More on writing dialogue

Writing good, natural-sounding dialogue comes with practice. For some, writing dialogue is the easy part. For others, they struggle to make it come across as sounding natural. The way you blend your narrative in with your dialogue will add to the quality of your style. And an important part of setting out your dialogue is to do with your use of attributions or speech tags.

Attributions or speech tags

Attribution is the term used to describe who is speaking – he said, she replied, I answered etc. Some writers feel they need to look for other ways of saying who is speaking and search the thesaurus to find alternative ways of saying ‘he said’.  In fact, the humble ‘he said’ is virtually invisible in the context of the story. By using an alternative, it can become conspicuous, drawing attention to itself rather than what is being said. If your story is littered with contrived attributions it will make it appear amateurish. You can vary your character’s speeches with equally unobtrusive attributions such as he replied, he answered, he asked and similar phrases.

Narrative showing the character doing something either before or after the speech could do away with the need for any speech tags. Also, sometimes the dialogue needs nothing around it, as it’s perfectly obvious who is speaking. However, read your work aloud and listen to the euphony and flow of your words. Adjust with the addition or detraction of speech tags or narrative as necessary.

Dialogue is one of the best ways to show the personality of a character and the reader should know who is speaking simply by what is being said and the way it is being spoken. However, be careful not to have a whole section which is nothing but dialogue without narrative or character interaction. The reader does not want to have to count back to see who is talking.

Dialect

It can be difficult to write dialogue for characters who come from a region or country with a strong dialect. It’s easy to get into a quandary trying to mimic a broad accent, dropping g’s and h’s and spelling words where the reader has to mentally form the sound in their heads as they read. Not only is this difficult but it also looks awkward on the page. Far better to research and listen to the speech patterns and idioms from the region or slip in a word or phrase that indicates the locality. Be careful this doesn’t come across as clichéd, however.

Slang

Certain characters in your stories will undoubtedly need to resort to slang if they are to sound realistic but be careful not to use the latest modern day slang which comes and goes year after year. While it might be the way characters are expressing themselves today, especially younger characters, by the time your book or story comes out, it could be totally outdated – and make your work ‘dated’ too. Better to stick to the good old fashioned slang words and expressions that have been around for decades.

Additionally, while it’s not slang, abbreviated words are important in dialogue. A character saying: “I have been looking for you.” sounds less natural than: “I’ve been looking for you.”  Read your dialogue aloud and listen to whether it sounds natural or not.                                                                                             

                                                                                       

Four lettered words

For your characters to come across as real people there may be times when you have no alternative but to use a ‘four lettered’ word. If you feel it is the only thing your character could say under the circumstances, then use it with confidence. However, I would add, that in my mind, this would only apply to adult books, certainly never in children’s or YA books.

For adult readership, a swear word may be necessary to create impact and show the character’s mood. However, if you have a character who swears continually it will quickly become irritating for the reader. Plus, the impact will be lost. An occasional swear word in a novel can be startling and effective, while a hundred will become tiresome.

Of course, if you’re writing fantasy or sci-fi, you can create your own swear words without offending anyone.

Punctuation around dialogue

Getting the punctuation correct around dialogue must become second nature to you. So many novice writers get it wrong or fail to be  consistent with their layout around dialogue. Remember that all the punctuation goes inside the quotation marks. If you’re adding a speech tag, you don’t capitalise the first letter, even if your final punctuation mark before the closing speech mark is a question mark or exclamation mark. E.g. “Shall we take the bus?” she asked, glancing at her watch.

Also note the comma after the attribution. Start a new paragraph for every new character speaking or doing something. Check your settings so that you’re not adding extra white space every time you hit the return button on your keyboard. Adjust your settings to indent every new paragraph for fiction, unless the magazine guidelines/style says not to.

If you know the publication you’re writing for, then check whether they use double or single quotation marks around their dialogue. If you haven’t a particular publication in mind, then it’s your choice – whatever feels more natural to you. However, in my opinion, I would suggest using double because it’s easier for an editor to change those to single if re-formatting your story for publication, rather than the other way around.

