ave some fictional purpose in making a
character say something, except to warn against transcribing speech
solely for the sake of its suppositious intrinsic wit or vivacity, for
each story will assert its own claims over the talk of the characters.

The question of dialect has been debated often and at length, both for
and against. There are many fine stories in dialect in whole or in part,
but their merit does not result from the employment of dialect, though
the dialect may be a necessary part of some of them. In the larger
sense, the question is merely one of naturalness. The pronunciation of
no man is in exact accord with the ideal standard of the dictionary; all
have mannerisms of speech and accent. In some sections such mannerisms
are so common and marked as to form a dialect, almost a patois, and, if
a story involves a character from such a district, fidelity to fact
requires the writer to write dialect when the person is speaking.
Dialect in a story must be intelligible to one unfamiliar with it, which
requires the writer to iron out its greatest divergences from the normal
in an endeavor to retain its piquancy while avoiding its obscurity. The
question is not one of technique, but one of material. The only
insistence of technique as to dialect is that it must be intelligible.

Unquestionably there is prejudice against the story told wholly in
strongly marked dialect by a narrating character, both on the part of
editors and readers. The type had a vogue some years ago, but its
commercial and artistic defect is that it tends to be unintelligible.

Dialect is a useful aid in characterization, as is any slighter
mannerism of speech. The matter will be taken up in discussing the
portrayal of character. Here I am concerned only with the more general
aspects of the management of dialogue.

As stated, the first necessity in writing dialogue is to place the word
where it would be spoken in life, during the action, not in isolated
masses of speech. The second necessity is to write naturally, and yet to
invest the hasty and elided speech of the characters with purpose in the
fiction. Dialogue must be not only natural and easy; it also must be
significant, significant in relation to life--which is the matter of
naturalness re-stated--significant in relation to the characters, and
significant in relation to the story. That is to say, the justly written
bit of dialogue will be natural, will illustrate character, and will