Guys. Guys. Please. Not Every Adaptation Has To Be Live Action, Not Every Adaption Can Be Live-action,

How to Write Strong Dialogue

(from a writer of ten years)

So you’re back in the writing trenches. You’re staring at your computer, or your phone, or your tablet, or your journal, and trying not to lose your mind. Because what comes after the first quotation mark? Nothing feels good.

Don’t worry, friend. I’m your friendly tumblr writing guide and I’m here to help you climb out of the pit of writing despair.

I’ve created a character specifically for this exercise. His name is Amos Alejandro III, but for now we’ll just call him Amos. He’s a thirty-something construction worker with a cat who hates him, and he’s just found out he has to go on a quest across the world to save his mother’s diner.

1.) Consider the Attitude and Characteristics of Your Character

One of the biggest struggles writers face when writing dialogue is keeping characters’ dialogue “in-character”.

You’re probably thinking, “but Sparrow, I’m the creator! None of the dialogue I write can be out of character because they’re my original characters!”

WRONG. (I’m hitting the very loud ‘incorrect’ buzzer in your head right now).

Yes, you created your characters. But you created them with specific characteristics and attitudes. For example, Amos lives alone, doesn’t enjoy talking too much, and isn’t a very scholarly person. So he’s probably not going to say something like “I suggest that we pursue the path of least resistance for this upcoming quest.” He’d most likely say, “I mean, I think the easiest route is pretty self-explanatory.”

Another example is a six-year-old girl saying, “Hi, Mr. Ice Cream Man, do you have chocolate sundaes?” instead of “Hewwo, Ice Cweam Man— Chocowate Sundaes?”

Please don’t put ‘w’s in the middle of your dialogue unless you have a very good and very specific reason. I will cry.

Yes, the girl is young, but she’s not going to talk like that. Most children know how to ask questions correctly, and the ‘w’ sound, while sometimes found in a young child’s speech, does not need to be written out. Children are human.

So, consider the attitude, characteristics, and age of your character when writing dialogue!

2.) Break Up Dialogue Length

If I’m reading a novel and I see an entire page of dialogue without any breaks, I’m sobbing. You’re not a 17th century author with endless punctuation. You’re in the 21st century and people don’t read in the same way they used to.

Break up your dialogue. Use long sentences. Use one word. Use commas, use paragraph breaks. Show a character throwing a chair out a window in between sentences.

For example:

“So, you’re telling me the only way to save my Ma’s diner is to travel across five different continents, find the only remaining secret receipt card, and bring it back before she goes out of business? She didn’t have any other copies? Do I have to leave my cat behind?”

vs.

Amos ran a hand over his face. “So, you’re telling me the only way to save my Ma’s diner is to travel across five different continents, find the only remaining secret recipe card, and bring it back before she goes out of business?”

He couldn’t believe his luck. That was sarcastic, of course. This was ironically horrible.

“She didn’t have any other copies?” He leaned forward over the table and frowned. “Do I have to leave my cat behind?”

The second version is easier to digest, and I got to add some fun description of thought and action into the scene! Readers get a taste of Amos’ character in the second scene, whereas in the first scene they only got what felt like a million words of dialogue.

3.) Don’t Overuse Dialogue Tags.

DON’T OVERUSE DIALOGUE TAGS. DON’T. DON’T DON’T DON’T.

If you don’t know what a dialogue tag is, it’s a word after a sentence of dialogue that attributes that dialogue to a specific character.

For example:

“Orange juice and chicken ramen are good,” he said.

‘Said’ functions as the dialogue tag in this sentence.

Dialogue tags are good. You don’t want to completely avoid them. (I used to pride myself on how I could write stories without any dialogue tags. Don’t do that.) Readers need to know who’s speaking. But overusing them, or overusing weird or unique tags, should be avoided.

Examples:

“I’m gonna have to close my diner,” Amos’ mother said.

“Why?” Amos growled. “It’s been in the family forever.”