It’s easy to make mistakes – all those important commas, full stops, quotation marks, exclamation marks, capital letters and uncapped letters. Make sure you have it perfected so that it’s second nature to you when you write dialogue.

Don’t expect anyone else to put it right for you, it’s no one’s responsibility but your own. If you don’t master the correct way of presenting your dialogue it could spoil your chances with an editor.

So, make it second nature and enjoy your dialogue. Enjoy hearing what your characters have to say and let their dialogue carry your story forward.

 

Today’s Exercise:

As dialogue practice, write a page or two of mainly dialogue but incorporating narrative, around this scenario: The bridegroom and best man await the arrival of the bride. The bridegroom is getting cold feet, about the wedding.

 

Tomorrow: Writing narrative.

Thank you Rob Tysall, Tysall's Photography for the photograph.

Read more writing tips in my book, Become a Writer, a step by step  guide. https://amzn.to/3487fws

Writing realistic dialogue

The way you write your dialogue can make or break your story. After all your efforts in creating your characters with all their individual traits, personality, appearance, background and so on, it’s vital that the way they speak and the things they say, match their personality and mood.

While you want your dialogue to sound like real speech, it actually only gives the impression of real speech. When people are talking in real life, there are lots of y’knows, umms and ahhs, along with repetitions, interruptions and drifting off at a tangent. Real speech in a story would be tedious. The author has to give the impression of real speech with all the boring bits taken out, leaving just the words that are there for a reason.

A few lines of good dialogue can reveal more about character and plot than many pages of narrative. Plus, dialogue brings vitality to a story – it brings your story to life.

Reasons for dialogue

• To carry the story forward.
• To characterise the speaker and other characters.
• To show the emotional state of the speaker.
• To describe or set the scene or mood.
• To increase the tension and suspense.
• To provide the reader with necessary information.

Make every word of your dialogue count. It is not there to pad out your story. If something is mentioned in dialogue, then it is there for a reason. The reader may not know that reason at that moment, but later in the story it should become clear. If your dialogue is littered with irrelevant, unnecessary facts that come to nothing it can mislead the reader as well as slowing your story down and spoiling it. So, keep it alive and moving forward. Don’t allow your characters to get bogged down in a lot of unnecessary banter that does nothing to move the story forward.

Of course, making every word count also applies to your narrative – in fact when you’re polishing your story or novel, there should be no superfluous words or long-winded phrases. Every word really should count and be there for a reason.

One piece of advice I picked up years ago, but which has stuck with me, was: if you had to pay 10p for every word you write, you would be meticulous about unnecessary words slipping in.

Be careful not to duplicate.

If you’ve already mentioned something in the narrative, there’s no point in bringing it up again in conversation, and vice versa. And while dialogue is great for providing the readers with important information, be careful one character isn’t telling another character something they already know, just for the benefit of the reader. Bad example: “Hello, Sue, I bet you’re excited to be marrying Joe today at 3 o’clock at St Jude’s and your honeymoon in Paris, particular as you’ve only known him three weeks.”

Dialogue needs to sound natural with the characters all sounding different from one another.

 

 Show don’t tell through dialogue

Dialogue is the best way to reveal character, so be sure that in your story you do not simply state that your character is, for example, a man with a quick temper, or a real joker, without writing scenes to show these traits. Similarly, don’t just tell the readers about two people being in love, or hating one another. This must be shown through the scenes you write, and the way they speak and behave around one another.

Let dialogue work for you

Your characters’ dialogue doesn’t just carry the story forward, it shows the character’s mood, emotions and relationships with others. Let dialogue work in heightening the drama of a scene. If even a single word of dialogue isn’t there for good reason, then change it for a word or sentence that does add something to the story.

A line of dialogue is the perfect tool for starting off your story as it immediately draws the reader in. As someone is speaking, you’re immediately introducing a character. It can reveal personality and how they are feeling right at that moment. It can set the scene and even indicate the conflict and what is at stake. A few good lines of dialogue at the start of a story – or at the opening of any scene can take the place of paragraphs of narrative.

Dialogue is also a perfect choice for ending your story. After all, the reader has stuck with your characters throughout your story, so why not allow one of them to have the final word? I’ve found that a final line of dialogue can conclude the story perfectly.

