Structural Editing

How To Write Dialogue

🦢        ―        &. DIALOGUES . ( what is it? purpose,? types? things to avoid? )

What Is Dialogue, And What's Its Purpose?

Dialogue, as everyone knows, is what the characters in novels, plays, screenplays — basically any kind of creative writing where characters speak — say out loud.

For most writers, dialogue is one of the things we look forward to. It's the opportunity to let the characters' motivations, flaws, knowledge, fears and more come to life! By writing dialogues, you're giving them (the characters) their own voice, fleshing them out from concepts into three-dimensional characters.

Dialogues have multiple purposes — one of them is to characterize your characters. You can learn a lot about somebody's mindset, background, emotional state, and such more from how they speak.

Dialogue makes your writing feel more immersive as well! It breaks up long prose passages and gives your readers something to "hear" other than your narrator's voice. It can communicate subtext, like showing class differences between characters through the vocabulary they use or hinting at a shared history between them. Most times, a narrator's description just can't deliver information the same way that a well-timed quip or a profound observation by a character can.

Monologues

In contrast with dialogues, monologues are a single, usually lengthy passages spoken by one character. They are often part of plays.

A character may be speaking directly to the reader or viewer, or they could be speaking to one or more other characters. The defining characteristic of a monologue is that it's one character's moment in the spotlight to express their thoughts, ideas, and/or perspective.

Often, a character's private thoughts are delivered via monologue. This is called an internal monologue. An internal monologue is the voice an individual (though not all) "hears" in their head as they talk themselves through their daily activities.

Types Of Dialogue

Inner dialogue is the dialogue a character has inside their head. This can be a monologue. In most cases, inner dialogue is not marked by quotation marks. Some mark them by italicizing it.

Outer dialogue is a dialogue that happens externally, often between two or more characters. This goes inside quotation marks.

Things To Avoid When Writing Dialogue

1) Using a tag for every piece of dialogue. Dialogue tags are words like said and asked. Once you've established that two characters are having a conversation, you don't need to tag every piece of dialogue Doing so can be redundant and breaks the reader's flow. Once the readers know each character's voice, many lines can stand alone.

2) Not using enough tags. On another hand, some writers use too few dialogue tags, which can confuse readers. The readers should always know who's speaking. When a character's mannerisms and knowledge don't make that obvious, tag the dialogue and use their names.

3) Dense, unrealistic speech. Dialogues don't need to be grammatically correct. When it's too grammatically correct, it can make characters seem stiff and unrealistic.

4) Anachronisms. A pirate in 1700s Barbados wouldn't greet his captain with "what's up?" Depending on how dedicated you (and your readers) are to historical accuracy, this doesn't need to be perfect. But it should be believable.

Part 2 coming soon.

How to Write Characters With Romantic Chemistry

Writing great chemistry can be challenging. If you’re not super inspired, sometimes the connection between your characters feels like it’s missing something.

Here are a few steps you can consider when you want to write some steamy romantic chemistry and can’t figure out what’s blocking your creativity.

1. Give the Love a Name

Tropes have a bad reputation, but they can be excellent tools when you’re planning or daydreaming about a story. Giving the romance a name also assigns a purpose, which takes care of half the hard plotting work.

You can always read about love tropes to get inspired and think about which might apply to the characters or plot points you have in mind, like:

Friends to lovers

Enemies to lovers

First love

The love triangle

Stuck together

Forbidden love

Multiple chance love

Fake lovers turned soulmates

There are tooooons of other tropes in the link above, but you get the idea. Name the love you’re writing about and it will feel more concrete in your brain.

2. Develop Your Characters

You should always spend time developing your characters individually, but it’s easy to skip this part. You might jump into writing the story because you have a scene idea. Then the romance feels flat.

The good news is you can always go back and make your characters more real. Give them each their own Word or Google doc and use character templates or questions to develop them. 

You should remember to do this for every character involved in the relationship as well. Sometimes love happens between two people who live nearby and other times it happens by:

Being in a throuple

Being in a polyamorous relationship

Being the only one in love (the other person never finds out or doesn’t feel it back, ever)

There are so many other ways to experience love too. Don’t leave out anyone involved in the developing relationship or writing your story will feel like driving a car with only three inflated tires.

