How do you handle dialogue in your story hour?

[haiiro]

How do you handle the dialogue in your story hour? Specifically, is there anything short of a tape recorder or excessive note-taking that allows you be include any reasonably accurate dialogue at all?

I've just written my first campaign journal/story hour ever, and apart from choice lines and things I remember NPCs saying, there's not much dialogue. I think that'll work just fine as a summary of events -- useful for keeping track of the game -- but I don't know how much fun folks not involved in the game will have reading it.

I'm trying to follow the maxim of not posting a story hour until I've got a couple of sessions already written -- but I'd like to find out how other writers approach this before tucking into my second session journal. Thanks in advance!

 

[Dirigible]

I do what you do, remember the most memorable lines, and the general gist of any longer conversations, and then I improvise some extra dialogue if necessary.

I think it's better to fudge the facts to make a more interesting story that record events exactly.

 

[haiiro]

I'm still curious about this, so I'll give it one Monday morning bump before it slides into obscurity.

 

[diaglo]

i remember the dialogue the same way my character would. but i write a player's journal not a DM log.

so it may or may not be 100% accurate to what was really said.


although, i do jot notes down for names...but i can't be held responsible for misspellings or name calling.

 

[spyscribe]

Keep in mind, if you don't remember what people said specifically, there's probably a reason.

Most game dialogue doesn't need to be recorded verbatim to have a good story hour, in fact, summarizing it is what makes the darn thing readable.

I know that our game is full of exchanges like this:

NPC: If I find out you have been to the Valley of Frogs, it will go very badly for you.

NPC leaves.

Fighter: Let's go the Valley!

Cleric: Let's not.

Druid: If we go, do you think he would find out?

(Rogue and Druid get into side conversation about how we might get to the Valley without using the main roads)

Sorcerer: I seem to remember Crazy Eddie told us there was something wonky going on in the valley. What was that?

Rogue: It was full of frogs?

Druid: We should definitely check it out.

Cleric: I forgot about that. Let's go but be sneaky about it...

Sorcerer: What do you think he meant by "go badly for you"?

(Sorcerer and Cleric get into side conversation about the local inquisition.

Fighter: Off to the Valley!

The only line I'd quote directly in that would probably be the NPC's. Unless someone was particularly witty, the rest can be summed up in a couple sentences.

As for accuracy... never has another player complained because I attributed a good line to them that they didn't actually say.

 

[Hairy Minotaur]

Well since my players like to interject colorful metaphors into their dialogs I've had to parapgrase or re-word some of their responses so as to keep it clean. When they say something I'm also thinking how I'm going to shine it up some, and that helps remembering how the conversations work.

Another tip would be to have your players help you walk back through the conversations as well, I have a player check the conversations I write for accuracy. After doing this a couple of times, they start paying more attention to what's being said as well.

just my $.02

 

[Piratecat]

I've started taping my games, but I heavily edit the dialogue down to the most interesting/relevant bits. As Spyscribe showed, some things should be streamlined.

 

[orchid blossom]

I just started a campaign log for a character of mine that I'm hoping to make a story hour, and I ran into the same problem you did. I'm trying to remember conversations that happed a year ago real time, and there's just no way for it to be accurate. Since no one really remembers events how they actually happened, it seems to make sense that the conversations will be "tidied up" by the characters memory. If all else fails, I'll err on the side of good story.

 

[haiiro]

Keep in mind, if you don't remember what people said specifically, there's probably a reason.

This sounds like excellent advice. I've been writing up the second session, and for this one I took more notes during the game -- including all of the funny or memorable quotes I could catch. Combined with the streamlining that folks have mentioned, this has so far translated to a pretty good amount of dialogue -- and what's there is enjoyable.

I'm encouraged not only by the fact that this seems to be working for me, but also because it seems to work for other people. Thanks for the good advice so far, everyone.

Story hour pimping will eventually follow.