Dialogue Tips: Part I

Certainly one of the most difficult parts of writing fiction is the dialogue. How do we speak? And how do we make sure our characters sound realistic? Well, here is Part I of Dialogue Tips:

The first thing is, how do we denote our dialogue? You might not think the denotation of who says what is all that important, but it is extremely important. In pretty much every case, you should use “said” to denote your dialogue, or perhaps the equally plain “ask” if it was a question. Perhaps you were taught to use words like “exclaim”, “squealed”, or “screeched”. You should never use these words. Why?

The answer is pretty simple. If the reader cannot tell that the character is screaming, exclaiming, or “insert absurd dialogue denotation here”-ing from the dialogue itself, then the dialogue is not good enough. There should be no need to use any other word aside from “said”. Your dialogue should convey whatever emotion the character is experiencing. If the character is yelling, it should be apparent simply from reading his quote.

Now there are exceptions, of course. Some of the best writers have used an occasional “squeal” or “bark”, but if you want to make your chances of being a successful writer as high as possible, you should steer away from these words (except on rare occasions when they are necessary).

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Jack screamed.

“We need to leave, now,” Jack said. “They’re right behind us.”

Perhaps not a world class example, but you get the point. Be more specific in your dialogue, and the reader should know that Jack is concerned and yelling. You should not need to tell them Jack is yelling.

Keep checking back and I will post Dialogue Tips: Part II soon.