Post by Amber Skye Forbes on Apr 2, 2014 15:31:18 GMT
Original is here.
I am going to do my best to give you tips on how to create effective dialogue, as crafting effective dialogue is a very difficult thing for many writers, including myself, to do. Back in December I did a high school visit. The teacher told me her creative writing students had issues creating effective dialogue, so I played an activity with them. I’m not sure how successful it was, but I hope they took something away from it. In any case, I’m going to draw upon that activity to lay out some tips here.
This post will be longer than my Creating Effective Action Scene post.
Dialogue should reveal something about the character. Dialogue is an effective way of showing something about a character, or conveying how a character is feeling. Here is a line of dialogue from my novel, When Stars Die. A little bit of context first: Amelia is currently spying on shadows she has been seeing for a few weeks. She has no idea why she has been seeing them, but something in her tells her that they are real.
Colette’s voice rises behind me, a quiet thing in the tremors of my mind. “Are you searching for those shadows again?”
This conveys a few things. The line before it shows that Amelia is terrified, that not even Colette’s presence is enough to calm her. Colette is her best friend. Colette’s dialogue conveys that she knows Amelia has been seeing these shadows for some time, but that she doesn’t believe they’re real. After this dialogue, Amelia thinks how she has no reason to tell Colette that she is seeing them. Now I could have had Amelia simply say that Colette doesn’t believe the shadows are real, but instead I follow up with another line of dialogue that has Colette trying to ease Amelia’s worries by telling her that it’s stress for the impending trials that Amelia will have to face if she wants to become a professed nun.
Dialogue should reflect a character’s personality. If your character is a well-read person, that character’s dialogue should reflect that he or she is. If your character skips school a lot, lives a troubled life, and wanders the streets a lot, your character is probably going to cuss more than usual, have a more cynical way of speaking, and your character is probably going to be more honest and forthright when others are asking for opinions from said character. But don’t fall into stereotypes, either.
Dialogue should be authentic, but should be an edited version of a way a person would speak. Listen to how people speak. People tend to put a lot of ‘umms,’ ‘ers,’ ‘likes,’ ’yeahs,’ and pauses and breaks between sentences, which is not something readers want. You want dialogue to be real, but you don’t want to litter your sentences with these inflections. For example:
"Um…I, uh, want to order some fries, and uh…what’s that up there? Oh, a burger. Yeah, um. I want that." She nods. "Yeah, yeah. That sounds good, and uh, um…oh…that’s it."
That’s how a real indecisive person would talk. Let’s edit it down to something like this.
"Um…I want to order some fries." She pauses, looking up at the menu. "What’s that up there? Oh, a burger. I want that, too. That sounds good." Her eyes pass over the menu, then she looks at the cashier. "That’s it. Thanks!"
Just listen to the way an actual person speaks and edit out any inflections. Read your dialogue out loud, too. If it sounds funny, it will probably read odd to your readers.
Show the tone of your dialogue. You want to limit your use of adverbs when writing a story. Period. You especially want to try to avoid them in dialogue. Strong verbs are often best used in place of adverbs, but let me give you an example to show you what I’m talking about when I say show the tone of your dialogue.
"I am so pissed!" he said harshly.
This is basically me telling readers that he said it harshly. Now let me show you:
His finger tensed on the screen of his smartphone. He wanted to smash the phone so he could forget she ever sent him that text. “I am so pissed!”
It’s wordier, of course, but the fact that he wants to smash his phone conveys how angry he is without having to use an adverb. I didn’t even have to use a dialogue tag because of the preceding sentences. If there is plenty of context before your dialogue, you can simply write “I am so pissed!” and that will be enough to let readers know that, obviously, he’s saying it harshly.
Dialogue should stand on its own. You don’t want to weigh it down with exposition. For example:
"Remember last summer when I kissed that guy and you were there? You were totally stunned when I kissed him, and you told me I was an idiot."
"Yeah, and we were in the 9th grade, too! Now we’re in the 10th grade, and there’s this other guy you want to kiss, and you’re not going to be an idiot this time, because this guy is cute."
Can you tell this dialogue is actually talking to the reader and not the characters talking among themselves? You shouldn’t have to have the characters tell readers about what happened last summer, that they were in the 9th grade when it happened, now they’re in the 10th grade, and now there is another boy this person wants to kiss.
It reads and sounds unnatural. Exposition only works when the other character has no knowledge of the thing being explained. Otherwise, it’s an info dump, and you don’t want that in your dialogue.
Your dialogue should have purpose. Dialogue should build toward something or reveal something. You don’t want your characters to spend too long, bantering back and forth about something that may be completely irrelevant to the plot. Your characters must speak for a reason. They shouldn’t talk just to talk, like people tend to do in real life.
Use gestures, actions, and dialogue tags. Dialogue tags should be used when readers have no clue who is speaking, or when an action is proceeding the dialogue spoken. Nodding, smiling, laughing, glaring, pointing, ect., ect., ect., are all forms of gestures. Use these to convey the tone of dialogue. Have your characters interact with the environment, too, while they are speaking. That is considered an action. Refer to the dialogue examples above for examples of actions I use to strengthen dialogue.
Dialogue should be surprising. You don’t want readers to be able to know what a character is going to say next.