“I’ve lost the secret recipe card, and I can’t keep the diner open without it!” she cried.

“The Bacon Burger Extreme recipe card?” Amos questioned.

“Yes!” Amos’ mother screamed.

“Well, that’s not good,” Amos complained.

vs.

“I’m gonna have to close my diner,” Amos’ mother said, taking her son’s hand and leading him over to one of the old, grease-stained tabletops with the ripped-fabric booths.

Amos simply stared at her as they moved. “Why? It’s been in the family forever.”

“I’ve—” she looked away for a moment, then took in a breath. “I’ve lost the secret recipe card. And I can’t keep the diner open without it.”

“The Bacon Burger Extreme recipe card?”

“Yes!” She still wouldn’t meet his eyes, and her shoulders were shaking. “Yes.”

Amos sat down heavily in the booth. “Well, that’s not good.”

The first scene only gives character names and dialogue tags. There are no actions and no descriptions. The second scene, however, gives these things. It gives the reader descriptions of the diner, the characters’ actions, and attitudes. Overusing dialogue tags gets boring fast, so add interest into your writing!

So! When you’re writing, consider the attitude of your character, vary dialogue length, and don’t overuse dialogue tags.

Now climb out of the pit of writing despair. Pick up your pen or computer. And write some good dialogue!

Best,

Sparrow

I'm about to go to bed, so this might not make sense, but I think MLB is a good example of the dangers of an episodic show presented in a serialized manner. I think many things that rub people the wrong way would be less so if the show didn't pretend that it was serialized and that most of the episodes actually progress the plot. Because, when you view it as an episodic show that has a status quo to maintain, a lot of things fall into place

Cat Noir flirting but getting no where? That's the point. He's meant to flirt with Ladybug and Marinette's meant to (try to) flirt with Adrien, and its not meant to be creepy because the show not structured to showcase longform character growth. Each time might as well be the first time, as far as the writing team is concerned. That "Marinette knows Adrien's Schedule 3 Years In Advance" joke isn't creepy (well, more creepy) because its the first time she's done it!

Of course, you can point to actual character growth, but I don't think that proves me wrong - rather, I think it showcases that the writing team seems to think they're able to write both an episodic and serialized show and they're not. Repeated behavior in an episodic show is meant to reinforce character traits (Chat Noir has unrequited feelings for Ladybug) and the status quo while repeated behavior in a serialized show reinforces character flaws (Chat Noir doesn't care about Ladybug's comfort and can't take "no" for an answer)(or traits, but we're talking about flaws rn). And an overarching story? That means we're serialized and repeated behaviors now play a different function - and the writers seem completely oblivious to this fact.

Anyhow, hopefully that made sense. I just wanted to write that down before I forgot about it

Mayura is a cool name and all, but I can’t believe the English dub didn’t jump on the chance to call her Peafoul. Like there is an easy pun for evil peacock/peafowl here and they just DIDN’T USE IT.

Guys. Guys please. We have to remember that protagonist is not a stand in word for hero and antagonist is not a stand in word for villain. Please. We learned this in middle school. The protagonist is the character the audience follows. The antagonist is the character who is working against the protagonist.

More on Epic!Ares cause "The Lovers" section of God Games will not get out of my head. The thing I don't think fans are recognizing is that Ares's last line "pathetic and weak like his son" is very deliberately meant to provoke Athena, it's meant to test why she's doing this.

Consider how Telemachus went into the fight with Antinous, he didn't have a plan, only a goal, and he stood his ground, no cunning techniques only fists. Which is something Ares would agree with doing, not only that but remember what Antinous and the suitors want to do to Penelope, why Telemachus was fighting in the first place. Ares is a god known to be a defender of women, one of his biggest myths is about him killing a son of Poseidon because he assaulted his daughter. Considering that he likely wouldn't call Telemachus weak unless it was to get to Athena.

