Viv's Imagination Land
My inspiration, photography and writing of prose, poetry and my novels in the making.
Dialogue tips that actually work:
- You are not writing a movie (ignore this if you are). The reader doesn’t need to know every word the characters say for the duration of the story. Less is more.
- Dialogue can happen within the prose. “And they awkwardky discussed the weather for five minutes” is way better than actually writing five pages of dialogue about the weather.
- Balance your dialogues. Surprise yourself with a monosyllabic answe to a dialogue that’s ten sentences long. Don’t be afraid of letting your character use half a page for a reply or nothing at all!
- Don’t write accents phonetically, use slang and colloquialisms if needed.
- Comma before “said” and no caps after “!?” unless it’s an action tag. Study dialogue punctuation.
- Learn the difference between action tags and dialogue tags. Then, use them interchangeably (or none at all).
- Don’t be afraid to use said. Use said if characters are just saying things, use another word if not. Simple. There’s no need to use fancy synonyms unless absolutely necessary.
- Not everyone talks the same way so it makes sense for your characters to use certain words more often than others. Think of someone who says “like” to start every sentence or someone who talks really slow. Be creative.
- Use prose to slow down the pace during a conversation.
- Skip prose to speed up the pace during a conversation.
(a) Dialogue is spoken word, so even if not writing a movie, try putting it in screenplay format. This will immediately show if any one character is talking too much without a break for action, description or other-character comment.
A monosyllabic comment at this point can also suggest In-Story that others think the chatterbox is going on too long.
Even if that one character is using half a page, don’t (IMO) put the speech in a single unbroken paragraph. A Wall Of Text has no rest for eyes or pauses for mental breath.
(b) Dialogue is spoken word, so try speaking it - not just reading, think Voice Actor - into whatever recording app or device you have available.
Nothing sounds as much like spoken word as words being spoken, and using different voices can help in choosing distinctive rhythm and vocabulary for that character’s dialogue.
