How to Write Dialogue in a Story?
Simple but the captivating dialogue is the best you had better look for.
Do we need dialogue in a story? The answer is yes, obviously because how can we express all the events happening in the story by only paragraphs? There should be some conversation between characters and you have to present it by dialogue. Imagine that you are reading people’s conversations as long and long paragraphs. Is it too far from the real conversation? Do people always speak in paragraphs? You can explain and introduce an event by writing several paragraphs but it does not always work for the conversation. Another problem is why readers close their books and decide to do other stuff. If we think optimistically, they might suddenly remember that they have an important thing to do but it is not always like that. The more practical answer is they may get bored for reading endless paragraphs without many things captures their interest.
Therefore, we have to write dialogue in our story to make it more realistic and captivating.
Then, how can we have a good dialogue?
First, you have to punctuate your dialogue correctly. It will help you to convey all that you mean by writing this dialogue in an understandable way and it will look good.
Basic Rules of Writing Dialogue
- Each speaker (character) will get a new paragraph even if there is one word. For example:
“I know it’s over.”
“Then?”
2. Each paragraph should be indented.
3. The punctuation mark should be inside the quotation mark.
“You have just saved my life.”
We will study further in the following section.
Look into the punctuation at the end of the sentence.
- If the speaker finished his speech, you can end the sentence with a period. If he still has something to say after that, use a comma.
End with the period: “I hate you.” She crossed her arms and pouted.
End with the comma: “I hate you,” she said, crossing her arms and pouting.
In the second example, you can see the differences from the first one that
— Using a comma after “I hate you”
— Not capitalizing “she”
— Verb tense changed into progressive.
All these changes show the continuation of the dialogue.
- Take out punctuation marks in a long speech
“The usual way of punctuating dialogue,” he said, “is to start the speech with quotation marks and to close the marks when the character stops speaking a sentence or two later. However, if it’s a long speech then you will want to break it up into paragraphs.
“Like this. Notice that there are no quotation marks at the end of the previous paragraph, but that they do appear at the start of this new one. It’s only when you reach the end of the final paragraph of the speech that you close the quotation marks. Like this!” —from the source
- Use ellipses when your speaker gets distracted, hesitated, scared or forgets what he is going to say.
“I just don’t know…” Jenny said.
- Use em-dash when the speaker is suddenly interrupted or cut off.
“Well, I am not sure — ”
“Enough, you never trust me!”
- For a non-dialogue inserted between the line of dialogue, use either commas or em-dashes.
“And then I realized,” Jane said with a sigh, “that he lied to me.”
“Without the antidote” — Matt shook his head — “I don’t think we can save him.”
- When the speaker wants to say one thing and changed his or her mind to say something else, use the em-dash:
“I don’t want to — I mean, I won’t hurt her.”
- Use a single quotation mark when something is said inside of someone’s speech. (quoting within a quotation mark)
John asked, “Did Jane say ‘I want more ice cream’?”
Apart from punctuation, here are some other helpful tools for your writing dialogue.
1. Using dialogue tags effectively.
If you are not sure about what exactly dialogue tag is, it is just some phrases like “she said” or “he asked” used to let the reader know who is speaking.
But one thing you have to know does not add any fancy alternatives /e.g adverb/ when using dialogue tags. That’s the worst idea. Example:
· she said excitedly.
· he said heartily.
· he exclaimed loudly.
The simple usage of tags is much better.
- she asked.
- he shouted.
- she whispered.
- he mumbled.
Why we have to avoid fancy alternatives is just because it is not showing but telling. If we keep saying what character feels, it gets boring.
For example,
1. “My dog just died,” she said sadly.
2. “My dog just died,” she said, not looking up from the floor as she spoke.
Which one is better?
Instead of telling, showing it by its action is always much more readable and convincing. But remember that try to use fewer tags. Too many tags are annoying.
“Hi,” said John.
“How you doing?” asked Katie.
“Great,” said John. “You going to the dance tonight?”
“You bet!” said Katie.
“Need a lift?” asked John.
We can change it like
“Hi,” said John.
“How you doing?” asked Katie.
“Great. You going to the dance tonight?”
“You bet!”.
“Need a lift, Katie?”
When you make clear who is speaking in first lines then stop using them. Then add some actions between the lines. Like this:
“Jesus, Steve, it’s not even five yet!”
He swallowed the whiskey in one go, didn’t bother to wipe his chin.
“You’re scaring me,” she said.
Wrapping up, we need many practices for dialogue writing because experienced writers also have suffered a lot to write good dialogue. It might be impossible to write every single line perfectly but at least we have to avoid to make big mistakes. Honestly, in writing, there is no such rule that you have to strictly follow because it is your own artwork. However, the most basic rules in punctuation shall be observed. Other following rules might be violated by your style of writing dialogue. What I have taught so far was just the part of dialogue writing. If you want to know more, you can check these websites.