Which it did and that show of love and protectiveness over Telemachus is what convinced both Ares and Aphrodite to let Odysseus go. They are not ruled by logic and objectivity, which is what prepared her for Hera and Zeus, with Hera, Odysseus never cheating isn't a logical argument but it's what would work on Hera. With Zeus it was more important, Athena showing emotion and showing that vulnerability gave her the ability to sacrifice her pride. At the end of the song she begs Zeus to let Odysseus go, not longer being the "selfish, prideful and vain" Goddess that she was when her and Odysseus parted ways.

How would you write Lila?

Really depends on things like how many seasons I had to fill, when I had to introduce her, if I had to give her the butterfly, and what I was doing with Chloe since Chloe and Lila are functionally the same character for most of the show. You do not need two petty mean girls to cause interpersonal drama. Either redeem one or don't let them overlap!

If we have to keep the butterfly as the villain to maintain the formula, then I'd make Lila a sentimonster created by Nathalie and introduce Lila at the start of season four. The linked post goes over my pitch for that rework, but while I like the concept, I don't like the butterfly being the designated evil miraculous. It just feels so bleh. Fives seasons of fighting and we're still right where we started: the butterfly in the hands of a villain that the heroes have no clear plan to defeat. You could start the story at season six and miss almost nothing (thus my constant theorizing that season six is a soft reboot.)

So let's take this post in a wildly different direction and talk in depth about evil spy Lila!

Almost any idea I have for Lila is going to involve some bigger plot to explain her lies and manipulation because they're just so over the top! Plus she's 14! How did she become this good at lying? Canon needs to give us some logic to explain all of this. Magic is a good excuse. So is training or even training and magic!

In this AU, Lila is from some sort of evil organization that uses their power for evil purposes (there are lots of routes you can got with this from evil magic to evil company, so let's stay high level and not commit to a path). The organization sees the miraculous being used in Paris and sends Lila to Paris to try to get her hands on the miraculous. Lila is specifically sent because of the Ladyblog. The organization views Alya as an easy in and so they send a teenage member or someone's kid who desperately wants to be part of the group.

This new Lila shows up claiming to be a Ladybug superfan, which instantly bonds her to Alya. Marinette's dislike of Lila now stems from Lila wanting to know all of Ladybug's secrets, which obviously raises red flags for Marinette, but not for Alya because Alya wants the same thing. In fact, Alya is really baffled why Lila's obsession rubs Marinette the wrong way because Marinette has always been fine with Alya having the same obsession. We know that the answer is that Marinette trusts Alya, but Lila is a wild card, but of course Alya doesn't know any of that. This makes the Marinette and Alya clash over Lila a lot more complex because it's no longer about lies. It's about trust and Marinette has no way to explain why trust is a factor without outing herself as Ladybug.

Lila can still tell lies and manipulate, but it's now all around getting close to Ladybug and learning everything she can. You can even have the Adrien conflict maintained with it now being Chat Noir wanting to be nice to fans while Ladybug is hard on the bad vibes train since Lila is so uncomfortably obsessed with her, another conflict that makes way more sense than what canon gave us. Adrien is just immune to weird fans and doesn't know that Ladybug is being bombarded with Lila's obsession every day at school.

This means that Marinette's Lila aversion is less her knowing something and more her being understandably uncomfortable because identity shenanigans, which is another nice complexity as it lets Marinette struggle with not knowing how to approach the situation because she knows she has no hard logical reason for her feelings, but she just can't get passed them. This could lead to some good lessons for kids on healthy relationships with celebrities/internet personalities and how you don't really know that person or have a right to their private life. It is, in fact, totally normal for your favorite celebrity to find your obsession a little creepy and block you when you cross lines. (This could even be a growing moment for Marinette re her crush on Adrien since it's written like a celebrity crush, though my personal preference is to just fix the writing around that to a more normal teenage crush. Even there it could be a growing moment, just a more nuanced one.)