                                                                                           

Today’s Exercise:

Find a professionally published extract of dialogue and copy it exactly. Take note of where the punctuation goes; take note of where capital letters are used and where they aren’t. Check your own work to see how it compares.

Tomorrow: More on dialogue including speech tags and punctuation around dialogue.

A bit of English grammar

Not wanting this to be a lesson in English Grammar – I’m certainly not qualified to do that! However, there are certain aspect of English grammar that writers need to be aware of when writing fiction. Tense being one of them.

You need to decide what tense you’re writing that particular story in. The tense being the form taken by a verb to indicate the time of action. The major tenses basically are Past, Present and Future. There are many more, but let’s stick to these main ones.

Writing in the Past Tense is the most common and versatile tense to use for your fiction writing. Here, the character, for example: walked in, took off his coat and smiled.

The Present Tense is another commonly used tense, but I’d say much more difficult to sustain. Here, the character: walks in, takes off his coat and smiles.

Should you attempt to write an entire story in the Future Tense, that sentence would be along the lines of: you walk in, take off your coat and smile.

Although in everyday life we talk a great deal in the Future Tense, it doesn’t come naturally to write in that tense – apart from dialogue: “I’ll do that, dear.” “Shall I drive?” The future tense refers to a time ‘later than now’. As far as I know, there are very few books – if any, written in the future tense. The reason being that the essence of telling a story, is to relate things that are happening or have happened. The whole tradition of storytelling goes back to distant times when our ancestors sat around the campfires telling stories of things that had happened. It’s not easy to tell a fictional story about something that hasn’t yet happened. But don’t let me stop you!

Still on the subject of tenses, we use Past Perfect or the Past Perfect Continuous when we write a flashback:  It had been a beautiful summer… It’s feasible that we might want to use the Future Perfect or Future Perfect Continuous in a scene where your character is daydreaming about an event they hope, or dread will happen – maybe a premonition type of scene.

The great thing about writing is that you can be adventurous. See what works for you. However, don’t change the tense in your story unless it’s deliberate and to intentionally create some kind of effect – don’t change it because you’ve made a mistake.

Understanding viewpoint

It’s really important to understand viewpoint. Viewpoint is through whose eyes, ears, thoughts and emotions the story is told. Be sure that you’re writing through the viewpoint of your main character – your protagonist. It is important that the conflict in the story affects this main character personally, so that the reader experiences all their joys and sorrows. If the reader fails to connect with this character they may not read on.

Your story or book may just have one viewpoint character (single viewpoint), or you may decide that you want some scenes or chapters told through the eyes and heart of another important character or characters (multi viewpoints). Either is fine but avoid head-hopping. Don’t jump willy-nilly from one character’s head to another. Give each viewpoint character their own scene or chapter. In your layout you could indicate a change of viewpoint by adding some extra white space between paragraphs. Make it clear at the start of the new scene that we are now in another character’s head.

Short stories tend to be single viewpoint – two at the most. Longer stories and novels could have multi viewpoint characters because the story is more complex. Be selective however, the reader doesn’t need to see the story through every character’s eyes.

There’s also the omniscient viewpoint, which is a kind of God-like approach that’s all seeing and all knowing. So, the reader gets to see what every character is thinking and feeling. However, unless you’re a very experienced writer – and the story warrants it, writing in this omniscient viewpoint can come across as amateurish. You are aiming for readers to connect with your main character and if you are constantly skipping from one character to another, the reader will not be able to identify with any of the characters and undoubtedly lose interest in the whole thing. If you decide on using everybody’s viewpoint, beware that it is the perfect way of making your story nobody’s.

Theme

To describe what is meant by the ‘theme’ of the story, I would describe this as being a simple sentence or two that sums up what your story is about. For example, it might be a rags to riches theme, or a love conquers all theme, or a revenge is sweet theme.

However, while other writers might disagree, I’d say that you shouldn’t worry too much if you don’t know the theme of your story. In my experience, very often the theme doesn’t become apparent until you’re halfway through or have even finished writing your story.