That’s it for my advice on dialogue! Any questions on anything in the post, feel free to message me.
I am going to do my best to give you tips on how to create effective dialogue, as crafting effective dialogue is a very difficult thing for many writers, including myself, to do. Back in December I did a high school visit. The teacher told me her creative writing students had issues creating effective dialogue, so I played an activity with them. I’m not sure how successful it was, but I hope they took something away from it. In any case, I’m going to draw upon that activity to lay out some tips here.
This post will be longer than my Creating Effective Action Scene post.
Dialogue should reveal something about the character. Dialogue is an effective way of showing something about a character, or conveying how a character is feeling. Here is a line of dialogue from my novel, When Stars Die. A little bit of context first: Amelia is currently spying on shadows she has been seeing for a few weeks. She has no idea why she has been seeing them, but something in her tells her that they are real.
Colette’s voice rises behind me, a quiet thing in the tremors of my mind. “Are you searching for those shadows again?”
This conveys a few things. The line before it shows that Amelia is terrified, that not even Colette’s presence is enough to calm her. Colette is her best friend. Colette’s dialogue conveys that she knows Amelia has been seeing these shadows for some time, but that she doesn’t believe they’re real. After this dialogue, Amelia thinks how she has no reason to tell Colette that she is seeing them. Now I could have had Amelia simply say that Colette doesn’t believe the shadows are real, but instead I follow up with another line of dialogue that has Colette trying to ease Amelia’s worries by telling her that it’s stress for the impending trials that Amelia will have to face if she wants to become a professed nun.
Dialogue should reflect a character’s personality. If your character is a well-read person, that character’s dialogue should reflect that he or she is. If your character skips school a lot, lives a troubled life, and wanders the streets a lot, your character is probably going to cuss more than usual, have a more cynical way of speaking, and your character is probably going to be more honest and forthright when others are asking for opinions from said character. But don’t fall into stereotypes, either.
Dialogue should be authentic, but should be an edited version of a way a person would speak. Listen to how people speak. People tend to put a lot of ‘umms,’ ‘ers,’ ‘likes,’ ’yeahs,’ and pauses and breaks between sentences, which is not something readers want. You want dialogue to be real, but you don’t want to litter your sentences with these inflections. For example:
"Um…I, uh, want to order some fries, and uh…what’s that up there? Oh, a burger. Yeah, um. I want that." She nods. "Yeah, yeah. That sounds good, and uh, um…oh…that’s it."
That’s how a real indecisive person would talk. Let’s edit it down to something like this.
"Um…I want to order some fries." She pauses, looking up at the menu. "What’s that up there? Oh, a burger. I want that, too. That sounds good." Her eyes pass over the menu, then she looks at the cashier. "That’s it. Thanks!"
Just listen to the way an actual person speaks and edit out any inflections. Read your dialogue out loud, too. If it sounds funny, it will probably read odd to your readers.
Show the tone of your dialogue. You want to limit your use of adverbs when writing a story. Period. You especially want to try to avoid them in dialogue. Strong verbs are often best used in place of adverbs, but let me give you an example to show you what I’m talking about when I say show the tone of your dialogue.
"I am so pissed!" he said harshly.
This is basically me telling readers that he said it harshly. Now let me show you:
His finger tensed on the screen of his smartphone. He wanted to smash the phone so he could forget she ever sent him that text. “I am so pissed!”
It’s wordier, of course, but the fact that he wants to smash his phone conveys how angry he is without having to use an adverb. I didn’t even have to use a dialogue tag because of the preceding sentences. If there is plenty of context before your dialogue, you can simply write “I am so pissed!” and that will be enough to let readers know that, obviously, he’s saying it harshly.
Dialogue should stand on its own. You don’t want to weigh it down with exposition. For example:
"Remember last summer when I kissed that guy and you were there? You were totally stunned when I kissed him, and you told me I was an idiot."
"Yeah, and we were in the 9th grade, too! Now we’re in the 10th grade, and there’s this other guy you want to kiss, and you’re not going to be an idiot this time, because this guy is cute."
Can you tell this dialogue is actually talking to the reader and not the characters talking among themselves? You shouldn’t have to have the characters tell readers about what happened last summer, that they were in the 9th grade when it happened, now they’re in the 10th grade, and now there is another boy this person wants to kiss.
It reads and sounds unnatural. Exposition only works when the other character has no knowledge of the thing being explained. Otherwise, it’s an info dump, and you don’t want that in your dialogue.
Your dialogue should have purpose. Dialogue should build toward something or reveal something. You don’t want your characters to spend too long, bantering back and forth about something that may be completely irrelevant to the plot. Your characters must speak for a reason. They shouldn’t talk just to talk, like people tend to do in real life.
Use gestures, actions, and dialogue tags. Dialogue tags should be used when readers have no clue who is speaking, or when an action is proceeding the dialogue spoken. Nodding, smiling, laughing, glaring, pointing, ect., ect., ect., are all forms of gestures. Use these to convey the tone of dialogue. Have your characters interact with the environment, too, while they are speaking. That is considered an action. Refer to the dialogue examples above for examples of actions I use to strengthen dialogue.
Dialogue should be surprising. You don’t want readers to be able to know what a character is going to say next.
That’s it for my advice on dialogue! Any questions on anything in the post, feel free to message me.