Cogitating on this further ...

While it's true that three of my favorite authors, Patricia McKillip, Robert Holdstock and Ursula LeGuin (at least, Earthsea Trilogy), are relatively sparing of dialogue and big on description narrative, a lot of dialogue in itself doesn't put me off. I've read fantastic books that have tons of dialogue. And I've put down books where the dialogue or prosy stuff just gets tedious.

It's all in the difference between boring exposition clumsily disguised as dialogue versus interesting exposition brilliantly conveyed by dialogue. And knowing the time and place for plain old prose and the time and place for good ole dialogue.

PS Narrative! That's the word I want. Not description. Not prose. Narrative, dammit!
PSS Yes, Bill, me and my head are still talking about it.

I loved Bujold's Beguilement and enjoyed Curse of Chalion, but have really slowed down with Paladin of Souls and The Hallowed Hunt. Beguilement doesn't have reams of dialogue; for that and other reasons, I liked it much better than these.

My crit group gets on my case about using dialogue too sparsely. They're right. I've started to re-check scenes for dialogue opportunities. I'm exploring how dialogue works ... and doesn't work.

For me, dialogue doesn't work when, before and after every little thing that happens, the characters have to talk and talk and talk about it for pages.

It is so boring to read characters endlessly explaining stuff to each other! Meetings are fine once in a while, but can't we just sum up sometimes instead of having to regroup at the inn or office or on horseback to hammer out everything every day--or even several times a day? Dialogue is not the spoonful of sugar (or 5 lb bag) that infallibly helps planning and politics go down.

I'm curious for your thoughts. Do you, too, skip or skim over long passages of dialogue? How much is too little or too much dialogue versus your characters being in their bodies (not necessarily "action" but physical/sense events)? How does dialogue work in your stories?

PS. Why am I still reading Hunt? Because Bujold's story is so cool.