Doing the character checklist this week, I realized that I hadn’t written much about dialogue. Oh, I have a couple times.
Talking About Dialogue
Once, I recorded dialogue (shh! I eavesdropped!) for a morning and talked about what you can learn from doing this.
Or, I did a post on how to make sure each character has unique dialogue.
But I’ve not tackled dialogue in general.
What topics interest you about dialogue?
- Turning talking heads into great characters
- The difference in dialogue and real conversation
- Punctuating dialogue
- Using dialogue to inject conflict
- What else?
So, I’m open for comments, suggestions, input! Where do you go for help on dialogue? What books help you the most? Any posts that help? Sure, put a link to your site in the comments if you’ve done a helpful post on dialogue!
I tell my students that, ideally, good dialogue serves more than one purpose. For instance, it can develop relationships even as it hints at conflict or it might develop character even as it shows a relationship. But no matter how dialogue serves the story, it also needs to be engaging and short. There’s nothing worse than a character who preaches and pontificates and gives away the end!