forum How do you write dialogue?!
Started by @1pink_candy
tune

people_alt 58 followers

@Kefi

Hey! Here's some quick really basic things that helped me out a lot:

  • ALWAYS use quotation marks. It's SO hard to read without
  • Whenever a different character starts talking, start a new line and indent.
  • It took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure this out, but you don't have to end sentences with a period, and if you want to write an action mid-sentence, you can break the dialogue with a comma
    ^^ It's like this: "I really wish my story would just write itself," Character A said, aggressively smashing their keyboard. "Writing is so much work."
  • Follow up thing: I usually italicize for emphasis. Not everyone does that, though.
  • Act the scenes out in your mind. People usually can't give lengthy monologues of commentary off the top of their head without breaking a sweat- if you have trouble saying it out loud, your character probably would too.

Deleted user

you can break the dialogue with a comma

Yes, this is very important. If you want to say something like he says or he sighs, you must end with a comma rather than a period. So "I don't like you," He said. rather than "I don't like you." He said. This works the same if you use an exclamation point or question mark, as they simply replace the period.
This changes if it is a separate action. It would make sense if you did "I don't like you." He kicked the girl to the ground. but not so much if you did "I don't like you," He kicked the girl to the ground. The only time the comma would work is if you did "I don't like you," He said, kicking the girl to the ground.
Of course, there are some sentences where this might be acceptable but not often.

@appendix

As far as the actual dialouge goes, remember that everyone speaks differently, and dialouge can tell a lot about a character! For example, take these two phrases:
"Where would poor Cousin Mary go if her sister turned her out?"
and
"Where's Cousin Mary gonna go if her sister kicks her out?"
The first phrase sounds like it was said by someone who's either living in the Victorian era, or rich and pretentious. The second phrase sounds like it was said by someone in modern times, who might not care that much about sounding "educated". So even though both phrases MEAN the same thing, the specific words used (diction) tell a lot about the person saying it.
Additionally, remember no regular person speaks with perfect grammar all of the time, so it's okay to break some rules when writing dialouge (though, perfect grammar and syntax would be a good way of showing if a character is educated and/or a snob)
some additional resources:
https://springhole.net/writing/character-voices-and-slang.htm
https://jerichowriters.com/writing-dialogue/

@Katastrophic group

for writing dialogue I just rp the dialogue as my characters with myself as the other characters… then i put it all into nice formats with all the quotations and actions. That way I can get each individual voice and make it nice after.