Several people have asked for tips on dialogue. I worked on character development first because I think the better we know our characters the easier it is to keep their voices consistent with their personalities. Since most of us know our primary characters well now, we’ll focus on making them talk this week.
In addition to having your own voice in writing, it is also important for each of your characters to have a unique voice. We’ll work on finding different voices for new characters as we add them.
While scary in the early stages of learning, once you practice and become comfortable writing dialogue, you’ll realize that it is one of the most versatile tools in writing fiction. You can accomplish almost everything you need to do with a story through effective dialogue. Your characters can reveal personality, attitudes, scenery, and action through their words.
Fundamentals of Punctuation in Dialogue
- Start dialogue with opening quotation mark (“) “I am.
- End with appropriate punctuation (period, question mark, comma) followed by closing quotation mark. “I am,” she said.
- Always start a new paragraph for each speaker.
“I am,” she said.
“You don’t want me to finish that thought,” he asked. “Better clarify.”
“You aren’t funny.”
“Why are you laughing?”
- If a character gets long winded and goes into a monologue that requires more than one paragraph, do not close the quotation in the first paragraph, but do start the new one with an opening quotation mark.
“Blah blah blah blah blah. You’re probably bored with this so I’m going to change my tune. (No closing quote because I am going to continue.)
“Yap, yap, yap, yap yap. This should be enough.”
- When quoting within dialogue, use single quotes within the doubles. “I heard him say, ‘Not today,’” Beth told the group.
- Don’t use colons or semicolons in dialogue.
Tag Lines
Tag lines are the words that let the reader know who is talking. Keep it simple, he said or she said as often as possible. Readers skim over those without noticing and are slowed down when the writer uses declared, implied, shouted. Adjectives and descriptors (She blurted anxiously) are often seen as author intrusion (Hey reader, don’t get so involved in my story that you forget to think about me and how many great words I know!)
Using Dialogue and Tag Lines to Control Pace
If you want a fast scene, dialogue often gives the reader the feel of being there to witness the action more than summary narration will (show versus tell). To move the scene faster, write short quips without tag lines. To slow the pace, write longer dialogue with tag lines and action interspersed.
Keeping It Real
Beginning writers often interpret keeping it real with typing every word of a conversation exactly as real people would speak. Unfortunately, that is boring and does not work.
Example:
“Hi, Sandy. How are you today?”
“I’m fine. And you?”
“Good. I’m doing well. Thanks. What have you been up to?”
“Nothing much.”
Bored yet? Many conversations start this way. Even though we overlook it when we hear it, it’s boring to read.
Keeping it real is more about incomplete sentences, natural rhythm, false starts, and interruptions than it is about really keeping it real. It has to feel real without being real, and it must always advance the plot. Also, although some of us tend to start talking and forget to take a breath or stop, a character that goes into frequent monologues will lose the reader. It is important to break up long bits of dialogue. Insert a line of description (maybe showing how bored the recipient of that sermon might be).
Don’t use explanations that are not necessary. Summarize what everyone would already know. For example, if the story previously explained that Bryan’s sister dropped her daughter off at his house the night before and didn’t pick her up, readers would be insulted if you repeated this information when he arrived at work with her the next morning. You could summarize that information this way: “This is my niece, Jill.” Bryan went on to explain why he had brought her to work.
Minimize Gestures
(Remind me of this one, often. It’s one of my downfalls.) When possible, choose dialogue that shows what the speaker is doing or thinking instead of documenting body language. It is necessary at times to break dialogue with an action before changing thoughts, but beware of ending too many sentences with somebody smiling or shaking a head.
“The sweater you’re wearing is one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen,” Sandy said. The smile is implied since few people would say this without a smile. “But that doesn’t mean I’m over being angry with you. I still think you are a total jerk and don’t want to see you again.” Are you guessing the expression changed on the second part, even without reading a gesture?
I’m not a huge fan of The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing, but I do like his FAD advice for dialogue.
Feeling/thought
Action
Dialogue
His example: A shiver of terror ran down Jeremy’s spine. He stood perfectly still. “If you press that button, the entire Piroan Galaxy will be destroyed.”
Of course, you can’t always do this. Sometimes one or two components won’t be necessary. But it’s still a good practice to keep in mind – just in case.
Mini ExerciseMini-exercise: Rewrite my sweater/jerk scene above using FAD.
In The First Five Pages, A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile (my favorite writing book), Noah Lukeman says, “On our path to rejecting the manuscript, dialogue should, in truth, come first, as dialogue reveals the skill of the writer instantaneously.”
Stay tuned for tone and style, diction and dialect, between the lines, knowing what to exclude, and any other topics you want to read or write about. Let me know!
Exercises – choose one
- Write a conversation between your character and his/her idol
- Write a scene in which your character uses dialogue to foreshadow
- Without having your character look around the room (park, car, etc.) and describe what s/he sees in a way that will be author intrusion, write a scene in which your character lets us know about the setting through natural conversation.
- If you are not participating in the Tuesday project, or do not want to use your character, write a scene that is all dialogue.
Tag: FunTueDialogue
Edited by granddaughters. T looked for capital letters at the beginning of sentences and punctuation at the end. F looked for anything wrong. If anyone else sees problems I would appreciate if you let me know.
Again - can't post group photo.
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Comments: 40
"Goody," said Grems as she considered her options for Liz.
"Thanks for reading and for playing the game," Sandy said. "I appreciate it very much."
"You are very welcome," stated Grems.
"Interesting article, I will have to bookmark it." Thought Lori.
"Lori makes me believe I should have gone into more detail in the punctuation section," Sandy said. "Maybe pointing out that the period at the end of the sentence should be a comma, and the t on thought does not have to be capitalized."