There are a lot of ways to resolve this plot. Whatever you pick should see Lila outed and, in the process, we learn about the evil organization, giving us a new big bad for the heroes to deal with. Something that isn't tied to the miraculous and that is so big that it might justify having a big team of heroes to fight the new evil? Just a thought.

Pick One: Magical Girl Show or Rom-com. You cannot be both.

Early in season four we get the episode Gang of Secrets. An episode that ends with Marinette outing her secret identity to Alya. A touching moment that sparked outrage across the fandom because it meant that Marinette had made the choice to reveal her identity to her best friend while keeping her hero partner in the dark.

This choice spat in the face of the exceptions that many fans had for the series. Thousands of pre-season-four fanfics feature moments where Ladybug and Chat Noir promise each other that they'll be the first to know each other's identities. After the Alya reveal, scores of fanfics were written to salt on Marinette's choice to tell the "wrong" person.

Most of these fics feature a betrayed Chat Noir quitting or otherwise punishing Ladybug for breaking their promise to be each other's first, thereby destroying his faith in their partnership. But that promise was never made on screen. It only existed in the realms of fanfic and, when Chat Noir finally found out in canon, his reaction was largely neutral. He never once blamed Ladybug for her choice or pushed for a reveal or even asked for the right to tell one of his friends.

So what happened here? Why did the fans have such wildly unrealistic expectations of canon? Were their expectations even unrealistic or did canon betray them? The answer to that is not as straight forward as you might think because it all comes back to one of Miraculous' many, many, many writing problems: Miraculous is trying to be both a Magical Girl Show and a romantic comedy, but those are not genres that mesh. You can only be one (or you can be a third thing that we'll get to at the end as it's the easiest way to fix this mess, but I want to mostly focus on where the anger is coming from and why the writing is to blame.)

To discuss this mismatch, we're going to do something that breaks my heart and talk about some of Origins flaws. While I love that episode and unironically refer to it as the best writing the show ever gave us, it's not perfect and its flaws are all focused around trying to set up both genres. Do note that I'm going to use a lot of gender binary language here as magical girl shows have a strong focus on gender segregation and rarely if ever acknowledge gender diversity.

Let's Talk Magical Girls

Magical girl shows are shows that center on young women and their friendships. While male love interests are often present in these shows, the boys tend to take a backseat and function primarily as arm candy while the girls save the day and carry the narrative.

A great example of this is the show Winx Club. This show features a large cast of teenage girls who save the magical universe from various threats with their magical powers. Each girl has a love interest, but the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship. I don't even think that we see the guys fight or, if we do, it's a rare thing. They are not there to save the day. They are there to be shipping fodder.

Like most magical girl shows, Winx Club starts with the main character making friends with one of the girls who will eventually become part of her magical girl squad. This brings us back to Miraculous.

Did you ever find it weird that Origins implies that Marinette has no friends? She doesn't even have a backbone until new girl Alya shows up to become Marinette's First Real Friend:

Marinette: I so wish I can handle Chloé the way you do. Alya: You mean the way Majestia does it. She says all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing. (pointing at Chloé) Well, that girl over there is evil, and we are the good people. We can't let her get away with it.

This is a bizarre opening because Miraculous is not about Marinette making friends or learning to stand up for herself. If you skipped Origins and just watched the rest of the show, then you'd have no clue that Marinette wasn't close with her classmates before this year. You also wouldn't know that Alya was new in town and you definitely wouldn't know that Marinette had never stood up to Chloé before this year. So why is this here? Why waste screen time setting up elements that aren't actually important to canon?

Miraculous did it for the same reason that Winx Club did it: magical girl shows traditionally start with the main character making friends with at least one of her eventual female teammates because Magical Girl shows are all about the girls and their relationships. The boys are just arm candy.

But Miraculous isn't a magical girl show. The writers have explicitly stated that it's a rom-com and romantic comedies aren't about female friendship. They might have female friendships in them, but that's not where the focus is. The focus of a rom-com is on the romance and Origins is very clearly all about the romance.

