It seems that for many women writers, male dialogue is hard to get a grip on. But what makes it different? Men as a group tend to speak in shorter sentences. They use more contractions, slang and swearwords. They also insult each other with an easy camaraderie that most women just don’t have. Probably because they don’t have a need to “be nice.” I’m not saying they’re not, just that it’s not in their mind when they open their mouths.
Here is a few bits of male dialogue from my book, The Seduction of Lady Phoebe. You tell me if I’ve gotten it, and post some of yours.
Marcus was hailed by Viscount Beaumont.
As Marcus pulled alongside to greet his friend, Robert was staring at Phoebe. He shot Marcus a sharp look and waited.
What the devil was Robert about? Marcus heaved a sigh and with poor grace, said, “Yes, all right. Lady Phoebe, please allow me to present Robert, Viscount Beaumont. Beaumont, Lady Phoebe Stanhope.” Marcus had no intention of allowing Robert to interrupt his is time with Phoebe. “Now that you’ve had your introduction, Robert, you may move along. She’s not your type. Don’t even think about asking her to walk with you because it ain’t going to happen.”
Phoebe’s eyes sparkled with mirth. Smiling graciously at Robert, she extended her hand.
Ignoring Marcus, Robert took her hand and bowed extravagantly over it. “Lady Phoebe, I am delighted to make your acquaintance,” he said seductively, before directing his attention back to Marcus. “What a paltry fellow you are, Finley. I can’t believe you stole the march on me. I saw her first.”
Glancing briefly at Phoebe, Marcus saw she was enjoying their exchange of insults and he didn’t want to disappoint.
He raised his quizzing glass to observe his friend, something Robert hated, and asked in a languid drawl. “Beaumont, do you really wish to expose yourself to Lady Phoebe?”
Robert retorted, “Finley, I have never been so insulted. I thought you my friend. First you introduce me to a beautiful lady, and then you wave me away as if I am of no account. I am not quite no-body you know.”
He turned his attention back to Phoebe. “Lady Phoebe, I ask you, is this fair of him? Shall you allow him to dictate to you? Why have I not met you before?”
Delightedly, Phoebe laughed and clapped her hands.
ellaquinnauthor
Ella Quinn ~ Author 
Wonderfully done Ella! I’m so in awe of your ability to tap into the male psyche for dialogue.
Lauren, thank you. It’s all that Army time.
Love it. In my current WIP, writing from the male POV is actually easier for me. I just think about how my husband would talk and write it down. Men don’t say much but when they do…its rich.
Marika
I agree. I have guys talking in my head.
Wonderfully do Ella. When I’m doing either male or female dialogue I tend to verbize it first until I get it sounding natural and not forced.
I’ve mostly had male friends my whole life. It wasn’t’ until I went to a women’s college and had to LEARN how to make friends with my own sex that I really started having female friends (and even then, my most lasting friendship from college is still a guy). So male dialogue comes pretty easily for me. The one thing I try to remember is that guys often clam up with they’re really having strong feelings. They cut off in the middle of fights, or even when overwhelmed with happy emotions. It’s not that they don’t feel, they just don’t share.
As an experiment, I once ran scenes from one of my book through a gender guesser. I was happy to find that the POV of the character was always guessed correctly by the program. I don’t remember which one I used at this point, but this one comes up when I search:
http://bit.ly/7HC6P2
That is very cool. Until I got married and had a kid, most of my friends were men.
Nicely done Ella!
Men do talk in shorter sentences but their limited words always seem well chosen so that they manage to get their point across. I also notice they use more body gestures, but in a subtle way. Maybe a raised brow or arms crossed or hands resting on their hips…seems to give whatever they are saying the final emphasis needed.
Good points, Christine. Thanks for posting.
I love the male POV. My men tend to have strong voices that sound in my head with lots of slang and swear words and most of them have an accent of one type or another. Here is a small snippit from The Driver’s Seat. Belenda is stranded in a snow storm with the town mechanic.
Jesus. Was he flirting?
“Can I give ya a lift somewhere? You best not try to drive in this. Better to wait it out.” His blue eyes sparkled, and one side of his mouth quirked up.
Her belly fluttered again, but she rolled her eyes. Where do they get these guys? The resort was twenty miles. “How far are you willing to take me?”
He chuckled and licked his lips. “Is that a question you really want me to answer, darlin’?”
Damn it. She’d walked into that one.
LOL. Loved it. Thanks for posting.
Total agreement on the male POV. But I have fun putting the men in situations where they need to be strong and yet show they care. Here is a short bit from a Urban Fantasy with Witches and Shapeshifter.
A cleared masculine throat has us jumping apart.
