Storyteller Quest 7

Knowledge

Dialogue Tag - A label that goes before, after or between dialogue to help the reader understand who is talking.

For example:

she said
he asked
Jane sighed
John mumbled

Dialogue - One or more people verbally communicating.

For example:

“What on earth are you doing here? I emphatically stated not to use the lobby elevator,” she said, stamping her tall heel into the carpet as she glared at him with her arms crossed.

An enormous diamond ring protruding from her ring finger sparkled and caught the man’s eye in the doorway.

“It was supposed to be a surprise!” she said. “A surprise you imbecile! But now! Now the entire staff knows it’s his birthday. They’re just bound to s-say something and ruin it a-all!”

The man held up loose paper stapled to a card dangling beneath three silver balloons. He read the paper as the woman sobbed. Mascara ran down her face. “Not what it says on the order form, lady. So, you want ‘em or not? I got things that need doin’.”

Could you picture the people based on dialogue alone? How can you make your characters pop off the page using dialogue?

Inspiration

Have you visited a foreign country or met someone visiting who spoke in a different rhythm, dialect or had an accent that you really liked?

How did they make you feel at first? Later?

Do you have any upcoming characters who need to leave the same impression on the reader that you received?

Challenge

Part 1. Brainstorm. Describe your main character out loud. Include everything that you know about them so far. Their strengths, weaknesses (you know, the things that make them human), what they think of the world, what they think the world thinks of them.

How does a person like that talk to people. Are they really loud because they grew up in a large house and couldn’t get a word in if they didn’t? Or are they quiet?

Are they introverted and prefer delivering long speeches, (when they finally do speak) but more often give a short reply? Or are they extroverted and like high energy conversations?

Do they like witty banter, or are they a bit slow, but like to watch others do each other in, only stepping in for the occasional zinger?

Are they interrogators, informants, or tight-lipped?

Are they smart? Do they confuse the people around them with their big smart words? Or are they the ones walking away confused?

Part 2. Write a conversation between your main character and another character who can draw out the main character’s preferred method and style of communication.

Send me a message if you’d like some feedback.

Encouragement

Dialogue that explains what’s happening to the story is dull. Try your best to have your characters talking about what they want right now, figuring out how they are going to get it, and the conversations necessary to achieve their goals.

Once you understand the foundation of your characters dialogue then you can start to understand how setting and circumstance influence the way they speak.

Do your best to vary dialogue from character to character with the goal to be able to understand the majority of conversations without dialogue tags. (Note on tags. Keep them simple as: said and asked. Let the characters express themselves through dialogue. Do not let the narrator express what they sound like through tags.)

Have fun with dialogue. Try to speak out loud the way your character does!