“Just be like that,” she pouted. “Oh, come on,” he groaned. “Not this again.” “You don’t love me,” she replied. “Right,” he snarled. “That’s why I bought you an eight hundred dollar diamond.” “Here,” she sobbed. “Just take it back. Take it.” Okay, what’s wrong with our sample above (other than being melodramatic)? It’s an […]
Have you ever read a court transcript? It accurately gives a word-by-word report of exactly what is said. But it is interesting? Uh-uh. If we wrote verbatim the way we talk, our readers would execute us at dawn (or maybe earlier). So what do we do to create “natural” dialogue? First, we must listen to […]
CATHERINE’S 3 C’S FOR COMPELLING CONVERSATION: Dialogue Tips from Catherine Mann Character: Age/Jargon: Make dialogue age appropriate Idiosyncrasies: Give characters words, phrases, even curses, specific to their personalities Dialects: Use sparingly, choosing a couple of regional adjustments to give flavor. Male/Female Distinctions: Men tend to talk in shorter sentences, fewer superlatives. Compress: Realism vs. Representation: […]
I was thinking about how often we refer to good dialogue as ‘sparkling’. For some reason, thirst perhaps, the word sparkling immediately made me think about my favorite beverage’champagne. Then, probably to keep my mind off drinking in the afternoon, I began to think about how much in common champagne has with good dialogue, and […]
Fiction is made up of two main structural elements: narrative and dialogue. Narrative is the description of what’s happening–the describing of characters, settings, moods and actions. Dialogue is either spoken or thought. * Spoken dialogue, often referred to as external dialogue (or verbal, active or impassive dialogue), is always easy to spot. Just look for […]