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Nov 13, 2015 · #1: Every line of dialogue must serve a purpose. Dialogue shouldn’t exist solely to give your characters something to say. Rather, effective literary conversations serve many powerful purposes; they can explore characters, advance the plot, ramp up tension, reveal context, establish mood, and so on.
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- How to Define Your Character's Unique Voice
- Use Quotation Marks to Signal Speech
- Pace Dialogue Lines by Three
- Use Action Beats
- Use ‘Said’ as A Dialogue Tag
- Write Scene-Based Dialogue
- Model Any Talk on Real Life
- Differentiate Character Voices
- "Show, Don't Tell" Information in Conversation
- Delete Superfluous Words
Alfred Hitchcock once said, “Drama is life with all the boring bits cut out.” Similarly, I could say that good dialogue in a novel is a real conversation without all the fluff — and with quotation marks. Imagine, for instance, if every scene with dialogue in your novel started out with: 'Hey, buddy! How are you doing?" “Great! How are you?"" 'Great...
Screenwriter Cynthia Whitcomb once proposed an idea called the “Three-Beat Rule.” What this recommends, essentially, is to introduce a maximum of three dialogue “beats” (the short phrases in speech you can say without pausing for breath) at a time. Only after these three dialogue beats should you insert a dialogue tag, action beat, or another chara...
Let’s take a look at another kind of “beats” now — action beats. Action beats are the descriptions of the expressions, movements, or even internal thoughts that accompany the speaker’s words. They’re always included in the same paragraph as the dialogue, so as to indicate that the person acting is also the person speaking. On a technical level, act...
If there’s one golden rule in writing dialogue, it’s this: ‘said’ is your friend. Yes, ‘said’ is nothing new. Yes, ‘said’ is used by all other authors out there already. But you know what? There’s a reason why ‘said’ is the king of dialogue tags: it works. The thinking goes that ‘said’ is so unpretentious, so unassuming that it focuses readers’ att...
So now that we have several guidelines in place, this is a good spot to pause, reflect, and say that there’s no wrong or right way to write dialogue. It depends on the demands of the scene, the characters, and the story. Great dialogue isn’t about following this or that rule — but rather learning what technique to use when. If you stick to one rule...
Dialogue isn’t always about writing grammatically perfect prose. The way a person speaks reflects the way a person is — and not all people are straight-A honor students who speak in impeccable English. In real life, the way people talk is fragmented, and punctuated by pauses. That’s something that you should also keep in mind when you’re aiming to ...
A distinctive voice for each character is perhaps the most important element to get right in dialogue. Just as no one person in the world talks the same as each other, no one person in your book should also talk similarly. To get this part of writing dialogue down pat, you need to start out by knowing your characters inside out. How does your chara...
“Show, don’t tell” is one of the most oft-repeated rules in writing, and a conversation on the page can be a gold mine for “showing.” Authors can use action beats and descriptions to provide clues for readers to read between the lines. Let’s revisit Sophie and Ethan in this example: While Sophie claims she hasn’t been obsessing over this project al...
As always when it comes to writing a novel: all roads lead back to The Edit, and the dialogue you’ve written is no exception. So while you’re editing your novel at the end, you may find that a “less is more” mentality will be helpful. Remember to cut out the unnecessary bits of dialogue, so that you can focus on making sure the dialogue you do keep...
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Jun 24, 2022 · Outer dialogue is dialogue that happens externally, often between two or more characters. This is the dialogue that goes inside quotation marks. How to structure dialogue. Dialogue is a break from a story’s prose narrative. Formatting it properly makes this clear. When you’re writing dialogue, follow these formatting guidelines:
Oct 12, 2016 · Comedy dialogue should be funny. Thriller dialogue should be terse. Emotional dialogue should be heartfelt and passionate. When writing in a certain time period or language, be sure to do thorough research to ensure the dialogue feels authentic. 6. Doesn’t try to be real conversation. This is a common mistake. Dialogue is not actual conversation.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.”
- Balance Speech with Action. When you’re writing dialogue, you can use action beats—descriptions of body language or physical action—to show what each character is doing throughout the conversation.
Jan 14, 2021 · The conversation quickly bounces back and forth between the speakers, and the call-and-response format of the woman asking and the man answering is effective because it establishes a clear dynamic between the two speakers: the woman is the one seeking reassurance and trying to understand the man’s feelings, while he is the one who is ultimately in control of the situation.
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Jun 10, 2023 · Dialogue isn’t just there to show that the characters in a story are talking, it’s far more important than that. It performs various fundamental roles in fiction: It tells us more about the characters (i.e., tendencies, interest, and other personal attributes); adds an extra dimension to the narrative; and, above all, it helps the writer to “tell less, and show more.”
