Tips for Writing Dialogue and Getting it Right

December 5, 2018May 13, 2021 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 4 Comments

Courtesy of Script Magazine & Google

From the Cow Pasture Archieves: Enjoy

Writing dialogue is one of the most challenging skills for writers to learn. Conversations dominate our lives on a day-to-day basis, but we rarely, if ever, focus on the tone, rhythm, or body language when engaged.

I like to people watch. The mall or similar venues are great places to hone this skill. Observing other’s interactions offers a treasure trove of different gestures, tones, words, body language, and action, to use in your stories.

Writing dialogue isn’t as easy as watching a conversation. In real life, we don’t have to worry about commas, speech tags, unclear antecedents, tone, or rhythm, or who is speaking. But, when writing, we must convey all of those aspects and more.

One of the stories in my upcoming short story collection is almost entirely dialogue. I have revisited that story a million times to ensure the conversation between the two men flow, sound natural, and is believable. That’s a rabbit hole best left for another discussion. Ultimately, readers will determine if I did my job well or not. For those of you who struggle, as I do, following are a few tips I’ve learned along the way and trust me, I’m not the expert.

Writing Dialogue:

Short sentences are best.
Use contractions unless your story dictates a more formal language or it is a characteristic of one of your characters.
Make it clear who is speaking.
Don’t overuse the characters names.
Keep dialogue tags simple as in: said, asked, replied, and answered. Using verbs like whispered, shouted, or stammered are permissible, but don’t over do it.
Don’t forget body language which often speaks louder than words.
Stay away from dialects unless you’re an expert in the dialect.
Characters shouldn’t sound like duplicates of each other. We all have our own distinctive manner of speaking; characters should too.
In real life, we often say, um, ah, or trail off in the middle of a sentence, but use sparingly, unless it’s reflective of a particular characters speech pattern.
Make sure the conversation has a purpose. In real life, we talk about topics that would never keep a reader’s interest. For example using coffee grounds to fertilize the soil of house plants. Unless discussing coffee grounds is significant to the story – like say, burying a murder instrument underneath the coffee grounds – I’d leave that conversation out of the story.

Speaking of observation, here is a look at one of my all time favorite scenes. Whoever wrote this dialogue, rich in words, body language, gestures, and action. It was magnificent. Enjoy.

Want more information on dialogue? Check out these resources:

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Join the conversation. Talk to me or tell me your story. I’m all ears.

Another Look at Commas

August 16, 2017August 16, 2017 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 6 Comments

Commas are the bane of my writing existence. It’s amazing how one tiny, squiggly, thingamajig (okay, punctuation mark) can create such havoc. If you don’t believe me consider the following:

See what I mean? Been there, done that; fortunately, for those of us who struggle with the almighty comma, we have the Grammar Revolution. This week, Elizabeth O’Brien offers us a refresher and One Easy Comma Rule.

If you want additional help with grammar and punctuation, check out Elizabeth and all her helpful lessons at Grammar Revolution.

What about you? What is your most frequent punctuation sin? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Join the conversation. Talk to me or tell me your story. I’m all ears.

Catch Mistakes Before You Submit

July 7, 2017August 14, 2017 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 6 Comments

Have you ever submitted a story or article only to discover later, mistakes you missed?
Me too, and more often than I care to admit. If you could use a little help, check out this article from Autocrit on identifying mistakes before you hit the send button.

Catch More Mistakes with These DIY Proofreading Techniques.

Photo: LinkedIn

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Join the conversation. Talk to me or tell me your story. I’m all ears.

Are Your Commas in the Wrong Place?

June 17, 2016August 30, 2017 / Sheila McIntrye Good, Author / 25 Comments

One would think with years of education stored in my brain I would have conquered sentence structure and those damnable commas – I haven’t. If you’ve been following my blog, you may remember I wrote about this some time ago in Confessions of a Comma Whore.

Recently, I had the opportunity for an editor to review the first chapter of my novel. I was pleased with his comments and surprised to see only a few red marks on the pages.

Here’s some of what he had to say:

“You need to review participial phrases, which is quite a common mistake. Additionally, I recommend learning about restrictive VS nonrestrictive phrases, which will help you better place a few troublesome commas.”

Well, Hells Bells! It looks as if those damn commas will haunt me till I die. Thank God for editors. Forgive me if I’m insulting anyone’s intelligence but I thought I’d review these “quite common mistake’s.”

Participial Phrases

A participle is a verb used as an adjective, and they end in – ing, d, t, or n.

An example: Barking dogs (Bark = verb)

A participial phrase is a group of words containing the participle and any complements or modifiers.

Thanks to Grammar Revolution, here’s how a participle phrase looks diagrammed:

Restrictive versus Nonrestrictive Clauses

A restrictive clause is part of a sentence that explicitly restricts the noun.

Dogs that jump on people annoy me.

The words “that jump on people” restrict the kind of dogs I find annoying. Restrictive clauses do not require commas.

A nonrestrictive clause provides additional information but when left out doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence.

My, fluffy white, Bichon Frisé is a lap dog.

Removing the words “fluffy white” doesn’t alter the meaning of the sentence. It just provides more information. Non-restrictive clauses require commas.

I did well in college. English was one of my favorite subjects. The fact that commas remain my nemesis can only be explained in one of two ways – This Southern gal likes to write the way she talks, or my brain cells just aren’t what they used to be.

Many thanks to James from Storymedic for his feedback and encouragement.

“… very minor corrections. I could immediately tell that you possess a more developed craft, well beyond average.”

Want to know more about those pesky participles and clauses? Check out these resources:

Do you still struggle with certain grammar issues? I’d love to hear your comments. Talk to me. Tell me your story and look for me on Facebook at SheilaMGood, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter@sheilamgood, Contently, and Instagram.