Lesson Five

Lesson Five

Lesson Five - The Script




Week before last in Lesson Three we talked about several aspects of creating characters and revealing them to our readers. One aspect, that we didn't talk about, is so important and broad a topic that we reserved a lesson just for it. That aspect is Dialogue.

Beyond what your characters are saying, are the specific words you choose for them, their sentence structure, colloquialisms, their dialect, and the accents they speak with. All of these things help build an image of the character in your reader’s mind, and all of them work together to make your written dialogue rich, varied, interesting, and believable.

Character revelation through dialogue isn’t limited to how the characters speak. You can also have your characters discuss aspects of each other or a third character, and within that conversation have them reveal things the reader needs to know about themselves and about the story.

Inner dialogue, where a character thinks or speaks to himself, is also a good tool for revealing things about your characters and their motivations and for furthering the plot for your tale.

If your characters are to come alive in your reader’s imagination they must talk, even if it is just random thoughts within a character’s own mind.

But first, we need to have a good understanding of what dialogue is.


What is Dialogue?

The dictionary defines dialogue as the words spoken by characters in a book, a film or a play, or a section of a work that contains spoken words. 1

Dialogue has several functions within a story.


♥ To express through conversations what the reader must know so they can understand the character's actions, motivations, and thoughts.

♥ To convey character, which shows the reader what kind of people make up the story.

♥ To give the reader a sense of time and place through speech patterns, dialect, vocabulary, and speaking rhythms of certain kinds of people.

♥ And finally to develop conflict.

Effective dialogue is all about the natural flow of conversation. Dialogue is the one place in your writing where you can throw out the rules of grammar – and sometimes spelling – as you write. In fact, sticking to all the rules of grammar and punctuation can make your dialogue stilted and dry. Your dialogue should flow and read as free and easy as the conversation between two elderly housewives gossiping over the back yard fence.

Here are some simple guidelines.


♥ Spoken words are not always complete sentences.

♥ People don't always speak with proper grammar.

♥ Use words and word patterns that reveal your character's age, gender, region, ethnicity, and/or historical time period.

♥ Give your characters individuality and personality through their spoken words.

♥ Write dialogue that gives the impression of conversations you hear in real life.

In our quest to bring life to our dialogue sometimes our speech can become superfluous. Too much description within your dialogue can be distracting. To avoid this over zealousness, keep dialogue simple.


Beyond A Spoken Word

Look at the couple in the picture above. Look at the face and their body language. What do you think they are saying to each other? What our characters say and mean as they speak goes beyond their actual words. Just like humans in real life, our characters need to talk with more than their words. Their body language, facial expressions, and gestures will speak to your readers as much as the words you put in your characters' mouths. As you write dialogue for your characters keep in mind what they are doing and thinking as they talk.

Rather than depending on dialogue tags to identify your individual speakers scatter actions throughout the dialogue. Doing so breaks up blocks of too much dialogue as well as giving clues to a character's state of mind, mood, and the situation at hand.

Take a look at the story below and you'll see what we are talking about. Notice how actions are used to “tag” the dialogue in the following scene.


“It is a beautiful place.” She trailed her hand over the smooth surface of the water, rippling and distorting the image shining from the depths. “But why spend so much time and effort on it?”

He smiled and pulled her hand back from the water. “Wait, and look again.” He kissed water droplets off of her fingertips.

She yanked her hand away, and thought about slashing the water just to spite him. A delicate movement within the image captured her eye and froze her hand.

“Ohhhh! They’re beautiful! What are they?” Deep in the folds of her robe she twisted a fine braided chain around and around her fingers, avoiding his stare.

His ghost of a smile teased. “What will you give to know?” The question thrummed in the air between them.

She paused. Curiosity pushed her beyond wisdom. “The Seventh Key.”

“Done!” He whipped out his hand. With a sigh, she dangled the chain. A miniature gold dragon materialized and dropped into his open palm.

He examined the tiny statue. The long neck supported a proud head, every scale life-like; the wings lifted in flight.

“The answer! It is a fair trade” She lunged to grab it back.

He flung the tiny beast off the balcony with a Word and an explosion of light.

“Mortals!” He jumped up on the balcony railing. “They are mortals,” he called over his shoulder as he lept onto the back of the great golden dragon rising on outstretched wings.

In this entire scene there is only one actual dialogue tag, yet there is no doubt about who is speaking nor about the emotions they are feeling.

Keep in mind, you don’t want to overburden your readers with extended blocks of dialogue.



Taking a newspaper as an analogy, dialogue should just give the headlines,
but make the reader believe he is receiving the whole text.2



What is "Subtext" in Dialogue?


Roughly speaking, subtexting refers to the art of putting a whole different layer of meaning under the surface, so that the dialogue is not really about what the dialogue appears to be about.

