Creative Writing/Mrs. Blounts
GIVING YOUR CHARACTERS A VOICE: WRITING EFFECTIVE DIALOGUE
One crafty way of “showing” instead of “telling” in a story is by using dialogue. Dialogue shows the reader
what characters are saying and how they are interacting with one another, rather than just summarizing a
conversation. What a character says as well as how he or she says it can be very telling.
Here are four dialogue pitfalls to avoid:
1. Stilted language: Dialogue that does not sound like natural speech. You want your characters to be
believable and for your reader to forget that s/he is reading fiction.
2. Filler: Dialogue that does not further the scene and does not deepen your understanding of the
characters. Every word spoken by every character should count in some way! Consider the purpose of
each and every conversation. What do the two characters want from each other?
3. Exposition: Dialogue that has the character explain the plot or repeat information for the benefit of
the audience. This can come across as unnatural.
4. Lacking dialogue “tags”: Dialogue can become more confusing than helpful when the writer isn’t
clear about who is speaking. You don’t have to “tag” every piece of dialogue (that can get repetitive)
but you do need to make sure it is clear who is saying each line. (see the other side of this sheet for
guidelines on how to punctuate dialogue)
Here are some examples of well-written dialogue. What makes each example good? How are they different?
Suddenly I was aware that in the darkness next to me there was somebody sitting in a char on the pillared
porch. I could not really see him… I was about to move away when his voice addressed me:
“Where the devil did you get her?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said: the weather is getting better.”
“Seems so.”
“Who’s the lassie?”
“My daughter.”
“You lie—she’s not.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said: July was hot. Where’s her mother?”
“Dead.”
“I see. Sorry. By the way, why don’t you two lunch with me tomorrow. That dreadful crowd will be gone by
then.”
“We’ll be gone too. Good night.”
“Sorry. I’m pretty drunk. Good night. That child of yours needs a lot of sleep. Sleep is a rose, as the
Persians say. Smoke?”
“Not now.”
--from Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov
“What you going in here for?” she asked suddenly., with a sniffing look as if she scented an enemy.
“Noner yer bidnis,” he said. “You just sit in the car and when I come out, I’ll bring you something.”
“Don’tcher bring me nothing,” she said darkly, “because I won’t be here.”
“Haw!” he said. “Now you’re here, it’s nothing for you to do but wait,” and he got out and without paying
her any further attention, he entered the dark store where Tilman was waiting for him.
--from “A View of the Woods” by Flannery O’Connor
Look for moments in your story when you summarize a conversation or interaction between two or
more people. Try to take that moment and build a real conversation using dialogue.
Creative Writing/Mrs. Blounts
THE RULES OF WRITING DIALOGUE
Learning to write dialogue correctly can be a tedious process because there are many rules and guidelines to
follow. As a beginning writer, it is important that you learn these rules…you can always break them later, but
as with all elements of writing, you can’t break the rules until you know what they are. Most of the guidelines
are meant to help the reader not only follow the dialogue (ie, who is speaking and to whom), but also to make
it so seamless and effortless that the reader forgets s/he is reading a story and gets totally drawn into the
conversation.
1. All words and lines spoken by a character should go inside quotation marks (“…”)
2. Dialogue tags such as “he said” or “she asked” can go before or after the piece of dialogue. If the tag
comes before, it is followed by a comma; if the tag comes after, it is preceded by a comma. See these
examples:
Ms. Blounts said, “Dialogue can really bring a story to life!”
“Dialogue can really bring a story to life!” said Ms. Blounts.
3. All punctuation that applies to the piece of dialogue should go INSIDE of the quotation marks. If the
dialogue tag comes after the piece of dialogue and ends in a period, you change the period to a comma
to lead into the tag. If the dialogue ends in an exclamation point, comma, or ellipse (…) then you use
that punctuation and not a comma. See examples:
“Dialogue can really bring a story to life,” said Ms. Blounts.
“Can dialogue bring a story to life?” asked Ms. Blounts.
4. You can also put the dialogue tag in the middle of your piece of dialogue, with a comma before it AND
after it. For example:
“Dialogue can really bring a story to life,” explained Ms. Blounts, “and give the reader a better idea of
what the character is like.”
Notice how the beginning of a piece of dialogue always starts with a capital letter, unless it is a
continuation of a piece of dialogue as above, then it begins with a lower case letter.
If you are moving on to a new sentence, you can put a period after the dialogue tag and start a new
sentence. “Dialogue can really bring a story to life,” said Ms. Blounts. “It gives the reader a better idea
of what the character is like.”
5. VERY IMPORTANT: Begin a NEW PARAGRAPH each time a new person talks in your dialogue.
See the longer examples on the other side of the page for examples. You should not have two different
people speaking in the same paragraph.
6. You might use verbs other than “said” for dialogue tags and incorporate actions, expressions, adverbs,
etc. to enhance and liven up your dialogue and mix things up.
7. Feel free to spell words phonetically (as they sound) if you are using a character with a notable accent
(although you do not have to do this and you shouldn’t if you aren’t comfortable with it). However,
you should try to make your dialogue as natural as possible; for example, by using contractions and
sentence fragments or run-ons.