SCWC: Drafting Dialogue to Die For

• Outlines are not required for writing, totally up to you. Figure out how you think and whether or not outlines would be useful to you
• Try Myers-Briggs personality test to help determine how you think and whether or not outlining will help you.
• Dialogue is a craft, a tool in your toolbox. Good dialogue can salvage a really bad scene/chapter/story.
• Written dialogue is not real – people usually don't speak in books the way people actually speak in real life.
• Keep your reader aware of who's actually talking
• What people say tells you more about them than a descriptive paragraph; more revealing when you listen to the character talk.
• Dialogue can also move action/plot forward by foreshadowing.
• Readers don't like for the author to tell them everything; they like to figure some things out on their own. Readers like to be challenged.
• Writing multiple people having a conversation can be difficult (avoid if possible). Try to keep just two people in a conversation, but if there are more, have some of them be quiet for awhile.
• Easiest dialogue to write: action.
• Important to master dialogue even if it's not used a lot
• Learn vocabulary!
• Adverbs tend to weaken a description.
• All rules go out the window with dialogue (okay to use passive voice here), because that's how people talk.
• Dialogue must match the people speaking
• Let the characters speak for themselves rather than writing paragraphs describing everything
• Book dialogue is impressionism; giving the impression of people having a conversation.
• Dialect is tricky and dangerous—most dialect is out of date. Don't get lured into cheap tricks (Irish English/South African English vocabulary, verb placement, word arrangement/flow, etc)
• Make the reader do the work: “She spoke with the honeyed tones of southern Alabama.” The reader will now know where she's from and will automatically insert the accent on their own.
• Dialogue will help you guide the reader's imaginations – how they picture characters, setting, etc
• White space: give the reader a chance to breathe/take a break with dialogue. Dialogue can be used to generate humor
• “write tight”; don't waste words. Leave out crap the reader doesn't really doesn't need to know
• The only way you're going to get this writing done is to sit down and WRITE!

Exercise - dialogue used to develop characters

“Hell no!” Bobby whimpered.

“What's the matter?” Billy snarled. “Ya chicken?”

“I don't wanna. It's scary.”

“It's not scary. You're just a little chicken.”
“Shut up! I'm gonna tell Mom!”

“No you're not, you little whiner. You're gonna do exactly what I say, otherwise I'm gonna take your allowance. I know where you hide it, too.”

“I hate you,” Bobby said.