Tag: Write-Dialogue

Other Cool Blogs: Five Common Dialogue Mistakes

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I keep coming back to dialogue, don’t I? That is because there is a limited amount of ways to present information to the reader – the narrative, the backstory, the action, and the dialogue. Dialogue is where narrative and action meet, and concentrates on what 50% of your audience thinks is the most important part of the book – the character. The other half think the plot is the most important part – and this well-research scientific statistical split which I just made up has a slide bar for each reader and each genre.

Today the way-back machine returns us to October 2015 on Xterra Web – Five Common Dialogue Mistakes Writers Make – written by Kelly Hartigan (an editor).

She starts off with one of my biggest peeves on her list of five mistakes: Every character sounds the same.

Some people are over-educated, other people got expelled from the school of hard knocks, and still others are pedantic within the speech patterns. Where they lived, what jobs they held, who they are talking to, and why the discussion is taking place all have impact. 

“Yeah, Jay-Jay be a handful at times. All you gots to do is text me and I’ll whoop his ass for you when he gets home. I’m 100% behind you Teach. Hell, me and the old man ain’t working mornings, waitressing tips best at dinner and he got third shift after I get home. If you need classroom help, we can be there when we drop the boy off.”

“I don’t understand why Jerard’s grades dropped this semester. His last teacher gave him all ‘A’s’ in first grade. Maybe I should take this up with my friend on the school board, Ms. Stiles? I know you are new to teaching and may not have a grasp of who deserves special attention.”

Dialogue matters. How much of a picture do you have of these two mothers? How about the teacher they are talking and the teacher’s facial expression and mannerisms and thoughts – even though there is no narrative clues whatsoever?

There is a really cool graphic about five positive dialogue traits and five negative dialogue traits which you might want to download. Again the weblink is here:  http://editing.xterraweb.com/writing-tips/five-common-dialogue-mistakes-writers-make

WRITING EXERCISE: Write a dialogue-only scene. No speech-tags, no narrative.

Other Cool Blogs: 6 Ways You’re Botching Your Dialogue

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

On June 5, 2013 writing for Litreactor.com (has changed to a pay-per-view around 2/28/2023), Robbie Blair encapsulated the perfect advice for adding energy to dialogue. Why is dialogue so important? Dialogue is where character development meets action. Capturing the way the characters speak metamorphosizes the perfectly dressed poseable dolls sculptured with words into believable people.

Dialogue is where character development meets action.

Every single one of the “6 Ways You’re Botching Your Dialogue” are ones I have bounced slushes on, corrected authors on while editing, commented on during reviews, AND needed to fix in my own writing. See the whole article here:  (link no longer working as of 2/24/2023).

WRITING EXERCISE: Go to your work in-progress (WIP) and pick out a dialogue scene. Use at least one of the six comments to attack the dialogue and make it better – adjust a character’s speech to match their education and background, show hierarchy by who is polite to whom, kill the clones.

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You can see some of these techniques in action in two recent pieces on the blog, Old Dragon and Small Fiddle.

In Old Dragon, the dialogue reveals much about each character. From the disrespect of the young man addressing the town elder as “grandpa”, to the simple words of the child listening in the audience. The POV character is a master storyteller and his words have a pace to them the others lack, but he speaks differently to each person and when in storytelling mode.

In Small Fiddle, the main character is addressed differently by several people in chapter one. Olivia is formal, but adult familiar, addressing the POV as “Rebecca”. That woman’s voice is haughty and cutting. Meanwhile, Paulie, the short order cook, calls her “Becca” while his daughters address the adult as “Mrs. Hurt.” All three of the food truck workers are polite to the customer with just the right touch of friendly for repeat business.

How Rebecca talks to the other people around her changes based on her relationships with them as well. Finally linear dialogue is avoided because Rebecca is actively trying to derail Olivia’s self-righteous gossip-mongering.

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words May 26, 2014

Erin Penn 1 Comment

Image courtesy of pandpstock001 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Speechtags

Thank you James R. Tuck for finally nailing down why said-isms / speechtags are bad. The minute I read the words of your Magical Words blog post, I jumped in my seat. “THAT’S IT!” What I have been trying to define from the hazy feeling of vague wrongness.

Speechtags are a tell – you tell the reader who is speaking – instead of showing them. 

Speechtags break the show, don’t tell rule.

Epiphany.

