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Dos And Don’ts Of Dialogue

Dialogue: either you’re great at it, or it’s your worse nightmare. Writing dialogue can be difficult, confusing, and frustrating. Here are some tips to clear the air when it comes to dialogue!

DON’T overuse dialogue tags

From the very beginning, writers are often told not to overuse “said”.  While this is sound advice, it can create the false notion that “said” is never to be used.  This simply isn’t true!

Stay away from repeating creative dialogue tags one after another, especially if it’s redundant.  For example, if there’s an exclamation point after a sentence, you don’t need to say that the character exclaimed or yelled.

Often, a dialogue tag isn’t even needed.  Just end the dialogue without a tag.

DO use “said”

Repeat after me: IT IS OKAY TO USE “SAID”!

I’m guilty of this one as well.  The urge to not use “said” too often becomes a habit of never using it and replacing it with unnecessary dialogue tags.

Just use said!  It will make your writing seem far more mature than if you used something like “growled” or “stated”.

DON’T go on tangents

Dialogue should be realistic.  If you have a character that is known for going off on tangents, then by all means do so.  If you’re going on a tangent to seem “artistic”, you might want to cut it off there.

My biggest pet peeve with modern young adult literature is that writers try to combing their need to prove they can write beautiful prose with dialogue.  Don’t.  In the end, it’s just unrealistic and a cheap way of trying to show your talent.  Leave the long-winded metaphors for your narration, please.

DO use unique speech

Everyone speaks differently.  This could mean accents, slang, catchphrases, or misused words.  Include this in your dialogue!

Colorful dialogue creates colorful characters, and allows the reader to be able to easily distinguish who is speaking (without dialogue tags!).

DON’T overuse phonetics

Though accents can be a great way to create colorful dialogue, phonetically spelling every word according to the character’s accent can get annoying fast.  Stick to spelling out the most important words.  After a while, the reader should be able to read that character’s dialogue with their accent in mind anyway.

DO show, not tell

Every writer has received this advice at one point or another, but with good reason.  Dialogue is the best way to put “show, don’t tell” into practice.  However, writers often think that dialogue itself counts as showing.  Though dialogue is a better tool than description in these instances, it doesn’t completely serve as a way to show on its own.

Telling: “Hey, calm down.  You look nervous.”

Showing: “Hey, calm down.  You haven’t stopped tapping your foot since we got here.”

DON’T repeat names too often

I too fall into the trap of constantly clarifying who is speaking.  When you’re writing, it feels natural to say things like “’How are you doing, Jim?’ ‘I’m doing well, Pam.’”, but the reality is that no one speaks like that, especially to people they’re close to.

Most of the time, you should use names in dialogue tags and greetings.  Otherwise, use names sparingly.

Nerd uncle acquired(?)

WOLVERINE SETT WITH ACTUAL WOLVERINE EARS I LOVEEEE

Settphelios doodles <3

Right now, I am literally a whole province from my friends even close to my age and if I didn't have the internet I wouldn't be able to fucking contact them.

Honest Posters of Our Relationship with Technology

Designer Ajit Johnson, living in England, has imagined a series of posters called “#This_Generation”. With honesty, the posters show anecdotes linked to our daily relationship with technology and social networks.

how dare adaptations make dracula/mina the ship when first of all, jonathan is the obvious gothic heroine of the book, and second of all mina would put the fear of God in dracula for touching her man. she proposed to him as soon as he woke up from his coma and MARRIED him while he was in the sick bed of a catholic hospital, this girl is Not Normal either

This blog is wholly anti racist.

People of color, minorities, people of the LGBTQIA+ community, YOU ARE SO WELCOME HERE. please, make yourselves at home.

TERFS, racists, people who are against feminism, Nazis: please, do not interact with this blog. Unfollow me immediately, please.

I will not allow any hateful discourse on this blog and anything of that sort will be deleted.

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they knew what they were doing they heard about the Twitter migration and decided to help with the purge

[Image ID: A man looks into the camera on the right as a tornado comes towards him from the left. At the bottom of the picture it says in all caps ‘HERE IT COMES’. At the top of the picture it says ‘When the Ink Demon talks now:’. The text ‘The fandom’ is overlayed on top of the man. The text ‘Even more people who thirst over Bendy’ is overlayed on top of the tornado.]

DO THE DEVELOPERS EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE UNLEASHED

F*CKING THANK YOU

Yall: Ashe should’ve been a black women!

Me: So the first black women in Overwatch should’ve been a nutorious gang leader who past is being a child with absent parents, got into trouble in school a lot and went to jail at a young age. Cause that would’ve gone on great with you guys.

Y’all: But she has the same face and body-

Me: Overwatch is a game with the most international diversity I’ve ever seen done well. A character is made up of more than a face and you know that argument is stupid. And there are some slim builds in Overwatch but that’s no reason not to appreciate how there are some non slim body in it too. And even the thin women are proportionally different from each other.

Y’all: … Her makeup is-

Me: Women wear makeup, some wear more than others, some don’t wear any at all. She looks nice so why are you mad?

Y’all: …

Me: Please don’t harass blizzard because they haven’t come out with something you personally wanted because at the end of the day your still gonna play Overwatch, aren’t you? So let blizzard take there time and keep your expectations reasonable. Because if a POC Women comes out and you guys are complaining for stupid reasons again I’m writing a letter to whatever god to smite you all.

Thank you for coming to my Tedtalk.

REBLOG THIS HERO

Guys who think periods are nbd are my favorite guys.

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