Hello, lovely writer! Welcome to your weekly fix of foxy writing fabulousness!
This week we’re looking at DIALOGUE – how to use it, how to make it sound authentic and how to get the most out of it in your story.
As usual, I’ve also included a Foxy Writing Prompt for you at the end of these notes. Please feel free to share where the prompt took you in the comments below this post. I love to see how the prompts are being used!
So, grab a cuppa, a pen and a bit of paper, and let’s get going…
Speak out!
Dialogue is a real ‘Marmite’ aspect of writing. You either love writing it, or you hate it! How you use dialogue can make a huge difference to the pace, flow and feel of your story, bringing your characters vividly to life. But it can also waffle, obstruct and clunk for readers – which is why so many writers worry about including it in their work. I think dialogue can be so much more than just conversations on the page. It can convey information far more succinctly than paragraphs of prose, can give your readers vital clues to how your characters think, interact and feel, and can bring rhythm and light and life to the story you’re telling.
Which all sounds very exciting, doesn’t it? But how do you do all that with spoken word?
Here are some ideas that have worked for me:
Go to a café – Okay, this sounds like a jolly instead of a writing tip, but bear with me. Take yourself out somewhere where other people gather. It doesn’t have to be a café (although the promise of coffee and cake should never be underestimated!) – it could be a park, a station, a supermarket… The point of this is to ‘get your ear in’ to conversation. Listen to how dialogue is used in real life. Tap into the rhythms of it. See how lengths of speech vary in a conversation – not all sentences are identical. Listen out for idiosyncrasies: favoured words used, sentences other people finish, where the humour lies etc… Make notes if you can, but actually just immersing yourself in other people’s conversations will benefit your own dialogue writing so much. And if there’s a nice cake while you listen all the better!
Study someone else’s words – As with every other aspect of writing, taking time to look at how other writers do it can massively inform your own skills. The BBC has a fantastic script archive as part of its BBC Writers’ Room initiative, with scripts from so many of its hit programmes available to download for free. Find it here. Choose a script from a show you know and download it, printing it out if you can, or just read it on screen. Scripts are brilliant for learning about the flow of dialogue because they rely completely on dialogue to express the story. If you can find the programme that the script is from, try to watch it while following along on the page. It’s a real eye-opener and a great way to think about dialogue without all the worry and fear that so many of us attach to spoken word.
Sound design your characters – When you are thinking about your characters, it’s always good to consider details that will give your reader a real insight into them. We tend to always think of physical attributes first and then maybe characteristics of their attitude, reactions and inner thoughts. But how they speak is perhaps the biggest indicator of their world view, personality and motivation. If they are impatient, for example, their speech could be short, staccato bursts of conversation. If they’re nervous, they’re more likely to either hardly speak at all or fill every awkward silence with a torrent of words. Do they have favoured phrases? Does their accent add a certain rhythm to their words? How fast or slow do they speak? How does their speech change when they are happy, angry, scared, tired, etc? By thinking of how your characters speak, you can bring so much light and life to them for your reader. Give it a go and have fun!
This week’s Foxy Writing Prompt:
Every week, I’m including a writing prompt in these Foxy Notes. You can use it for characters in the story you’re writing, or write about brand new characters as a writing warm-up exercise.
Ready? Here goes: Write a script for three characters daring each other to do something. It could be three people in a plane about to do a skydive, or three people visiting a salsa class for the first time, or three people about to commit the heist of their lives! Write the scene only in dialogue and make each voice distinct from the others. Think about rhythm, emotion, age and sense of humour and contrast each character as they face whatever dare they are considering.
Have fun and see what you can create! Let me know in the comments what your characters get up to in the scene you write!
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That’s all for this week…
…but remember to give yourself credit for what you achieve, give yourself grace for what you don’t and give yourself permission to have fun with what you write. Have a great writing week and see you next Monday morning for more Foxy Notes!
Happy writing!
Miranda x
p.s. For the first few weeks of the year, I’m making myWriteFoxy Writer’s Den Deep Dives (usually reserved for paid subscribers) available for free for everyone. You can read the first one, looking at The Truth About Writer’s Block, here, and watch out for a new Deep Dive coming this week.