Read the whole Magical Word entry here: SPEECHTAGS ARE OF THE DEVIL (he said).

Writing Exercise: Expanding on Dialogue

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of jk1991 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The most common mistake I run across while editing is something I call “Screenplay”, where the writer goes into dialogue-only mode – forgetting to add location cues, speaker indications, action, exposition, and other narrative. Other people call it “Talking Heads”, and it is about as exciting as watching stick puppet talk without the puppeteer moving the sticks.

Now, when you are writing the first draft, you may find only dialogue occurs. This is fine, spew the information in your head on the page. You can’t fix it until it is written.

For the flash Grass, which came in just over 2,000 words, the initial exchange was 100% dialogue. The alien visiting my head asked “Why do you dedicate so much land to non-food?” while I was mowing the lawn, and the conversation devolved from there. After getting stung by a yellow jacket, I retreated indoors and decided to type out the exchange. Initially I tried to add some narrative while typing up, but nothing wanted to happen. I knew the exchange was between a human and an alien ambassador and nothing else. Two hundred words vomited from my fingers onto the page in 28 lines of dialogue. That was it.

Then the hard part. Adding in the narrative. Yes, I could have left it in screenplay or movie script format – that is the point of flashes after all, getting things out quickly -, but I wanted to know more. The end result was ten times as long as the initial product, and I did not add a single line of dialogue. If anything the dialogue shrunk a little when I modified the alien’s vocabulary – just a word here and there. The dialogue is substantially unchanged from the initial voices-in-my-head moment while mowing.

Since you are going to write dialogue sans any narrative (and, believe me, you are going to write dialogue sans any narrative) you should practice adding narrative to dialogue. Preferably before you send your manuscript off to a content editor.

WRITING EXERCISE: Either take dialogue already written in play format or create five to ten simple lines of your own without thinking of the scenario at all. You can find dialogue online by searching “screenplay examples” and clicking on images. An example of five simple lines of dialogue is “Hello” “Hello, how are you doing today?” “You know.” “Yep.” “Any suggestions on how to get the red out?”.

If you are using previously created dialogue ignore who the speakers are. Now that you have some generic dialogue, pick a genre and two characters: Fantasy with an elf and orc; science fiction with a spaceship captain and crew member; a mystery with the murderer and investigator talking, anything you want. Add the narrative to your dialogue. It should at least double the length of the dialogue. 

Here is a secret, just between you and me, dear writers. You want to increase your word count for a document, go find those “talking head” areas in your Work-In-Progress and flesh them out. You can even try that right now as a second writing exercise for today if you want.

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Title: Red Cop

“Hello,” echoed through the empty store.

Jazz bit back a curse from popping her head against the counter top when she tried to stand. Stuffing bags underneath the cash register in preparations for next week’s sales had hid her from view. Standing, rubbing her head, she put on her best customer service smile and said, “Hello, how are you doing today?” before focusing on the customer. Correction, police officer. Who did not look happy at all; his uniform was a wreck. Another one stood in the open doorway of her little mall shop, her uniform pristine.

“You know.” He growled before glancing over at his female partner, who nodded and stepped outside.

Remaining overtly perky while reviewing her recent activities for any slipup which might have brought the officer to this particular store, Jazz replied, “Yep.

“Any suggestions on how to get the red out?” the officer asked, moving his right hand over his clothing from shoulder to waist in hovering indication.

Walking around the counter to lead him to the appropriate cleaning supplies, Jazz, sometimes known as the supervillian Prankster, smiled wide while no one was looking. (initial dialogue 19 words – final result 188 words.)

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words October 30, 2012

Erin Penn

Business Conversation Stock Photo

Image Courtesy of franky242 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Play’s the Thing

“Dialogue – live it, learn it, write it”, a blog posting by John G. Hartness on Magical Words.

Why to writers write? “because they have something to say”. How do writers say it? “through characters”.  How do characters say stuff? “through dialogue.”

Where can you find dialogue? In plays.                                                         

Takeaway advice to become a better writer, read plays. See the full blog here: http://www.magicalwords.net/really-i-mean-it/dialogue-live-it-learn-it-write-it/

Bonus advice for editing – Read all dialogue out loud after you have completed your WIP to make certain everything scans. I find this very useful to make certain each character sounds unique.

WRITING EXERCISE: Read a scene from a MODERN play or screenplay (not musical) no more than 20 years old (yeah, you may need to go looking). What makes the conversation feel real?