3. Give the Conversations Stakes

Whenever your characters get to talk, what’s at risk? This doesn’t have to always be something life changing or scary. Sometimes it might be one character risking how the other perceives them by revealing an interest or new fact about themselves.

What’s developing in each conversation? What’s being said through their body language? Are they learning if they share the same sense of humor or value the same foundational beliefs? Real-life conversations don’t always have a point, but they do in romantic stories. 

4. Remember Body Language

Body language begins long before things get sexy between your characers (if they ever do). It’s their fingertips touching under the table, the missed glance at the bus stop, the casual shoulder bump while walking down the street.

It’s flushed cheeks, a jealous heart skipping a beat, being tongue tied because one character can’t admit their feelings yet.

If a scene or conversation feels lacking, analyze what your characters are saying through their body language. It could be the thing your scene is missing.

5. Add a Few Flaws

No love story is perfect, but that doesn’t mean your characters have to experience earth shattering pain either.

Make one laugh so hard that they snort and feel embarrassed so the other can say how much they love that person’s laugh. Make miscommunication happen so they can make up or take a break. 

People grow through their flaws and mistakes. Relationships get stronger or weaker when they learn things that are different about them or that they don’t like about each other. 

6. Create Intellectual Moments

When you’re getting to know someone, you bond over the things you’re both interested in. That’s also a key part of falling in love. Have your characters fall in intellectual love by sharing those activities, talking about their favorite subjects, or raving over their passions. They could even teach each other through this moment, which could make them fall harder in love.

7. Put Them in Public Moments

You learn a lot about someone when they’re around friends, acquaintances, and strangers. The chemistry between your characters may fall flat if they’re only ever around each other.

Write scenes so they’re around more people and get to learn who they are in public. They’ll learn crucial factors like the other person’s ambition, shyness, humor, confidence, and if they’re a social butterfly or wallflower.

Will those moments make your characters be proud to stand next to each other or will it reveal something that makes them second guess everything?

8. Use Your Senses

And of course, you can never forget to use sensory details when describing the physical reaction of chemistry. Whether they’re sharing a glance or jumping into bed, the reader feels the intensity of the moment through their five senses—taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell. 

Characters also don’t have to have all five senses to be the protagonist or love interest in a romantic story. The number isn’t important—it’s how you use the ways your character interacts with the world. 

-----

Anyone can write great romantic chemistry by structuring their love story with essential elements like these. Read more romance books or short stories too! You’ll learn as you read and write future relationships more effortlessly.

Sad? Insecure? Looking for a sign? This 2 minute song may change the way you look at yourself.

You Guys are Too Hard on Yourselves

Sometimes after I post a piece of advice or a suggestion for improving your craft, I see a lot of you guys in the reblogs talking about how you wish you could be a good writer and take said advice, or that you feel like a failure for not already doing it.

Now listen here, look me in the eyes, you are doing enough.

The last thing I want is to discourage anyone from writing, so I need you to internalize this. You are doing enough as a writer. Yes even if you haven’t written in a while, even if you’ve never been published, or have been rejected a million times, or have never finished a draft. You guys are enough for even trying, and I need you to start recognizing yourselves and being proud of the work you do and/or the ideas you have.

At the very least, start practicing not getting down on yourselves when you hear advice or read someone else’s work. You will only ever get better, don’t start doubting yourself now.

Let’s do a little exercise. Reblog this with three things you think you are totally nailing as a writer, I’ll go first:

                I have a keen sense of pacing.

                I create interesting dynamics between complex characters.

                My ideas are weird and fun and reflect me as a person.

Now go forth with positivity!

There’s one thing you can absolutely, 100 percent rely on, which is that if you show five different people the same thing, they’re all going to have a different complaint or compliment. Each is going to have a different response, and you’d better know what you’re gonna do, otherwise you’re going to get confused… [H]ow much good can come from putting any time into studying how people are responding to your movies? The best case scenario is that it makes you feel flattered for a certain period of time, which doesn’t really buy you much, in life: and inevitably, it’s not going to just be the best-case scenario, so learn to spare yourself that experience, I’d say. – Wes Anderson

ioputa

Absolutely fascinating read on why “psychological androgyny” is key to creativity