“Young man you had better have good intentions doing that to my daughter in front of me!” is the first thing the big gray haired man in jeans and a paint splashed shirt says as he approaches.
“Sir, I’m sorry but she was nervous and I wanted to distract her. Can you think of a better way?” is Bill’s query to my stern faced dad.
“Ah, you don’t yet know where she’s ticklish. Well a kiss will do.” My dad holds out a hand to Bill chuckling.
While the men understand each other when his new lady is hurt by her own mother his actions change to totally protective.
But I’ve not totally stopped him as his muscular arm comes up with a finger pointed at my mother. “You lady are an unfit person to be Rissa’s parent. What you’ve done will come back three fold to haunt you soon. The power of someone much greater will make you beg for forgiveness that will never be granted. If you or yours try to hurt my Rissa in any way, my den will destroy you all. That is my promise!”
My Mother’s now visibly shaking but Père is just standing in our living room watching.
Karen, Thanks for posting.
Such a great convo, Ella. Men often use fewer words but more body to talk. Thoroughly enjoyed!
Tempeste, Thank you.
Great excerpt, Ella! The dialogue read naturally and very man-like with the to-the-point speak. Enjoyed your post! 🙂
Hi Karen, Thanks so much for liking it and coming by.
Hi Karen, Thank you.
Actually, research shows men use the same amount of words, on average, daily as women.
My experience is, men are often written as less than with regard to their female counterpart in romance. They don’t understand their feelings or their inner world as well, never realize they are in love as quickly as the heroine, and typically have to be dragged kicking and screaming, often by the black moment, into a committed relationship. There are always exceptions, of course, but I read, on average, a novel every other day or so. The above is pretty consistent.
I would say most men don’t know the language of feelings as well as women, and historically, as now, are conditioned to show anger rather than fear or other primary emotions. I was a therapist for a little over a decade, so I kind of feel sort of in between since I get the language of feelings.
I find the Venus and Mars analogy more helpful than relying on tired stereotypes of either gender. However, we all seem to want Alpha heroes who reflect the strong silent type, and spunky independent heroines these days. *shrugs*
Perhaps these familiar stereotypes sell better than reality. Btw, I really liked your exchange between the two men above, Ella.
Thank you for your thoughts and liking the dialogue. I write mostly Alpha males becasue that’s what I’ve been around my whole life, and I’m married to one. I don’t know about spunky, but a strong heroine must be paired with an Alpha male or he’d walk all over her.
No wonder you do it so well!
I agree. A strong heroine makes for a much more interesting story.
LOL 🙂
Great post and excerpt, Ella. Believe it or not, it seems hardly for me to write the female dialogue rather than the male. I think I’ve spent too much time around men, and it helps I’m a bit cynical and curse a lot myself. 🙂
LOL. Thanks for posting, Melissa.
Bravo, Ella! This is a fine excerpt. I’m impressed that you captured the male voice so well.
Hi Dana. Thank you.
Yes, the military life will definitely color your view of alpha males! My Dad was an Army drill sergeant and then an Air Force flightline mechanic crew boss. And I grew up with two brothers who are exactly like him.
Your dialogue is spot on and you know how much I LOVE this book ! Here is a bit from His Charming Seductress.
A garbled cry, a crash and a blast of cold air later, Hightower stumbled into the room and barely avoided setting the threadbare Persian rug on fire. The damned carpet was so insubstantial even three candles flung from a candelabra by an idiot couldn’t persuade it to burn. The idiot managed to retrieve two of the candles and return them to the candle holder.
Dylan sat up and watched the third roll under the bed. He debated whether to send Hightower after it or to let it burn. He quirked an eyebrow and dipped his head toward the cavernous space between the floor and the sagging bed ropes.
“I’m not going under there.” Clutching the candelabra in one hand, Hightower snatched the poker from the now cold hearth with the other and brandished it in all directions. “God knows what’s under there. There was a tiger under mine.”
“A tiger under your what?” Dylan leaned forward to drag his greatcoat from beneath the sartorial jumble atop the coverlet. He flipped it over his head and wrestled it on over his banyan, shirt and buckskins. A pungent aroma seeped into the icy air between him and Hightower. “Is there a reason you smell like piss?”
Hightower lowered the poker and began to amble about the room. “I threw the chamber pot at it.” He stopped in front of an enormous tapestry, his hair on end and stared at Dylan with febrile eyes. “It threw it back,” he whispered with a glance at the door and then back at the tapestry.
“You threw a chamber pot at what?” Dylan had reached his limit of inane conversation hours ago. Hightower had obviously taken a bottle of something – brandy or port – to bed with him. Dylan wished he’d done the same.
Hightower stepped back and raised his meager light source to take in the entire tapestry. Once he got a good look at it, the candelabra began to shake in his hand and he nearly dropped it again. “That’s ghastly.”
