Writing Dialogue

Dialogue is conversation. It is often used in plays, stories, autobiographical writing, and biographical writing.

1. Writers use dialogue because it gives a sense of directness and immediacy to their writing. Compare these two sentences:

The queen ordered the traitor taken out and hanged.

"Take that traitor out," the Queen hissed, "And hang him!"

Both sentences convey the same factual information, but the second sentence gives us much more information about the way the Queen felt and spoke.

2. Be careful with the punctuation in dialogue. The words the character says are placed inside quotation marks. The sentence in number 1 above, could also be written:

The Queen hissed, "Take that traitor out and hang him!"

"Take that traitor out and hang him!" the Queen hissed.

3. Shaping/Editing

a. Usually when we are using direct speech, we start a new line each time a new person starts speaking.

b. If the same two people are having a short series of exchanges, we don't need to include their names.

Example:

"Why can't I go?" Melissa asked?

"Because you're not old enough," her mother replied.

"But Mom!"

"That's enough. I don't want to discuss it any more."

"But all my friends will be there."

"Melissa, I don't really care. You're simply not old enough."

4. When writing dialogue you can include some of the thoughts, actions and feelings of the speaker, but remember the most important part is what they say.

Example:

"Take your hand out of your pocket slowly," I whispered, barely able to control my excitement. Finally I had the thief.

"Who 'er you?" replied the man, not moving at all.

Prewriting

When writing dialogue, if you are listening to an actual person, you must record accurately what they say and how they say it. If you are writing an imaginative dialogue, you must imagine what type of person the character is and how he/she would speak. Consider the following points:

Speech mannerisms

• Is the person educated or uneducated? What kind of words does he/she usually use? Does he/she use slang, regional expressions, or repeat words such as: eh? you know, ya see?, etc.
• Does the person speak in longer, more formal sentences or shorter, casual sentences?
• What is the character's tone of voice? Does he/she speak softly? loudly? gently? harshly? Think of a word to describe the person's voice.
• Is his/her grammar good or poor? Does he/she speak a dialect? When adding regional expressions or dialect to a conversation, add only enough to give flavour. Too much dialect makes your writing too difficult to read.

Non-verbal mannerisms

• Much of a character is revealed by his/her non-verbal actions. As a writer you must consider these and tell them to your audience.
• How does the character stand or sit? Does he have a military bearing or does he slouch like a tramp? Does he/she move in an energetic, active way or in a slow, tired manner?
• What does the character do with his/her hands? Does the character have any nervous mannerisms such as twisting a lock of hair, rubbing his/her chin?
• Describe the character's eyes. Are they tired? sparkling? dull and lifeless? evasive? penetrating?
• Describe the character's facial expressions. Are they expressive, showing many different emotions or calm and controlled?
• How does the character react physically to the events around him/her?

When describing an imaginary character, it is important to maintain consistency between the person's personality, what they say, and how they behave.

Revising Dialogue

Find a friend or friends and read the dialogue aloud to see how it sounds. Ask questions such as:

• Does it sound natural or does it seem clumsy and awkward?
• Does the tone of the dialogue match the personality of the character?
• Does the conversation contribute to the effectiveness of the story or character description?
• Is the conversation short and concise? Long conversation can slow the pace of the writing, making it boring and hard to read.

Proofreading Dialogue

Check your dialogue for the following points:

• Have I used a new paragraph for each new exchange in the conversation?
• Have I used quotation marks for the speaker's actual words only?
• Have I used quotation marks consistently? American and British English have quite different conventions for using quotation marks.
• Have I used exclamation marks, question marks and commas correctly?
• Have I used apostrophes to show where letters have been intentionally left out of words to show the speaker's style of speaking?
• Is my grammar correct excpet in cases where mistakes are included to show the speaker's style of speaking?

Assignment

1. Borrow the Silhouettes tape from the teacher.
2. Listen to the first part of the song up to the pause in the tape.
3. Look at the lyrics for the first part of the song here.
4. Using the information on writing dialogues given above and the vocabulary below, write a dialogue that shows the conclusion to the story in the song.
5. After checking your story and dialogue, compare your ending for the song's story with the ending the song writer used here.
6. Be sure to write your own conclusion to the story before looking at the conclusion in the original song.

Vocabulary for completing the Silhouettes conversation

Angry words -- cried out, called out, called, yelled, hollered, screamed, shrieked, howled, roared, bellowed, clamoured, thundered, exclaimed, yelped.

Emotional words -- cried, bawled, whimpered, moaned, wailed, groaned, wept, howled, bawled.

Begging words -- pleaded, entreated, implored, beseeched, appealed to.

Replies -- answered, responded, rejoined, retorted, countered, reacted.

Soft words -- murmured, muttered, sighed, breathed.