How to Write Dialogue

Dialogue is important in a story for multiple reasons. It brings a plot to life, develops characters, and makes a story more interesting. Without it, a story would be bland. It would lack the personality of the characters, their thoughts, and actions that help drive the plot.

Whether you are a seasoned writer or just beginning, creating dialogue can be a daunting task. If you are just starting out, the following are some basic guidelines for the correct use of dialogue. From there, I will share seven tips for writing and formatting dialogue that writers of all levels of experience can benefit from to help their stories stand out and compel their readers to keep reading.

BASIC GUIDELINES FOR BEGINNERS

·         Start a new paragraph with each new speaker. Begin a new paragraph whenever a new character starts to speak, which makes it easier for the reader to follow the conversation. 

·         Use quotation marks. Everything that is voiced by the character should be placed inside quotation marks. Periods and commas should always come before the final quotation marks. If the speech is more than one paragraph long, put the final quotation marks only after that character's speech ends.

·         Use single quotes when a character quotes someone else. For a quote within a quote, use single quotation marks. (e.g., "I was shocked when he told me, ‘Get out’”)

·         Dialogue tags. These are optional, but they are good to indicate which character is speaking and how they are speaking. (e.g., he said, she exclaimed) Other examples of tags to be used instead of 'said': (Please note they should be used sparingly so they don’t lose their effectiveness)

replied, asked, answered, added, stated, remarked, commented, cried, shouted, yelled, whispered, muttered, mumbled, sighed, snapped, hissed, gasped, groaned, barked, snarled, stammered, stuttered, sobbed.

·         Follow the correct format. Three ways to write a quote are without a tag, with a tag before the quote, and with a tag at the end of the quote (e.g., "I'm in love with you!" or

Joe said, “I’m in love with you!” or “I’m in love with you,” Joe said.

TIPS FOR USING DIALOGUE TO GRAB AND HOLD THE READER’S INTEREST.

Use dialogue to reveal character traits. You want your characters to stand out from one another, to show who they are and how they act differently from others. When choosing how your character should speak, consider their education, personality, interests, accents, and whether they are long-winded or terse.

Write natural dialogue. You are allowed to break grammatical rules by writing how people talk, such as using contractions, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences.

Minimize Dialogue Tags.

If they are not needed, do not use them, as they will only distract the reader. This is the case when only two characters are speaking. The reader will be able to understand who is speaking as long as you start a new paragraph for each new speaker. When you do need to use a dialogue tag, simply use “he said” or “she said” to keep the conversation flowing.

Incorporate action with speech.

You should show what each character is doing throughout the conversation to give an idea of how they are feeling or motivated. Think of body language that can be conveyed or physical action that can take place while they are talking. (drumming fingers on the table, folding arms, sneering lips) can give clues to how the character is internalizing and can add much tension to the plot.

 Write conversations that provide hints.

The best dialogue is often what is not said. People rarely say what they really mean. You can have your characters say one thing, but it actually means something else. For instance, you may have a wife who hates her husband's cigar smoking in the house, saying to her husband, "Can you please shut the window."  She meant to say, "I cannot stand your cigar smoke!"

Use dialogue to show, not tell.

When you describe a scenario, the dialogue will have a more emotional impact, bringing out the character's emotions by how they act or react to a situation. I can think of two examples: a scene in The Karate Kid and one in Terms of Endearment. In The Karate Kid, there is a scene between Daniel and his mother in which Daniel comes to the kitchen in the morning with dark glasses. When his mother asks him to remove them so she can see his "baby browns," Daniel acts evasive because he doesn't want her to see he has a black eye from getting beaten up. His dodging her creates a lot more compelling tension than if he had appeared without sunglasses and told her he was beaten up because he didn’t know how to defend myself. In Terms of Endearment, the mother, Aurora, is asking the nurse to give her dying daughter a shot to relieve her pain. After hearing an excuse from the nurse as to why she can’t administer it, it is so much more effective that Aurora is pacing back and forth, and her face becomes more panic-stricken by the second as she continues to plead despite the nurse’s objections. Aurora's voice finally escalated to a scream, "Give her the shot!" Despite her hardened exterior, we see how much love she has for her daughter. Through these actions, we see the emotional impact more readily than if she had said outright, “You need to give my daughter the shot because I love her so much and don’t want her to be in pain.”

Avoid Wordy Dialogue

Keep conversations as concise as possible. Edit out any unnecessary chatter, such as small talk that doesn't move the story forward. In addition, don't write dialogue with too many trigger phrases that trigger the next line of dialogue, such as:

“Can you tell me more?”

or

“Can you explain what you mean?”

You can get your point across with less wording that sounds more natural and less contrived or forced. 

Now you know how to write dialogue that enhances the narrative and adds realism and life to your characters to drive the plot. Start with the basic dialogue rules for format, tags, and placement. As you become better versed, try implementing the more advanced tips and ask for critique when you are done.

Artificial Intelligence--A Blessing or a Curse?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a hot topic of controversial discussion for many industries. Both professionals and novices are deciding whether to use it or how much to use it to make their personal and professional lives easier. AI refers to technology that allows computers to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, like learning, reasoning, and problem-solving.

Although it seems new, the concept of AI has been around since the 1940s, with the advent of the Artificial Neural Network. It is a series of interconnections that learn to solve problems, and the more they learn over time, the more efficient they become.

Today, the most popularly used is Generative AI, which helps increase efficiency, boost productivity, and strengthen engagement. Examples are ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot, and Grammarly. These powering operations can create new data by analyzing our communication patterns. It can power chatbots like ChatGPT to give human-like responses and is getting better at interacting with us. They can generate text, image, video, audio, code, and more. Movie and music suggestions, face and object recognition, and personalization of social media feeds are among many of its uses.