Origins as a Rom-com

Origins has a lot on its plate. It has to establish the villain's motivation for the first time, show us how the heroes got their miraculous, show us how the heroes first met on both sides of the mask, show us how they met their respective best friends, and show us how the heroes dealt with their first akuma. It would be perfectly understandable if this 40 minute two-parter didn't do anything with the romance. They have a full show to give us that!

In spite of this, Origins has some incredibly touching moments for both Ladynoir and Adrienette because romance is the heart of Miraculous. It is the main focus of the show. The driving motivation for both of our leads and the majority of the show's episodes. To tell the story of how their journey started without at least one of them falling in love would feel wrong. That's why we see both of them fall in love!

First we get Chat Noir giving his heart to his bold and brilliant lady, then we get Marinette's heart being stolen by the shy sweet boy who never once thought to blame her for her snap judgement of his character. We even get a touching moment where Chat Noir inspires his lady to accept her role and be Ladybug, leading her to boldly face their enemy and call him out:

Roger: I have a new plan, unlike you! Move aside and let the pros do their thing. You've already failed once! Ladybug: …He's right, you know. If I'd captured Stoneheart's akuma the first time around, none of this would have happened! I knew I wasn't the right one for this job… Cat Noir: No. He's wrong, because without you, she'd no longer be here. (they look at Chloe) And because without us, they won't make it, and we'll prove that to 'em. Trust me on this. Okay? Ladybug: Okay.

I love this moment, but it does lose a little of its power when you remember that we had an Alya-driven variation of this exact same thing five minutes prior:

Alya: HELP!! (Marinette suddenly gets filled with courage. She gets the case out of Alya's bag and puts on the Miraculous. Then, Tikki appears, happy to see Marinette again.) Tikki:(raising her arms) Mmmm! Marinette: I think I need Ladybug! Tikki: I knew you'd come around! Marinette: Well, I'm still not sure I'm up for this, but Alya's in danger. I can't sit back and do nothing.

This scene initially confused me because - if Miraculous is a rom-com - then why would you make Alya the reason that Marinette became Ladybug? Why wouldn't you have Chat Noir be the one in danger so that Marinette chose to fight because of her love interest and then encourage that bond with the later scene of him encouraging her? Why split the focus like this? Why give Alya so much attention?

In case you haven't figured it out, it's because Origins is trying to establish two different genres of show. Two genres that will continue to fight for the rest of the series (or at least the first five seasons).

Magical Girls Vs Rom-com

Why is Alya the one to shake off the nightmare dust and inspire the others during the season five finale? Why is Alya the one that Marinette trusts with all of her plans while Chat Noir is kept in the dark? Why does Alya and Marinette's friendship get so much more focus than Adrien and Nino's? Why was Alya the only temp hero who got upgraded to full time hero?

It's because Alya is Marinette's second in command in a magical girl show and magical girl shows focus on female friendships while the boys are just there to be cute and support the girls.

Why do most of Marinette's talks with Alya focus on Adrien? Why is Chat Noir the only other full time holder of a Miraculous for the first three seasons and then again for the final season? Why do Marinette's friends become more and more obsessed with Adrienentte as the show goes on? Why is the love square's identity reveal given so much more narrative weight than any other identity reveal?

It's because Miraculous is a rom-com and the love square is our end game couple, so of course the story focuses on their relationship above all else!

Are you starting to see the problem?

Circling back to our original question: no, it was not unreasonable for the fans to expect that the Alya reveal would have massive negative consequences for Ladynoir. That is what should happen in a rom-com and Miraculous is mainly written like a rom-com. But the writers are also trying to write a magical girl show and, in a magical girl show, Alya and Marinette's friendship should be the most important relationship in the show, so it makes perfect sense that the show treats the Alya reveal as perfectly fine because the Alya reveal was written from the magical girl show perspective.