When you do finally understand the theme, then you can re-work  to enhance that theme, making it stronger through the dialogue, narrative and description as you polish and edit. 

Which Person to write in?

You also need to decide whether you’re writing in the 1^st Person, 2^nd Person or 3^rd Person viewpoints.

Writing in the First Person

Some stories work best when written in the 1^st Person. Here you write from the perspective of ‘I’. However, writing in the 1^st Person does not mean it’s you, the author, unless it’s autobiographical. Otherwise, you need to create a fully rounded fictional protagonist.

Don’t think you can get away with not doing this, just because the main character is referred to as I, me and my. There are no short-cuts to be gained by writing in the 1^st Person. And exactly as when you’re writing in the 3^rd Person, the protagonist can’t know what’s going on in someone else’s thoughts, so viewpoint rules still apply. Remember, no head-hopping

Writing in the Second Person

Writing in the second person it’s as if you are talking to the reader and you would use the pronouns ‘you’ or ‘yours’. Writing fictional stories in the 2^nd Person although possible, is not very popular amongst editors or even readers.

Yet, writing fiction from the 2^nd Person perspective could be just as intimate and engaging as if writing from either of the other two perspectives. Maybe more so, if done well, as the author is literally inviting the reader to feel and experience what’s going on for themselves.

When writing non-fiction, particularly articles and instructions, writing in the 2^nd Person is the perfect way of drawing the reader in to what you’re saying. E.g. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see your book on the library shelves…

Writing in the Third Person

This is probably the most popular and easiest to manage. Writing in the 3rd Person is when the protagonist is referred to by name or by the pronouns: he, her, she, he, his, hers, they, theirs, them etc. Exactly the same as if writing through the 1^st Person, the story unfolds through their eyes, emotions, actions, thoughts and feelings. You can get just as close emotionally to the character whether you’re writing in the 1^st or 3^rd Person.

Again, the viewpoint rules apply. When writing in the 3^rd Person (and 1^st Person) you can only know what’s going on in this character’s head. Your protagonist might surmise or guess what other characters are thinking and feeling but won’t know for sure. So, don’t go jumping into other character’s heads (head hopping).

Today’s Exercises:

·         Practice writing in the 1^st Person, as if the protagonist is the ‘I’ / ‘Me’ character. Write a short scene, perhaps showing the character running for a bus or train or walking through the park. Keep it simple as the emphasis is on getting the viewpoint of the 1^st Person correct. You will also need to decide whether you’re writing in the Present Tense or Past Tense. See what feels most natural to you.

·        Write another scene in the 3^rd Person, so the protagonist is referred to by name or he/she, his/her, theirs/they etc. Again, you will need to decide whether to write in the Present Tense or Past Tense. Your choice.

Tomorrow: Writing realistic dialogue

 Thanks to Rob Tysall, Tysall's Photography for the photograph.

The Plot Thickens

Some writers plot meticulously, others write ‘by the seat of their pants’ You may have heard the question: are you a plotter or pantzer? There isn’t a right or wrong way when it comes to plotting. It’s whatever works for you – and you might find you use a different approach depending on what you're writing. You will no doubt find your own way of plotting, but if you’re looking for suggestions, here’s a few:

• Post-it notes: different colours depicting different moods or characters.

• A story board: sketch out your story.

• A time-line: consider the time covered in your story, and plot hour by hour, day by day, month by month, depending on the time you’re covering.

• A numbered list: For example, 1-30. Gauge roughly where major and minor events will come in this list. You will be constantly re-arranging, but that’s a good thing.

• If you know the ending, try working backwards logically, scene by scene or chapter by chapter.

Major scenes

While some lesser scenes can simply be told through narrative so that the story moves forward at a good pace, make sure you don’t move too swiftly through important scenes. They need to be written in all their glory – through a key character’s viewpoint, so the reader can experience the event as closely as the character does.  Let readers experience all the emotion and drama; let them hear the actual words being spoken, and not have the scene simply skipped over by a few narrated sentences or they will feel cheated.