As with any tool, AI has challenges and concerns around accuracy, bias, privacy, and ethical use. Often, we take it for granted that it will be a panacea to solve many of our problems, but we need to be reminded that it is merely an aid to human intelligence. Al cannot feel or think on its own without human input. For instance, chatbots like Chat GPT are only sophisticated sentence completion apps that give logical answers, making it appear human-like. However, AI can never replace the human mind.

We must understand that becoming overdependent on technology may cause ethical harm to ourselves or others. That's why it's important to understand AI's limitations to avoid any problems.

Chatbots often do not provide factual information. Known as AI Hallucinations, these bots use probability to predict the next word, sentence, or paragraph based on what they are being programmed and not necessarily based on sound research. It cannot assess truthfulness and accuracy, so those using AI to generate content need to be careful. Someone researching a topic you write about using AI may catch false information you are unaware of, which could affect your credibility.

AI can be biased and offensive. Often, it is trained on data that is racist, hateful, and biased. For example, Microsoft created a program called Tay that learned to make offensive and stereotypical comments because it learned to do this by interacting with users. Luckily, Microsoft eventually discontinued Tay, apologized, and promised to institute safeguards to prevent hateful speech from being built into AI systems. Many are now calling for better safety measures.

Benefits of AI. Despite some drawbacks, AI offers benefits that have helped improve and enhance systems in various industry sectors. It has revolutionized healthcare, such as discovering new drugs and identifying new cancer cells much more reliably than humans. Used in many other fields, such as software programming, animation, law enforcement, journalism, and agriculture, it helps better educate by summarizing huge volumes of information to enhance and speed up work.

AI for Writing. AI in the creative arts process has allowed many writers, translators, graphic designers, illustrators, and others to streamline their works through improved rewrites and images. The following are guidelines to adhere to when using AI for your writing:

• Writers should commit to maintaining standards by only using AI for generating ideas, editing, and enhancement, not as a primary source of work.

• If using it as a primary source of work, rewrite it in your own words and use your voice to reflect individual tone.

• If using a considerable amount of AI, you must disclose to your publisher, such as Amazon/KDP, and your readers. Disclosure is the best course now until all AI programs are required to use only licensed work.

• Respect the rights of other writers by not using AI to mimic other work styles or infringe on copyrights and trademarks. Show solidarity and support for other creatives, such as illustrators, translators, actors, and voice-over artists.

• AI is a text completion tool that shouldn't be used for research because you cannot trust its accuracy.

• Be aware of and check for potential socioeconomic, gender, and racial biases that could cause harm.

• Draft a clause in your negotiations with publishers that prohibits using your work for AI training.

• Fine-tune AI models on your work and use that fine-tuned model to generate more work in your style.

Although AI is a useful tool, it is only that. We need to learn to use it wisely if we are to use it at all. Curse or blessing? It’s up to us all. Until governments and regulators pass laws across the board to ascertain AI is being used ethically and legally, it behooves us all to be aware of its pitfalls and use it responsibly.

Basic Writing Tips for the Novice Fiction Author

Want to write your first fictional children’s book or adult novel? Penning your own story can be very rewarding but also a daunting experience if you do not know where to begin. If you have an idea for a story but need to learn how to develop it, the following ten tips will guide you. Begin by mapping out your story’s plot beginning, middle, and endpoints in an outline or visual.

Establish a strong introduction—Establish conflict and the main characters at the onset to capture the reader’s attention. The main character must be faced with a problem that will be resolved by the end of the story.

Make your characters credible and interesting—Pull real-life ideas to make your protagonists realistic. Give them unique personalities and quirks that show they are complex and multi-faceted. They should also have the ability to learn and grow.

One point of view—Whether using first, second, or third person to narrate the story, stick with the same POV throughout the story. If you have the main character narrating the story and suddenly change to a third person, this may confuse your readers.

—Details are good, but only when sprinkled throughout the story. Introducing too many characters, descriptions, and other particulars at a time overloads the reader and can cause them to get lost.

Show don’t tell—When the character experiences an emotion such as fear, joy, or sadness, you want the reader to feel what they are feeling, so have your character experience that emotion in a scene rather than telling the reader outright.

Use fewer words with more impact-- Don't be wordy and redundant. If you have two words you can say with one, that will make your writing more succinct. (blizzard vs heavy snowstorm) Use an active voice (the dog chased the cat vs the cat was chased by the dog) and strong verbs (I sped vs I ran quickly). For children's books, make the language simpler. ('For a long time, the sea was a wonderful place to live' vs. 'For many ages, the sea was a paradise for its inhabitants.') Note: You can pare your wording down during the editing process. See my blog, Understand the Editorial Process and Your Content Editing Needs Before Choosing a Service, for more information on editing.

Keep the reader engaged—Give the reader the impetus to keep reading by using foreshadowing, cliffhangers, and delayed emotions to intrigue the reader and create suspense.

Follow genre guidelines for length—For example, the average length of a children’s picture book is 32 pages, but an adult romance novel can be about 100,000 words. Do your research.

Balance the story structure—There are three important components to the writing: reflective narrative, action, and dialogue. It's important to know the characters' thoughts and feelings while equalizing this with incidents and conversation. A healthy dose of each will bring the story to life, maximize readability, and maintain interest.

Resolution and wrap-up—Have a conclusion that ties up loose ends. The resolution signals the point in the story where the problem is solved, or the character faces certain circumstances. Except in children's books, it doesn’t have to be a happy ending, but all components of the plot should come together in a finale that the reader can easily comprehend.

Using these ten guidelines, you will have the framework to transform your creative ideas into a compelling narrative that captures and holds the reader's interest from beginning to end.