Hi WestWorders,
Would you like to knock your teacher’s socks off? (Not literally, as it might become a bit smelly in the classroom.)
Fear not! Writing awesome dialogue is a great way to impress your teacher – socks and all.
The first trick is to have your characters reveal only necessary information. Try to avoid long greetings and small talk. The following passage is a good example of necessary dialogue.
“Mum will kill me if I don’t pass the exam.”
“Perhaps you should spend more time studying.”
“I don’t have the energy … not with my tennis and all.”
Now that we have our important dialogue in place, let’s build around it. Let’s start by letting the reader know who is talking.
“Mum will kill me if I don’t pass the exam,” said Sarah.
“Perhaps you should spend more time studying,” replied Tom.
“I don’t have the energy … not with my tennis and all,” said Sarah.
Things are looking good. Our dialogue is sharp, the paragraphs are sorted out and so is the punctuation. But we can keep on building around the dialogue to let the reader know more about our characters and setting. Let’s move the conversation into a library. And let’s give Sarah a dislike of math.
“Mum will kill me if I don’t pass the exam,” said Sarah. She sighed, scanning the double page of sums that tormented her on the library desk.
“Perhaps you should spend more time studying,” replied Tom.
“I don’t have the energy … not with my tennis and all,” said Sarah.
But there is still more we can do. Let’s give Tom more to say. Let’s add some more dialogue to split what he says into two small chunks. Let’s create a supportive friend and likeable character in the process.
“Mum will kill me if I don’t pass the exam,” said Sarah. She sighed, scanning the double page of sums that tormented her on the library desk.
“Perhaps you should spend more time studying,” replied Tom, smiling assuredly. “You can do it. I know you can.”
“I don’t have the energy … not with my tennis and all,” said Sarah.
Notice the cool structure in Tom’s paragraph – Dialogue-Action-Dialogue. I wish I had a friend as supportive as Tom. Now that we’ve done that, let’s play around with the structure in Sarah’s last paragraph. Let’s move her dialogue to the end of the paragraph instead of the beginning.
“Mum will kill me if I don’t pass the exam,” said Sarah. She sighed, scanning the double page of sums that tormented her on the library desk.
“Perhaps you should spend more time studying,” replied Tom, smiling assuredly. “You can do it. I know you can.”
Sarah closed the book and shoved it into her blue duffle bag. “I don’t have the energy … not with my tennis and all.”
Now, we have some truly awesome dialogue. It reads smoothly because the structures are varied and there is some extra action and description in place.
Try writing some awesome dialogue of your own. You can build it up slowly like the example above. Feel free to share your work in the comments below!
Tim
Hi Tim!!!
Here is my awesome dialogue that I wrote!
Miranda turned to Tony in horror. “I haven’t finished my English homework. And it’s next period!”
“It’s fine – don’t worry. You can always ask Ms Heffer for an extension,” Tony said, shoving his thick textbooks into his backpack.
“It’s not fine. I’ve already asked for two extensions last week. I’ll fail for sure.” Miranda wailed.
“Then you should focus more on your homework,” Tony suggested.
“I can’t – being a dance club leader is a full-time job.”
Hi Angela,
This is absolutely awesome dialogue. I love how you have told a short story by using what the characters say. Great job!
Hi Tim
This dialogue helped me to understand the punctuation and way of doing the dialogue. Thanks for all this information!!!!!!!
I have 2 questions
1. How many words are you on the new book your doing?
2. How long did this dialogue take you?
Hi Yuma,
I’m glad you found the information helpful!
In answers to your questions, the book I’m working on will end up with around 25,000 words. The dialogue is spread throughout the book, so it takes as long as it takes to write the book. 🙂
“Go get us two hotdogs, Phil,” Luke told Phil as he gave some money to him.
“Yay!” he exclaimed, jumping around. “Hotdogs, rule!”
Phil ran to the hotdog stand and bought two of them.
“Where is my hotdog?” Luke asked Phil as he returned.
“I ate my two,” Phil explained. “You didn’t give me enough money for YOUR two!”
This is awesome dialogue, Joshua. Nicely done. I love the way you split some of the dialogue into two sections.
“I’m dead.”
Bill immediately look over to Jack to check his current state of health, then he lets out a giant ‘PHEW!’
“You better not let Mrs Hunchwoman see that you have only written one line for your assignment Jack,” says Bill.
DING, DING DING!
The bell for period three has just rung.
“We should get going,” says Bill
“I can’t!”, exclaims Jack. “I am only on the introduction!”
Love it! Thanks for sharing, Shawn.
“What is wrong with you!?” Florence Excel asked her best friend.
“I forgot to bring my assignment for Mrs Beckett and I forgot to bring my play hat today and I even forgot to bring the most important thing in the history of school! MY TEXTBOOKS!”
Betty was flustered and doomed.
“don’t worry, I’m sure the teachers would understand,” said Florence, trying to calm Betty down.
“THE TEACHERS WOULD UNDERSTAND?!” shrieked Betty.
“Last term, the teachers gave me detention for not bringing my homework in, last year, the principal had to talk to me about bringing textbooks home and to school, and two weeks ago, Mrs Madboom was screaming at me like crazy for not handing out the homework to the students!” Betty said in one breath.
Florence was horrored by the list of bad stuff that happened to Betty and mumbled “Bye, I gotta go to class now,”
Wow! This is absolutely fantastic, Sophia. I love how the conversation flows so effortlessly.