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“Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.”
― Marcus Fabius Quintilianus
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Sooner or later every writer evolves his own definition of a story. Mine is: A reflection of life plus beginning and end (life seems not to have either) and a meaning.”
― Mary O’Hara
“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
― William Faulkner |
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Great dialogue serves multiple purposes. It moves your plot forward, develops your characters, and makes the story more engaging.
Granted, it’s not easy to do all these things simultaneously, but when you master the art of writing dialogue, readers won’t be able to put your story/book down.
Before looking at tips for writing powerful dialogue, let’s discuss some basic dialogue rules.
Basic Dialogue Rules:
 Start a new paragraph each time there’s a new speaker.
Whenever a new character speaks, give them their own paragraph. This rule makes it easier for the reader to follow the conversation.
Keep all speech between quotation marks.
Everything a character says should go between quotation marks, including the final punctuation marks. For example, periods and commas should always come before the final quotation mark, not after.
Don’t use end quotations for paragraphs within long speeches.
If a single character speaks for such a long time that you break their speech up into multiple paragraphs, you should omit the quotation marks at the end of each paragraph until they stop talking. The final quotation mark indicates that their speech is over.
Use single quotes when a character quotes someone else.
Whenever you have a quote within a quote, you should use single quotation marks (e.g. She said, “He had me at ‘hello.’”)
Dialogue tags are optional.
A dialogue tag is anything that indicates which character is speaking and how, such as “she said,” “he whispered,” or “I shouted.” You can use dialogue tags if you want to give the reader more information about who’s speaking, but you can also choose to omit them if you want the dialogue to flow more naturally.
Tips for writing dialogue:
Now that we’ve covered the basics let's chat about the more nuanced aspects of writing dialogue.
Create Character Voices
Dialogue is a great way to reveal your characters. What your characters say and how they say it can tell us so much about what kind of people they are.
Some characters are witty and gregarious. Others are timid and unobtrusive. Speech patterns can vary drastically from person to person.
To make someone stop talking to them, one character might say “I would rather not talk about this right now,” while another might say, “Shut your mouth before I shut it for you.”
Consider your character’s education level, personality, and interests when writing dialogue.
What kind of slang do they use?
Do they prefer long or short sentences?
Do they ask questions or make assertions?
What goes into character voice
Each character should have their own, individual voice (manner of speaking). Ideally, you want to write dialogue that lets your reader identify the person speaking at any point in your story just by looking at what’s between the quotation marks.
Write Realistic Dialogue
Good dialogue should sound natural. Listen to how people talk in real life and try to replicate it on the page when you write dialogue.
Don’t be afraid to break the rules of grammar or to use an occasional exclamation point to punctuate dialogue.
Using contractions, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences is okay, even if you wouldn’t use them in other parts of the story.
Contractions, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences
This doesn’t mean that realistic dialogue should sound exactly like how people speak in the real world. If you’ve ever read a court transcript, you know that real-life speech is riddled with “ums," “ahs,” and repeated words and phrases. A few paragraphs of this might put your readers to sleep.
Compelling dialogue should sound like a real conversation. While still being wittier, smoother, and better worded than actual speech.
Simplify Your Dialogue Tags
A dialogue tag is anything that tells the reader which character is talking within that same paragraph, such as “she said” or “I asked.”
When you’re writing dialogue, remember that simple dialogue tags are the most effective.
Often, you can omit dialogue tags after the conversation has started flowing, especially if only two characters are speaking.
The reader can keep up with who’s speaking as long as you start a new paragraph each time a speaker changes.
A simple “he said” or “she said” will do the trick when you need a dialogue tag.
Our brains generally skip over the word “said” when reading, while other dialogue tags can be distracting.
Which dialogue tags to use
A common mistake many writers make is avoiding using “said.”
When characters tend to mutter, whisper, declare, or chuckle at every line of dialogue, it feels overblown and distracts from the actual story.
Another common mistake is to attach an adverb to the word “said.” Words such as loudly, quietly, cheerfully, or angrily can be unnecessary if you’re writing great dialogue. Readers should be able to figure out whether your character is cheerful or angry from what’s within the quotation marks.
The only exception to this rule is if the dialogue tag contradicts the dialogue itself. For example, consider this sentence:
“You’ve ruined my life,” she said angrily.
The word “angrily” is redundant here because the words inside the quotation marks already imply that the character is speaking angrily.
In contrast, consider this sentence:
“You’ve ruined my life,” she said thoughtfully.
Here, the word “thoughtfully” is well-placed because it contrasts with what we might otherwise assume. It adds nuance to the sentence inside the quotation marks.
I hope these tips will help you to write clear, compelling dialogue. Start with these basic guidelines for dialogue and try implementing them as you write.
Want to know more about writing dialogue?
More to come in a future newsletter! |
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