I have always been fascinated with Ernest Hemingway's approach to dialogue. It is very clear that his concept of "brevity" came from his days as a Journalist. As a screen writer I deal with dialogue constantly, unfortunately it is in an entirely different format of writing that calls for a VERY different way of thinking while writing.
Spartan, I haven't done any screen writing. I'm ashamed to admit that I passed up a wonderful opportunity to learn a few years ago while serving on the board for a docudrama project. They were going to use true stories and hired me to write the creative writing portion. A screen writer came in to teach the same group how to turn their stories into scripts but I didn't come back for that part. Any way you would consider basic lessons here?
> When quoting within dialogue, use single quotes within the doubles. “I heard him say, ‘Not
> today,’” Beth told the group.
Okay, I have a question. I thought that when you were setting something off, the punctuation goes on the outside. I would have thought the 'Not today' was set off and should have been "I heard him say, 'Not today'," Beth told the group.
How do you set off things and use commas in regular text. If I want to say I don't really think the person is intelligent, I might have a sentence like,
I think "smart politician" is an oxymoron.
So if I want a comma after something like that, where does it go?
In this sentence: I thought he was one of those "smart politicians" but I was wrong. Where does the comma go?
When using quotes to offset, not to quote what someone said, the punctuation goes outside. There are people here who will disagree with me but I'm sticking to it. In your sentence, I think "smart politician" is an oxymoron, you aren't quoting anyone. If you want to use a comma, it goes after the quotation mark - I think "smart politician", . . .
A: You want to talk about what?
B: Dialogue
A Dialogue, like people holding a conversation.
B That's the idea.
A:What a waste of time, just text me
R U kidding, Ian?
Whoa!
I am totally confused about the use of quotation marks here. I've never seen it like this before. When do you use a single quotation mark? Could you explain the differences between the two?
When people write comments on Gather, I've noticed some use single quotation marks rather than double quotation marks.
“Blah blah blah blah blah. You’re probably bored with this so I’m going to change my tune. (No closing quote because I am going to continue.) “Yap, yap, yap, yap yap. This should be enough.” * When quoting within dialogue, use single quotes within the doubles. “I heard him say, ‘Not today,’”
Use the single quotation to indicate dialogue within dialogue - when the speaker is repeating someone else. My example is not very good. Maybe someone else will come up with something better.
You said: “You don’t want me to finish that thought,” he asked. “Better clarify.”
Should that really be "he asked"? Is he really asking anything?
No, that should not really be 'he asked'. I changed that sentence but not the punctuation. F and T are fired! (I won't fix it in the post because this comment explains.)
Awww ... poor F and T! :)
Great tips.
For some reason, I just got a vision of a plate of beef tips. "I think I'm going insane," Barb said.
Yummy. Now I'm hungry and it isn't even close to lunch time.
Peter opened his mouth and pointed in. "If it goes here, it's tofu tips". He smiled as if he was too funny. He looked around. Nobody else laughed. He repeated, "Tofu tips!"
Ewwww ... tofu tips. Ick. And where else would you be putting beef tips, Peter? Oh, nevermind, don't answer that.
The period in your first quoted sentence should be on the other side of the quotation mark ... "...it's tofu tips."
Now I'm picturing herds of tofu grazing... You do weird things to my mind, Peter.
ooops - yes, and it just looks WRONG !!!
Mini rewrite:
As the miasma of his body odor made her stomach churn, Sandy struggled not to inhale. "Nice sweater, jerk," she mumbled."
Whoops! That final set of quotation marks was left over from copying your orignal -- didn't know it was still there!
Thanks, Dannielle.
I feel as though you need this:
"Gosh! Thanks!" he said. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I gotta go get a shower. It's been a hot one today, hasn't it?"
Sandy smiled weakly, waved farewell, and turned to drink in a lungful of clean fresh air.
Along the lines of Spartan's question, Sandy, I'm wondering what you think of Cormac McCarthy's style in relation to dialogue. It follows none of the rules you present here, yet for me it has significant impact upon the reader. Some may find it simply annoying, given that it does 'break the rules', but for me it is so much closer to reality in its presentation. I'm thinking specifically of his novel, The Road, and the dialogue passages between the man and his son. They were extremely powerful in the manner they were written.
"I posted my dialog piece," Donna said to the group, "I would love some feedback, critique, or a good old fashioned dressing down. Whatever floats your respective boats."
Billy Comes a Callin'
I believe the comma after "group" should be a period.
I loved the post. I'll go back with my fine-toothed comb if you like.
Have at it, sugar!
And you know I can't edit that comment, so it will just have to stand incorrected.
"I agree with the downplay of descriptive tag lines, but I do love a game of 'Tom Swifties'", Dame Ruth interjected playfully.
"Well, you may be the Grammar Czarina, but I'd make a great pope!", Peter pontificated.
"All this conversation is getting me aroused," Spartan ejaculated.
Well, at least it wasn't Peter ejaculating and Spartan pontificating.
Yeah, how many times a day am I expected to do that ???
I don't know Peter. How many?
"I agree with Dame Ruth," Aniko declared, predictably. (She had a tendency to agree with sarcastic Jewish atheists.) "In humorous writing, those colorful descriptive tags can be fun. On the other hand," she hastened to add, to placate the writer of this article, "in a serious scene they can be distracting, or even come across as ridiculous."
"Indeed," added Aniko's stalker, Dannielle, "adding or omitting tags can affect the pacing of a scene. When the action is rapid, such as a battle or escape scene, tags are not only unnecessary but also work to ruin the feel of the scene."
Great ideas!
10.