The tapestry, a blood thirsty rendition of Salome carrying the head of John the Baptist, was life-sized, covered an entire wall and sported one of the most vivid representations of a severed head Dylan had ever seen. Lovingly worked by one of Miss Tildenbury’s female ancestors no doubt. He lurched off the bed and hissed at the frigid smack of the floor to his feet. Three pair of stockings and he still felt as if he’d dropped onto the loch at his grandmother’s highland estate in the middle of February. He leaned one hip on the bed to jerk on his hessians. “It’s no worse than the Prometheus in the foyer. This family has a penchant for murderous art. The chamber pot? Why did you decide to bathe in it again?”
“Prometheus? Which foyer?” Hightower edged away from the tapestry as if he expected to become Salome’s next victim.
“The one outside the conservatory.” Dylan raked through the mound of clothes on the bed in search of his gloves.
“There’s nothing in that foyer but a suit of armor.” Hightower set his candelabra on the table on the other side of the bed. “Shan’t be able to sleep a wink with that damned thing on the wall. It’ll give me nightmares.”
“No, it won’t.” Dylan thrust his hands into his gloves and slipped his watch into the pocket of his greatcoat. “You’re not sleeping here. I don’t care if Salome and her seven veils are under your bed.”
“I’m not going back into that chamber and I’m not sleeping alone. Someone in this house wants to kill me.”
“That makes two of us.” Any sensation in his toes, whether chill or pain, had vanished. Still Dylan stalked around the bed, slapped the candelabra into Hightower’s hand and dragged him by the elbow toward the door.
“It will be warmer if we sleep together,” Hightower whined, stumbling along in his wake.
“I won’t be that cold when I’m dead. And why in God’s name do you smell like a dockside privy?” He didn’t mean to shout, but he wasn’t cold now. His temper burned so hot he was ready to shrug out of his greatcoat and thrash Hightower if he could do it without touching him. The damned ninny refused to move. Dylan rounded on him, ready to lift his cowardly carcass and fling him out into the corridor – candelabra, fireplace poker and all.
The man’s face went white. He pointed a palsied finger over Dylan’s left shoulder. Something scurried past the doorway. A large something having trouble finding purchase on the stone floors of this ancient wing of the house.
Dylan spun on his heel and stormed into the hallway. He stopped and peered into the negligibly lit gloom. “What in the name of seven hells is that?”
LOL. Great job, Louisa.
Great post! Too tired to think tonight!
Hi D’Ann. Thanks for coming by.
Male dialogue can be a challenge, particularly when you’re trying to convey so much in fewer words. I seem to find it easier to write dialogue for male secondary characters, like the Tom Sawyer character in my current wip:
She stared. “Arch Lindsay, quit sneaking up on me.”
The squire’s son grinned back at her. “Fustian,” he replied, patting his horse. “Acteon here stomps like a schoolroom miss at her first quadrille. Can’t sneak up on anyone.”
Wonderful lines, Angelyn. Thanks for posting.
Well done, Ella. Writing dialogue is my favorite part of writing. I find writing dialogue between two men much easier than writing it between a man and a woman. I want it to be realistic, but not too realistic. About 99% of the things my husband and I say to each other are horribly unromantic, so they’d never work in a romance novel. There’s a fine balance between keeping it realistic and fulfilling the HEA promise.
Ally, thank you.
HI, Ella. Finally made it by. I can just see your two guys squaring off against one another. Yes, men do like to disparage one another, don’t they? Here’s a little of the same sort of thing from Only Scandal Will Do:
“Are you wearing that to the auction?” Tommy asked.
“I’m not going to Madame Vestry’s.”
“Oh, you’re not becoming a Martin Marplot are you?” the young man whined. “What good is it to have you back if you’re going to spoil everybody’s fun?”
“I hardly found it fun to be accused of owning half-interest in my mistress’s brothel,” Duncan spat through clenched teeth. Then he relaxed. “I need a wife and I would wager I’ll have a better chance finding her at my aunt’s masquerade than at the auction.”
“Just come with me for a while,” Tommy pleaded. “Look over the tableaux and think what you’ll be missing.” He frowned, pulling his earnest face into a comic mask. “’Sblood, Duncan, you’re twenty-six years old. You’re entitled to one last scrape.”
Great post!
Very nice, Jenna. Thanks for stopping by.
Very awesome! So true on male POVs.
Thanks, Mart.
Ella, you are a gem! It’s so true that men manage a way to wittily insult each other around the rest of the general conversation. Woody Allen’s Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy has great examples of this between Max and his best friend.
Thanks, Madeline. I’m glad you liked it. I’ll have to take a look at Allen’s film.