How to write indirect dialogue

Originally posted: March 9, 2020

This is the third post in a series about dialogue. Start here, if you’ve missed the others. This post focuses on indirect dialogue (my personal favourite).

Indirect Dialogue

Indirect dialogue is reported in the third person so you get the feel of the exchange, without the actual words. In Susan Sinnott’s novel Catching the Light, Cathy is having trouble reading and is working with a tutor called Sarah who thinks she has dyslexia:

“Cathy had asked her father about her mother’s reading difficulties: were they really that much worse than Cathy’s? And he said yes, definitely. So she asked Sarah about that brain mix-up thing, dyslexia, and afterwards Dad said yes, Betty had all those problems too. So how did mom cover it up better than Cathy had? Dad said he wasn’t getting in to that, better ask mom.” — Susan Sinnott, Catching the Light

Like summary dialogue, indirect cuts to the chase without any tedious back and forth. It also allows you to speed through time and cover multiple conversations very quickly. In this one paragraph we are shown three distinct conversations. You can almost imagine Cathy zinging back and forth between a tete-a-tete with her father in their living room to a chat with her tutor the next day, back home with her dad later that evening. Efficient.

What differentiates this passage from summary dialogue? With indirect, unlike summary, you get a hint of the actual words characters say. You can hear them a little more clearly and as a result, have a better sense of their personalities.

Dad saying: yes, definitely. Betty had all those problems too. Then later, resisting Cathy’s questions, refusing to get into it, deferring to mom. All of that is very nearly direct dialogue. The reader can extrapolate body language, relationship dynamics and so much more from these short fragments. Now the author could have put these words inside quotation marks to indicate direct dialogue. But she’s chosen not to, presumably because she wants us to know that this is Cathy’s version of what her father has said. We’re getting her father’s words through her, not from his own mouth. It’s not 100% reliable.

Psychic Distance

Direct dialogue (which we will explore next) gives you a character’s exact words. You are right there with them as they speak. But with summary and indirect dialogue, a character’s words are mediated through the narrator. There is a psychic distance inherent with summary and indirect dialogue that doesn’t exist with direct dialogue.

Imagine a friend is telling you about a fight with their partner. Your friend is the narrator and you are getting the story (and any words that were exchanged) second hand. Summary and indirect dialogue are like that. The reader is kept at a remove. I’d argue the remove is greatest with summary dialogue. Indirect can be almost indistinguishable from direct dialogue (Dad said he wasn’t getting into that. Better ask mom). Summary and indirect dialogue have their uses. But to get in close, to close the psychic distance, there’s no replacement for direct dialogue.