When it comes to Miraculous, if you ever feel like a writing choice makes no sense for genre A, re-frame it as a thing from genre B and it suddenly makes perfect sense which is fascinatingly terrible writing! It's no wonder there are people who hate the Alya reveal and people who will defend it with their life. It all depends on which genre elements you've picked up on and clung to. Neither side is right, they've both been set up to have perfectly valid expectations. Whether those expectations are valid for a given episode is entirely up to the mercurial whims of the writers!

How Do We Fix This Mess

At this point, I don't think that we can, the show is too far gone, but if someone gave me the power to change one element of Miraculous, that element would be this: scrap both the magical girl stuff and the rom-com stuff and turn Miraculous into a team show where the friendships transcend gender.

At this point, I've written over a quarter of a million words of fanfic focused on these characters (the brain rot is real) and one thing I've discovered is that it is damn near impossible to keep Adrien and Alya from becoming friends. They're both new to their school while Marinette and Nino have gone to the same school for at least a few years. Alya and Adrien are both obsessed with Ladybug plus Adrien is a natural hype man who loves to support his friends and Alya loves to talk about her blog. Alya is dating Adrien's best friend. On top of that, Alya, Adrien, Nino, and Marinette are all in the same class, meaning that they pretty much have to be spending time together five days a week unless French school don't give kids a chance to socialize or do group projects. If so, then judging them for the first issue, but super jealous of the latter.

Given all of that, why in the world is does it feel like Alya is Marinette's close friend while Adrien is just some guy who goes to Alya's school? Along similar lines, while canon Marinette barely talks to Nino, I've found that Marinette and Nino tend to get along smashingly, especially if you embrace the fact that they have to have known each other for at least a few years.

If you embrace this wider friendship dynamic and scrap the girl squad, replacing it with Alya, Adrien, Marinette, and Nino, then the fight for narrative importance quickly goes away. It's no longer a question of is this episode trying to be a magical girl show or a rom-com? Instead, the question is: which element of the friend group is getting focused on today? The romance or the friendship?

A lot of hero shows do this and do it well. I think that one of the most well known examples is Teen Titans. That show has five main characters and the focus is usually on their friendships, but there is a very clear running romantic tension between the characters Robin and Starfire with several episodes giving a good deal of focus to their romance. I'd say that this element really starts in the show's the 19th episode - Date with Destiny - and it all culminates in the movie that capstones the series: Trouble in Tokyo. The character Beast Boy also gets a romance arc and, while it's more short lived, it's further evidence that you can have strong romances and strong friendships in the same show and even the same episode. You just have to own the fact that boys and girls can be friends with each other, a very logical thing to embrace when your show has decided to have a diverse cast of heroes instead of imposing arbitrary gender limitations on its magical powers.

I couldn't figure out a way to work this into the main essay, but it's relevant so I wanted to quickly point it out and give you more to think about re Origins. Have you ever found it weird how Origins gives both Adrien AND Marinette the "I've never had friends before" backstory and yet wider canon acts like Marinette has this strong amazing friend group while Adrien doesn't seem to care about making friends and instead focuses all his energy on romance? Why give both the protagonist and the supposed deuteragonist this kind of origin if it's not going to be a major element of the show? It makes so much more sense to only give one of them this backstory and then focus that person's character arc on learning about friendship.

I maintain that Hey There Delilah by Plain White Tees is a 450% better song if it’s about a guy who’s lost custody of his daughter

A pokémon nerd, hoping to become a master…

A wannabe journalist, looking for a scoop…

An insecure girl, afraid to chase her dreams…

A lonely model, wanting to break free…

All they need is a pokémon journey.

Hi there! I’ve been writing a Pokémon AU Miraculous fic if anyone is interested.

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Marinette/Adrien (eventually), Marinette & Tikki, Marinette & Alya & Nino etc.

No archive warnings apply

I think one of the weirdest side effects of being a writer is that while I'm reading, I'll just start subconsciously editing the book. Like, if a sentence sounds odd or off to me, I'll fix it in my head and continue reading as if that were how it was written.

Does anybody else do this?