Writer's Digest: 4 Tips on Writing Dialogue

[SheltieLover]

https://www.writersdigest.com/.amp/write-better-fiction/4-tips-on-writing-dialogue

4 Tips on Writing Dialogue
Write like a game of tug-of-war.

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Make your dialogue into a game of table tennis. Or non-table tennis.

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Ditch the tags—and then rewrite.

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Shift the tone and the motivation.

This is a great article. Much more at link.

[nuxvomica]

1. I try to follow Ursula K. Le Guin's advice to always have action with dialogue

But I'll check out the article later. Thanks for posting! I've been playing with an interesting writing tip lately: Never start a sentence with the word "the". Especially the first one in a paragraph. It's not that such sentences are bad but the tip forces you to be more imaginative in sentence structure; basically an anti-laziness remedy.

[SheltieLover]

2. Excellent tip!

Ty!

Makes for more interesting, more action-packed reading, no doubt!

[Orrex]

4. A related tip...

Don’t start the story or a chapter with a character’s name, a]or at least be very sparing in doing so. Arthur C Clarke was absolutely terrible about this, and I believe Asimov was likewise. Regardless of their vast knowledge and enormous bodies of work, this remains a lazy trick that simply sucked the life from the page.

[nuxvomica]

3. I read the short article and I think the tips are useful

Especially "ditch the tags." I think a lot of people feel they must describe how someone's saying something, that that is more imaginative writing. It's often called for but when it's not, a simple "he/she said" is fine. I find dialogue fairly easy to write but I have to restrain myself from writing pure dialogue by breaking in with description, often about what a character is thinking. My general rule about dialogue is to keep in mind that every conversation between two people is actually two different conversions, with different issues, different rhythms, and even different outcomes.

[Orrex]

5. A friend self-published a fantasy novel a few years back

Cool story and engaging characters, but I don’t believe that a single one of them ever “said” anything. It was always “Bob exclaimed” or “Maria expressed” or “Paula queried” or “Larry remarked.” It became an exhausting distraction pretty quickly.

[Chili]

6. thank you for this!