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
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. *
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
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
“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.”