 Character led stories v plot led stories

Whatever story you’re writing, it’s all about the characters. If you deliberately plot a story where things happen to that character, it can come across as contrived or forced. Far better if you create really believable characters with personality, background, ideals, dreams, and so on, and allow the story to develop naturally around what they get up to. Your story then becomes character led rather than plot led.

Twists and turns

You do need to constantly surprise the reader, make sure they can’t see what’s coming. One way of doing this is to free write. If you don’t know what’s coming next neither will the reader. You might find that when you start out on a new story you do free write to begin with, mainly because you’re excited about the great idea you’ve had and can't wait to get going. Then very often, you get so far by free writing before coming to a grinding halt. That is the time to start to plot and work out the route you’re taking.

You can keep surprising the reader by making your protagonist unconventional in some way, so they don’t behave how you might expect them to. Or set your story in an unusual environment – somewhere that’s not commonplace. Then, whatever you write, it won’t be common knowledge to others.

Perhaps your character works in an unusual trade. It might take additional research, but it will make your story more unique. Or your character’s goal is something out of the ordinary. So, why not have a romance blossoming on a trek through the Tianzi mountain? Or a thriller set in the ancient ruins of Hierapolis?

Should you happen to create something that turns out to be obvious, edit your work and change things around. When I was writing my first children’s book, Cry Danger, I’d practically finished it when I realised that when my villain was revealed there would be no surprises. We knew it was him all along. So, after a re-think, I realised it would come as a huge surprise if the villain turned out to be someone else – someone who had seemed so nice and innocent all the way through. Of course, then I had to go back to chapter one and work my way through the book, sowing the seeds, writing in those subtle hints and clues so that when the truth was revealed it was a big surprise to everyone – but totally plausible.

There’s no right or wrong way to plot and plan, we all develop our own ways. Personally, I tend to think in scenes rather than chapters. I try to think what needs to be achieved in that particular scene, making it almost a mini story in every scene – but they need to link together and flow nicely. Take each scene slowly, look to the detail. Bring each scene to life with colour and emotion.

Chapter by chapter

If you’re writing a book, at the start of each new chapter establish where we are. If your book has more than one viewpoint character, establish whose head we are in. Start and end chapters in a logical place, or at a point where the reader needs to be left dangling. Cliff-hangers make the reader read on. Don’t give the reader an opportunity to put the book down. Keep them desperate to know what happens next.

Pace

Make it a roller coaster of a ride. Imagine if you were on a fairground ride and it started at the highest, fastest most terrifying moment. The rest of the ride would be something of an anti-climax. So, give your story a dramatic start by all means, but it should not be the most dramatic moment of the whole story.

Be aware too, that while a story needs drama, action and emotional highs and lows, it does not want to be high drama throughout. Give your story a mix of quieter, slower, more relaxed scenes – although never boring and always moving forward, rising gradually to a crescendo.

Hold the reader’s attention

Keep readers interested not only by the events happening to your characters – and your characters’ reaction to events, but in the way you write these incidents. Look to the opposite ends of the scale. For example, high drama incidents hit harder if the scene before is of a slower more relaxed nature. If you are revealing betrayal it will be more acute if the reader has witnessed a previous scene of total trust. If there is a scene of joy it will be more joyful if the reader has coped with the character’s sorrow beforehand. If your character is about to step into danger, then the lead up could lull the reader into thinking they were safe. Think ‘calm before the storm’ scenarios.

 

Vary your sentences

Vary their structure, length and even the choice of words, so that it might be read with a feeling of calm, or a feeling of rising tension. Longer words and sentences and descriptive passages will give a more leisurely relaxed sense of being. Short, sharp words and sentences will give the opposite effect. If you can pace your story and mix in unexpected twists and turns, then like a roller coaster ride, your readers will cling on breathlessly to the very end.

Today’s exercise:

If you did yesterday’s exercise, creating a very broad outline of a beginning, middle and end to a story, now expand that plot. Try making a list of 1-30, and jot in an idea of an event or something happening for each stage. Don’t be afraid to shuffle these points around as a story starts to emerge.

Tomorrow: Some English grammar.

For more writing advice and tips, read: Become a Writer - a step by step guide

Thank you Rob Tysall of Tysall's Photography for the image.