Dialogues
Dialogue writing essentials.
A dialogue is a “conversation or talk between two people”.
Why dialogue writing is important?
Dialogue writing is useful for someone who is trying to gain a command of spoken English.
It introduces him to the colloquial way of talking English, and train him to express his thoughts in an easy and natural way.
How to write a dialogue successfully?
1. You have to put yourself inside the two imaginary persons so as to make them express their opposite opinions naturally and in keeping with their characters.
2. The writer (i.e. you), have to be on both sides of the question.
3. Plan or outline of the dialogues should be done before beginning to write, otherwise the dialogues will be rambling and pointless.
Methods for good outcome of a dialogue
Jot down briefly the arguments or opinions about which might be expressed by the imaginary person who will be talking.
Arrange these ideas in a logical order as outline or bulleted list, as a guide to follow in writing the dialogue.
Imagine how each character should express his views before starting to write dialogues.
The dialogues should be real and spontaneous conversation. Let the characters talk in an easy and natural manner. Just recall how people talk in a friendly conversation and reproduce it in the dialogue form naturally.
Rules of dialogue writing
Good punctuation:
– Capitalize the first word of the quoted sentence.
– Spoken words comes under quotes.
– Tags are used to show who is speaking and their mood.
– Indent for new speaker – start a new paragraph each time a new person speaks.
– Let all characters have equal say.
Dialogues convey....
– Shows relationships between characters and how they get along.
– Makes the story seem realistic.
– Gives a clear idea of the story plot.
– Gives a clear picture of the mood of the story, the time and setting.
Some final but important pointers..
– Give all a chance to speak.
– The dialogue should begin in an interesting way and the end should have a definite conclusion.
– All dialogues should be grammatically correct.
– In a conversation one person may interrupt another. How to bring it in a dialogue?
— Sam: “I know he did it, but-“
Paul: “I don’t want to hear anything about it.”
– Exclamations such as – [surprise – “Well!” “Oh God!” etc]
[irritation – “Oh dear!”]
[pleasure – “How nice!” “Splendid!”]
All these interjections should be sparingly and should not be overdone.
Let the dialogues be brief, the questions and answers be concise and to the point.
Enjoy writing!!
