Writing Strong Dialogue Levine Becky Critiquing for Dialogue

Writing Strong Dialogue Levine, Becky. “Critiquing for Dialogue”. The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide. New York: Writers’ Digest Books, 2009. Print.

Weak Dialogue? Watch out for feedback like. . . • I don’t care what the characters are saying • I can’t picture the conversation in my mind • I feel as if I’m watching two talking heads, with no emotion or action • I’m irritated with what the characters are (or aren’t) saying • I lose track of the story while reading the dialogue • I get confused about who is speaking

Strong Dialogue will… • contribute to other elements of the story • include only necessary details • have strong beats (the narrative elements between comments that gives the dialogue more context/emotion/tone, often accompanied by dialogue tags like “he said”) • show conflict or tension (so your scene’s building of tension doesn’t stop when characters speak)

What other elements of the story does this conversation build? How? From Summer Knight (The Dresden Files series, Book 4) by Jim Butcher. Dresden (a wizard) meets Billy (a werewolf) in a park in Chicago… “Billy, ” I responded, […] “How’s the werewolf biz? ” “Getting interesting, ” he said. “We’ve run into a lot of odd things lately when we’ve been out patrolling. Like this. ” He gestured the park. Another toad fell from the sky several feet away. “That’s why we called the wizard. ” Patrolling. Holy vigilantes, Batman. “Any of the normals been here? ” “No, except for some meteorological guys from the university. They said that they were having tornadoes in Louisiana or something, that the storms must have thrown the toads here. ” I snorted. “You’d think ‘it’s magic’ would be easier to swallow than

How do the details included below add complexity to the story? What details could have been included that would weaken the dialogue? From The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex. The Boovs have taken over Earth. Gratuiti Tucci and all the other humans are being moved to Florida. She decides to drive herself and her cat, named Pig. But she meets a Boov on the way who offers to fix her car and join her on the trip. She returns to find the car unrecognizable. “This seems like an awful lot of trouble for one flat tire, ” I said. The Boov stuck out his head. “Flat tire? ” I stared blankly for a second, then walked around to the other side. The tire was still flat. “The car, it should hover much better now!” he called happily. “Hover? ” I answered. “Hover better? It didn’t hover at all before!” “Hm, ” the Boov said, looking down. “So this is why the wheels are so dirty. ” “Probably. ” “Sooo, it did to roll? ” “Yes, ” I said crisply. “It rolled. On the ground. ” The Boov thought about this for a long few seconds. “But … how did it roll with this flat tire? ”

How do the beats in the conversation add to the story? Why don’t they weaken the build-up of the scene? From Breakup by Dana Stabenow. Kate Shugak’s friend Mandy has begged Kate to take care of her rich, snobby parents for a day. Kate agrees, but ends up dragging through a day of rampaging bears, dead bodies, and family shoot-outs. Finally they end up at a friend’s house, just in time to shock and anger Mandy. “… And then, on top of everything else, you have the gall to take them out to Bernie’s and get them stinking drunk? ” “She didn’t get us drunk, ” Mrs. Baker said, sitting up straight in her chair, suddenly very dignified. “Nah, ” Mr. Baker said with an expansive wave of this hand, unfortunately the one that held his coffee cup, and launched a spray of hot black liquid across the kitchen floor. “We wanted the trough. She just drink us to the led. ”

What conflict/tension is developed through the dialogue? What techniques help to build it? From The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. The story is about the Cabral family, all of whom feel victimized by the people and world around them. It is a tense story. The main character is Oscar. His mother, Beli, when she was young, was almost killed by men who worked for the dictator Trujillo’s wife. They left her for dead, but a group of musicians found her at the side of the road. Down the band peered, rubbing their lips and running nervous hands through thinning hair. What do you this happened? I think she was attacked By a lion, offered the driver. Maybe she fell out of a car. It looks like she fell under a car. Trujillo, she whispered. Aghast, the band looked at one another. We should leave her. The guitarrista agreed. She must be a subversive. If they find her with us the police will kill us too. Put her back on the road, begged the driver. Let the lion finish her. Silence, and then the lead singer lit a match and held it in the air and in that splinter of light was revealed a blunt-featured woman with the golden eyes of a chabine. We’re not leaving her, the lead singer said in a curious cibaeña accent, and only then did Beli understand that she was saved.

A note about dialogue formats… The excerpt from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz uses an unusual (to us) format for dialogue. There are no quotations marks (“ ”), guillemets ( «» ), or em-dashes (—) to indicate the difference between the spoken words, the tags, and the beats. This particular format is common in the Romance languages (e. g. French, Italian, Spanish) and some UK publishing. If the dialogue is used to tell a third person what someone else said, use “Free Indirect Discourse” format: Mary was on her way to the grocery store when she saw Frank out in the front yard mowing his overgrown grass. Oh no, she thought, I don’t have time right now for his ramblings. He waved for her to come over because they needed to talk about the upcoming block party. As she got into her car, Mary said, call me tomorrow. But before she could close the door, Frank called, Wait! and jogged over. I have to get going, Frank, she said. We can chat tomorrow. She again attempted to close the car door, but he asked if they should get veggie burgers. For the non-carnivores, he said. From: https: //litreactor. com/columns/talk-it-out-how -to-punctuate-dialogue-in-your-prose