Creative Writing Class

Do's & Don'ts of Dialogue

Written dialogue represents the spoken words of two or more people involved in a conversation. Dialogue is special for a number of reasons. It captures the reader's attention. It breaks up blocks of prose. It adds more white space to a page, which pleases the eye. Dialogue is the first thing many fiction editors look for in stories. If the dialogue doesn't work, the whole manuscript is rejected.

In dialogue, each person gets his own paragraph each time he speaks, no matter how briefly. Even a simply spoken, "No," gets a paragraph all to itself. Study the following passage.

"We've got a new recruit, Rosh," [Daniel] said.

Heavy legs braced, Rosh measured the newcomer. "Speak up, boy," he barked. "Who are you?"

Rosh was used to seeing men cringe. Joel did not cringe....

"Joel bar Hezron, sir," he managed finally.

 "Your father know you're here?"

"N-no, sir."

"In trouble in the town, are you?"

"Oh, no."

"Then what do you want with me?"

Joel stood his ground. "I wanted to see you," he said, "because they say that someday you will drive the Romans out of Israel. When you do, I want to be with you."

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare; 1962 Newbery Medal winner

Beginning with the first line of dialogue, count all the lines; count the space between the lines as blank lines. Stop on Joel's last line. How many lines were there in all? ______________ Did it seem like that much as you were reading it? Yet it took up nearly half of the page!

Look at the punctuation in relation to the quotation marks. Where do the ending commas, periods, and question marks fall? ______________

Are there any punctuation marks outside the quotation marks? Look at the speaker's tags (he said/she said). When the speaker's tag is set in the middle of dialogue, it's followed by a comma or period. Where does that punctuation fall: on the inside or the outside of the quotation marks? ________________

What have you just learned? When it pertains to dialogue, sentence punctuation goes within the quotation marks. When the speaker's tag (not part of the actual dialogue) comes first, the comma is outside the quotation mark. Leah glanced up and said, "Are you still here?" When the speaker's tag comes last, the appropriate punctuation (comma, question mark, or exclamation point) comes before the closing quotation marks. "I'm not leaving until you talk to me!" Scott responded angrily. When the speaker's tag is placed in the middle of dialogue, follow the previous rules; the comma goes inside the quotation mark before the tag line, and it's outside the quotation mark after the tag line. "Fine. Have it your way," she said with a shrug, "but don't blame me if you don't like what you hear."

Look back at the passage of dialogue. How many lines have no speaker tags? ________ When you have established which characters are talking, you may leave off the tags now and then. It makes the dialogue flow quickly. However, tags do help to keep the characters straight in the reader's mind. If the dialogue were to flow for pages without speaker tags, somewhere along the way the reader would forget which character was which. It's annoying to have to go back a page and sort the lines out.

Quickly now, let's cover the .

1. Don't write out small talk unless it is an important element to the plot (such as showing awkwardness between characters). Even then, keep it brief. Your readers won't tolerate inane chatter about the weather and everyone's health for long, nor will the um's and uh's of ordinary speech delight them.

2. Don't write your dialogue as an exact representation of an overheard conversation. Can conversations be dull at times? Yes, of course. Should dialogue be dull? Never! Never have a character say something along these lines: "Well, um, I guess I could-I know I could go with-uh, are you sure it's okay with your mother? Then, yeah, let me ask my Dad to be sure," when you could simplify and write, "If it's okay with your mother, I'm sure Dad will say I can go to the concert with you."

3. Don't repeat characters' names each time someone speaks. You don't repeat your friend's name over and over during your conversations, and your characters shouldn't be guilty of that, either.

4. Do keep each character's speech brief. No character should talk on and on without pausing for breath or allowing another character to slip a few words in. If the character is prone to drone on and on, make another character interrupt!

5. Do make each character distinguishable by what he or she says. Characters should sound different from each other. The reader should be able to tell them apart by the way each one speaks, the words each one uses, and the mannerisms that are attributed to each individual.

6. Don't give all your characters your own habits of speech. One of them sounding like you is fine. All of them sounding like you is boring.

Your assignment is to write one full page of dialogue. You may include brief explanations of who the characters are and what they are doing, seeing, or hearing, but most of the page should be devoted to the dialogue itself. Don't involve more than three characters. The more characters there are, the more difficult it is to make each one sound different from the others.

There are some tricks you can use to distinguish your characters. If one speaks in long sentences, the other could speak in brief sentences. If one loves big words, the other could rely on simple language. One character may have a personal expression or a favorite word. One may speak uncertainly, forming questions rather than statements. One may be bossy, barking out commands, perhaps even interrupting other characters. Who among your acquaintances has a memorable speech pattern? Think about giving one of your characters a similar manner of speaking

Choose one of the following scenarios for your dialogue assignment.

A sports hero visiting a sick child in a hospital
A police officer questioning a burglary suspect
Two siblings making breakfast in bed for a parent
A child trying to convince a parent to buy something
Two actor friends who are both auditioning for the same movie role