Randy Ingermanson
AdvancedFictionWriting.com


An article in Wikipeida defines subtext as the content underneath the spoken dialogue. Under our dialogue, there can be conflict, anger, competition, pride, showing off, or other implicit ideas and emotions. Subtext is the unspoken thoughts and motives of characters – what they really think and believe. Subtext just beneath the surface of dialogue makes life interesting, but it can also cause people to be misunderstood.3

When writing dialogue then, the subtext is the actual meaning the characters convey by their tone of voice, body language, and gestures that goes beyond the actual words spoken.


Often, characters don't understand themselves. They're often not direct and don't say what they mean. We might say that the subtext is all the underlying drives and meanings that are not apparent to the character, but that are apparent to the audience or reader.

Linda Seger
Creating Unforgettable Characters


Many times in dialogue the subtext is never acknowledged by the characters speaking. It is left to the reader to distinguish exactly what they are really saying underneath the surface.

So how do we go about writing subtext into our dialogue?

First, you have to know exactly what your characters are feeling, and why they don’t want to say it out loud. Next you have to create alternatives that convey the real meaning to your reader and still sound believable, and then write it all out.

The one of the best examples of subtext in dialogue is found in Ernest Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants . If you haven’t read the story before take a few minutes and do so. Just follow the link below.


http://moodle.wiueacademy.org/pluginfile.php/40175/mod_resource/content/1/Hills_...


Notice how the author used action and gestures, and moments of silence in this story to heighten and enhance the scene of dialogue between the characters. You may also notice that they appear to be having a conversation about something unspoken, and nothing of real importance, on the surface. But, once you lift the curtain, and peek between the lines and underneath the spoken words, you may discover they are having a conversation with life changing implications!4



In dialogue it's not always what is actually said between
characters that creates good scenes, but what isn't said!




*Clapper* *Video* *Clapper* *Video* *Clapper* *Video* *Clapper* *Video*



Lesson Five - Reading Read the following articles on writing dialogue, subtext, and subplot.


Writing Dazzling Dialogue by Lee Masterson
http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/dialogue.html

How to Improve Your Writing: Subplots and Subtext By: Brian A. Klems
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-to-imrpove-your-writing-subplots-...


Make note of anything you feel will help you write betters stories and keep it in your Writer's notebook or your online Writer's File.

Lesson Five - Discussion For your initial discussion observation (200 – 300 words) tell us what you learned from this week’s reading and how you plan to apply it to your final assignment story for this course. Also answer the following questions.


♥ Did you agree with the authors' ideas? Why or why not?

♥ What you would do different from their suggestions?

Please Note: Post your initial observation and all comments as Replies to the "Lesson Five - Exercise & Writing Assignment" message thread on our "Between Takes Cafe" Forum.

Go back into the forum, throughout the week, and read your fellow class members’ observations. Then comment on them. You are commenting on the content and their answers to the questions above – not on their writing craftsmanship. Be sure you comment on at least two other people's comments.

Remember: Don’t start a new message thread. Keep all of your responses within the Lesson Five – Discussion message thread.


Lesson Five Exercise – People Listening This week take a couple of days and indulge in some people listening sessions. As you are doing your people listening try and identify different accents, different modes of speech, and different ways speech reveals things about the speaker.

Make a list of at least ten different speech patterns that you hear. Next to each one make a few notes of the type of character who might use that identifying method of speaking and how you might use them in your story.

Post your People Listening Exercise in B-item format as a Reply to the "Lesson Five - Exercise & Writing Assignment" message thread on our "The Screening Room" Forum.

Remember: Don’t start a new message thread. Keep all of your posts within the Lesson Five Exercise and Writing Assignment thread.


Lesson Five Writing Assignment - Dialogue For your writing assignment this week, write a 300 to 400 word dialogue scene. In this scene reveal something about your character, that is vital to your plot, by how and what they say. Do not use more than two dialogue tags. Instead, use actions to identify your speakers.

Save it in your Reeling in Your Readers folder in your own portfolio.

Post your Dialogue Writing Assignment in B-item format as a Reply to the "Lesson Five - Exercise & Writing Assignment" message thread on our "The Screening Room" Forum.

Remember: Don’t start a new message thread. Keep all of your posts within the Lesson Five – Exercise and Writing Assignment thread.



*Clapper* *Video* *Clapper* *Video* *Clapper* *Video* *Clapper* *Video*



If you have questions about your assignments, or about anything discussed in this lesson, please, post a question in our "Between Takes Cafe" Forum, or e-mail me. I am in this site at least once a day. In most cases, I will reply to you within a few hours.

No question is too small or insignificant. I'm here to help you become a better writer. If a matter concerns you, I'll work with you to address it.


Have a great week!




Ms. Katz >^. .^< ~ Director and Instructor
Katzendragonz (118)