USING DIALOGUE TO CRANK UP TENSION
“Straight-forward dialogue can be a bit…eh…how should I say…. Well, I’d rather keep my opinion to myself.”
Here’s an example of a character backing off from a comment where the meaning is implied. These kinds of lines gave a novel a lot of body and create tension when tension is hard to find, especially if you have a man and a woman drinking wine at a romantic dinner date in the woman’s apartment. Continue reading
PEOPLE-WATCHING HELPS WITH DIALOGUE
So many times it’s hard to get the voice of the character you’re creating. You may have her backstory memorized. You may have her eye color pegged, and you even know what kind of orange juice she likes (not like there’s much difference in brands. Some may argue.) But getting her voice is that chore of chores that doesn’t seem possible to complete. Continue reading
MOVING YOUR CHARACTERS DURING DIALOGUE
Dialogue used to be a VERY VERY tough thing for me to write, and I certainly will not say that I have arrived, especially when I hear people read their dialogue aloud and it’s compelling in so many ways. But, I had to work at it, and I will say that I’m getting better.
HOW TO TAG YOUR DIALOGUE
Tagging dialogue can be a lot of fun. It feels like you’re being creative, and it feels expressive and engaging. But, from what I have read and studied, a simple “said” will usually do the trick. It’s sad, huh? It seems to take the life out of our novel if we can’t conjure up all the unique verbs to express our character conversation. We can’t toil doubly over our witches brew of vocabulary words. Shucks!
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HOW TO KILL YOUR NOVEL WITH CONVERSATION:
Die-alogue is the best way to kill your novel. What is die-alouge? It’s forcing your characters to have real conversations just because the conversation is…real. There’s little that’s real about compelling dialogue. It’s a facade. It’s words that are strung together to mimic true speech, but somewhere within, the dialogue is missing elements that make it a genuine conversation. The small talk isn’t so small anymore. Each word has a direction and a meaning.
DIALOGUE: THE FASTEST WAY TO SLAM ON BREAKS IN YOUR NOVEL
Here’s a different approach. We are going to spend the week discussing dialogue, so we start with this — the explanation of dialogue in dialogue format.
William Stadler 