangent.
To my mind that's how a conversation that is not focused on a specific subject really happens.
In many tales I read the dialog is exactly opposite, it's focused on something specific.
If the author's intent is to make the characters 'come alive', then these sorts of off on a tangent conversations are an excellent way to do so.
To Pixy's point, it is difficult to do in a plot driven story with minimal character development.
I would refer you to (https://storiesonline.net/a/gruinard) Gruinard's 25 book series, Living-two-lives for many good examples of dialog with other characters or within the main character's mind. Andrew has many great conversations with himself.
And that's one of the reasons I like the entire series so much, Andrew talks to himself as I do and I think (hope) most people do. Yeah and nay, positive and negative, back and forth kinda conversations.
As always, YMMV.
That's a really interesting point, to me. I like that style (the MC talking to himself), but I think it's really a separate point, not an extension of the main one.
The way I see it, the first-person-narrator MC is a largely-reliable narrator of their story. They're not always 100% reliable for a variety of reasons: they may have misunderstood someone else, a situation, or whatever else. Perhaps they're '100% reliable' with respect to what they think happened, and when they're meaningfully not reliable, it should be noted as to what went wrong and how.
However, that has impacts on the storytelling. First, they're recounting a conversation that happened 'before'. How far before is nebulous, but their past-tense storytelling is both 'current' and 'time-lapsed'. Sometimes, perhaps, that condenses a A-B-C-D-A-C-B-A-C-D-A conversation into A-B-C-D or even A-B. 'Less important' parts are dropped.
Talking to oneself is even more elided. Instead of recounting a mental conversation, you get 'tell don't show' with the gist of the conversation turned into non-dialogue observations. If I have a series of thoughts on a subject, it's likely to be an 'essay-ified' version of something that was interior dialogue at one point.
And, yes, that loses something, but it also is easier for readers, so it's a tossup. There are good and bad points to either.
As one of those conversational digressions, there seems to be at least some evidence that 'talking to oneself' may be a sign of higher intelligence and is likely to be a sign of good cognitive function in general. Which is amusing, since I was part of a generation brought up with the notion that it was a sign of craziness and to be avoided.
My dialogues are always 'about something,' because the conversations 'about nothing and everything' get collapsed into some sort of 'tell don't show'. But my 'about something' conversations have become more digressive at times, because it does suit the characters and adds to the world.
That's also part of the author's dilemma. The more I 'show don't tell', the richer and more alive the world is, but if I was to 'show don't tell' the breadth and depth of conversations my characters should get into, I would run to multiple chapters per day, most likely. So there has to be some plot purpose for the conversations that are shown, and that focuses them more than the ones not shown, and maybe more than they usually are.
I'm pretty much out of chances for interior conversation with my MC except for the occasional bit, simply because he hasn't been doing it for 5+ books. But that doesn't mean another character couldn't do it in a side story, and I have side stories waiting to be told. Or do it in another story entirely :)
I would keep in mind that conversations amongst friends cover topics they both know and enjoy and will often pinball between.
Humour is a good way to keep the reader during a wander, but if your characters keep wandering into esoteric subjects, you run the risk of losing readers. Especially readers not interested in the esoteric topics.
A good example of this is the comedian Billy Connolly. If you have ever watched him, he starts to tell a story and then always wanders off in a tangent that's inevitably funnier than the story he had planned to tell. So for him and the audience, it works well.
To do that in a story, you would need to start a conversation and then have one of the protagonists break in with something along the lines of "You remember when uch and such did that?" or "Remember when such and such tried that?" then the protagonist tells the (reader) the brief tale of such and such's failure and then the topic moves back to the one in hand.
I've tried this a few times and every time, I've had very positive feedback from readers who enjoyed the interplay (banter) amongst the characters. However (for me) it's very hard work to actually write it. Mainly, I think, because I have to create the situation that was the bane of such and such, and make it fit the main characters goals and plot. Which touches back on what I said earlier about the necessity of creating full characters with backstory.
Actually, I've read a lot of character, author and narrative voices (i.e. making them each distinctive, so they're more easily recognizable). So there are a lot more effective ways of making a stimulating and engaging.
Instead, what we're discussing here, is making them seem purposely pointless, exactly as how most people talk. And again, in fiction, what's the point of talking in circles. Just get in, have the characters discuss the relevant topics, and then, once you stop recording what they say, they can discuss whatever the hell they want to.
If you look at the SOL forums for almost any thread that goes on for any length, you'll notice that it's not unusual for them to wander off subject.
Since this is the Author Hangout, perhaps it would be appropriate to mention how some stories meander off the beaten path and disappear down rabbit holes.
AJ
Since this is the Author Hangout, perhaps it would be appropriate to mention how some stories meander off the beaten path and disappear down rabbit holes.
Should we label them as "Alice authors?" [grin]