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dialog

Dialog: Make It Work for Your Story

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smiley balloon thm
Our voices are as unique as our physical appearance.
Photo by GregRon Photography

(updated Jan. 31, 2023)

In a recent reader survey, several readers mentioned struggling with dialog, so today I’m pulling from the archive and updating it.

Dialog must accomplish 1 or more of 9 tasks, according to award-winning author Cecil Murphey. Perhaps that’s why it can be so difficult to write.

In real life we learn to recognize the voices of our friends and family.

But how do you recognize the voice of a story character when you never hear that voice?

Too often character dialog reads the same. But it’s important to give each a distinctive voice. But how?

[Read more…] about Dialog: Make It Work for Your Story

3 Common Dialog Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

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Crafting great dialog takes work. And today I’d like to discuss 3 mistakes I see more often than any other.

Let’s look at definitions first.

A dialog tag (also known as attribution) tells the reader who is speaking, but also [Read more…] about 3 Common Dialog Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

3 Common but Easily Avoided Mistakes in Fiction

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3 Common Mistakes to Avoid in FictionLately, I’ve noticed several of the same kinds of mistakes occurring in the manuscripts I’m reviewing, so I thought I’d address them here today. Let’s start with the easiest one to fix.

Dialog tags before the dialog

You can find this mistake with ease, and fix it just as quickly. It happens most often when writers give their characters an action prior to the dialog.

Gary turned to me and said, “I don’t make that mistake.”

Readers know quotation marks indicate speech. The words and said are superfluous.

Laughing, Gary said, “I don’t make that mistake.”

In the example above, [Read more…] about 3 Common but Easily Avoided Mistakes in Fiction

Those Pesky Dialogue Tags

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dialog 2Oh those pesky dialogue tags.

Said.

Asked.

Replied.

Responded.

There’s a lot of conflicting information out there on what to use.

What’s a writer to do?

In the multitude of manuscripts I read, I see writers employ such things as “Sally smiled” or “Gerald laughed.” In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with that. The problem arises when the writer uses it as a substitute for “she said” and suddenly the character is constantly smiling or laughing.

Generally, a reader needs to have an identifier every 4-5 lines of dialogue in order to stay on track with who is speaking. So a tag isn’t required every time someone speaks (but I’ve seen writers do just that).

Let’s look at an alternative to the dialogue tag. [Read more…] about Those Pesky Dialogue Tags

6 Steps to Story Development

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spinning platesWhen you get right down to it the major goal of the fiction writer is to keep the reader reading.

And like the performer who spins plates at the top of a stick, writers must spin several plates too—characters and character arc, plot and plot development, conflict, dialog, show vs. tell, and pacing. If we focus on only one aspect of story development and neglect the others, the story falls flat.

But that’s a lot to deal with. I certainly can’t get my brain wrapped around all those things at the same time as I write.

So what’s the answer?

Focus on one at a time, using these 6 steps. [Read more…] about 6 Steps to Story Development

9 Aspects of Dialog, from Author Cecil Murphey

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When I heard New York Times best-selling author Cecil Murphey (90 Minutes in Heaven) was doing a workshop for the writers group I belong to, I wasted no time in signing up.

How better to learn about writing than to be taught by a multiple, best-selling author? During the day, he taught on dialog. Here’s part of what he shared.

In all novels, dialog must accomplish 1 or more of the following tasks.

Dialog:

  1. Must have a purpose.
  2. Advances the story, furthers the action.
  3. Develops/shows the character.
  4. Shows emotional state of speaker.
  5. Conveys needed info succinctly.
  6. Brings immediacy to prose. Makes readers feel they are part of the scene. They “hear” the dialog with the character.
  7. Builds suspense and intensifies plot.
  8. Controls the pace of your story. It’s a speed control device.
  9. Can sum up: a character can explain in a few sentences to another person who wasn’t present during the action.

Thank you, Cec Murphey, for your permission to share these 9 aspects about dialog! 

In the coming days, I’ll be diving deeper into writing dialog. In the meantime, how do you feel about dialog? Love it, hate it, dread it? Leave your comments below.

 

Writing Good Dialogue

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“Bloated, chunky, dull dialogue is a five-alarm warning to the reviewer that you can’t write salable fiction,” says James Scott Bell in his book The Art of War for Writers.

Dialogue, like any other part of your novel, must move your story forward.

An important part of good dialogue is the distinctive voice of each character. Even if your characters grew up in the same neighborhood and went to the same schools, they have different parents, siblings, and perspectives on life. Those things will affect the way they speak.

Discover your character’s voice by creating a voice journal, a stream of conscious writing you write from a character’s POV. Start your character’s journal by having her or him respond to the questions “Who am I and what do I want?” Then write for about 10 or 15 minutes.

I recommend creating a journal for each main character of your story. Utilize these journals throughout the process of writing your novel, especially when you feel stuck.

What tools do you use to create compelling dialogue?

Debra L. Butterfield © 2013