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Hellooo, everybody! Today we're covering part two in my series all about
writing dialogue. In part one we talked about characterization and voice. If you missed it,
I got it linked below. Today we're looking at the technical aspect: formatting, punctuation,
paragraphs, all that good stuff. Before we get started a huge thank you to Skillshare for
sponsoring today's video and making it possible for me to release regular content for you guys.
Skillshare is my favorite online learning platform because it’s specifically designed for creators.
It's got over 25,000 classes in creative writing, business, graphic design, drawing,
whatever you can think of. I've got two marketing classes for writers over on Skillshare. One is all
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already, you should definitely check them out. Not only do I have classes on Skillshare, but I
take classes. I'm a big fan of their platform. I use them religiously and their classes have helped
me so much when it comes to building my author platform and writing career. Skillshare’s got
some special goodies, just for you. Stick around until the end of this video for details. First
we're covering the top ten tips for tackling the technical end of dialogue. If you have any issue
with formatting or punctuation, this video is for you. Number One (1): Write the dialogue first.
One of the issues writers have with writing long streams of dialogue is that they lose the
flow of the conversation. They get sidetracked, sometimes they neglect the character's voices,
or the voices start to blend together. This often happens because the writer is flip flopping
between writing dialogue and narrative. They're going back and forth between two very different
styles of writing. The easiest way to bypass this problem is to write the dialogue out in full,
without any narrative at all. No dialogue tag, no body language, no gestures, description,
just the voices. This will allow you to focus on the conversation, without getting distracted by
influences outside of the voices themselves. Additionally this method mirrors the natural
flow of conversation. When we're talking, we're not pausing to proclaim who is speaking, or to
remark on whether or not our brow is furrowed. Once you've written the conversation out in full,
read it over, give it an edit, then add the narrative. Number two (2): Color code the voices.
Another dialogue hack, especially if you're writing a conversation between many characters,
is to color code the voices. One character’s dialogue is green, another character’s dialogue
is blue, the third character’s dialogue is red. This is helpful because it eliminates
the confusion of figuring out who is speaking at which time, plus it will showcase if one
character is monopolizing the conversation, or if another character is being left out. If the green
character only has one line, maybe you don't need them in this conversation at all. Once you finish
the conversation and you're happy with it, nix the color coding and move on, Number Three (3):
Capslock is not emphasis. Internet speak is really fucked up our knowledge of the written language.
When we're chatting with friends online we tend to use capslock to indicate emphasis.
“He did WHAT?” But in fiction capslock doesn't indicate emphasis. It lets the reader know that
someone is screaming. “HE DID WHAAAAT!” Before you feel the need to lay down on the shift key,
ask yourself, ‘Is this character horrified right now?’ Capslockock is usually reserved for moments
of terror, because that's typically when people scarem. If your character isn't wailing like
a banshee and you just want to emphasize what they're saying. What you're looking
for is italics. “He did what?” You're welcome. Number Four (4): The dialogue tag is part of
the sentence. A lot of people get confused when writing dialogue tags, namely when it
comes to punctuation. Newbie writers often treat dialogue tags as their own sentence. They will
have a line of dialogue ending in a period, followed by the tag ‘he said’ also ending in
a period. That ain't right. If you're adding a dialogue tag to the end of a line of dialogue,
then it is part of the sentence. Which means the punctuation needs to reflect that. Since we’re
covering punctuation, let's switch over to my laptop for details. Alright, as you can see, we
have three lines of dialogue here along with three dialogue tags. All I’m missing is the punctuation.
Let's start with the most basic situation. If your character is simply stating a line of dialogue,
and you end that sentence with a tag, the proper punctuation at the end of their dialogue is a
comma. If a character is yelling or explaining something, you can add an exclamation point at the
end of their dialogue. However, do not capitalize the first letter of the dialogue tag, because it
is still part of the sentence. Lastly, say your character is asking a question. In this case, just
like with the previous example, we add a question mark at the end of the line of dialogue. And the
first letter of the dialogue tag remains lowercase in order to reflect the fact that it is connected
to the sentence. Number Five (5): Narrative is its own sentence. Sometimes when we write dialogue,
we don't use dialogue tags, which in most cases is actually preferred. Instead we cushion the
dialogue with narrative. The character takes some kind of action, or exhibits some kind of
body language that makes it clear that they're the ones speaking. In situations like this,
sometimes writers treat this with the same type of punctuation as you would use with a dialogue
tag. (Example) ‘Jenna clenched her fists, “Punctuation is important, dammit!”’ This
is wrong. A line of narrative that happens before or after a line of dialogue, and does not include
a dialogue tag, is its own sentence. And the punctuation should reflect that. (Example) ‘Jenna
clenched her fists. “Punctuation is important, dammit!”’ The only exception to this is if the
narrative somehow punctuates a line of dialogue. Number Six (6): Don't reflect an accent in the
dialog. Sometimes when a character has an accent, the author will reflect this accent in the
dialogue by misspelling some of the words in order to mirror the pronunciation. However, this sucks,
so don't do it. I know you want readers to hear exactly how sexy this character's accent sounds,
but all you did was give ‘em a tongue twister. And I know you want readers to hear just how goofy
this character's voice is, but that's actually pretty offensive. So maybe don't be a dick. When
you reflect the accent in the dialogue, the reader is stuck sounding out those words at
a glacial pace, which is fucking annoying. Keep in mind, this does not apply to broken-english.
If the character drops certain words when they speak, then you would do the same in the
dialogue because, duh, they're not speaking those words. But when it comes to accents, describe how
it sounds in the narrative, and then write the dialogue out normally. Your readers will thank
you. Number Seven (7): People speak in paragraphs. Sometimes your characters will speak at length.
Maybe they're telling a story, or giving a speech. This is completely normal in relevant occasions,
but please keep in mind that people speak in paragraphs. Your character story should not
be one massive paragraph that lasts for pages and pages. And dividing up paragraphs is simple. When
the subject changes, the paragraph changes. “But Jennaaa, the subject never changes. He’s telling
a story!” Except, subjects change within stories all the time. Take Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
When Goldilocks decides to try out the porridge, that's its own paragraph. When she goes to try out
the bed, guess what, we change paragraphs because that's a new subject. Number Eight (8): Quotation
marks are weird. If your character is telling a long story, the kind that is reflected in multiple
paragraphs like I just covered, then you're going to use quotation marks differently than
you normally would. Say your character's dialogue is three paragraphs long and it is uninterrupted
by any dialogue tags or narratives. You are going to start every single paragraph in the
stream of dialogue with a open quotations mark. However, only the very last paragraph is going
to end with a closing quotation mark. So it should look a little something like this. “But Jennaaa,
that looks so wrong.” I know it looks wrong, but it’s so-so right. Number Nine (9): Thoughts are
not dialogue. Sometimes your characters are gonna think about shit. And when they do, you may be
tempted to reflect their thoughts the same way you would as dialogue, with quotation marks. Don't do
that, you'll reveal yourself as an amateur and open yourself up to a lot of hate. Thoughts are
not spoken words, and thus they do not get treated as such. Instead italicize your character’s
thoughts, that way the reader knows that the voice sounding off is in your character's head
and not coming out of their mouth. And Number Ten (10): Read it out loud. One of the best times for
writing dialogue is to read it out loud, and this is true for a number of reasons. First, you'll be
able to hear whether or not it's convincing. If you read your dialogue out loud and it doesn't
sound like something real people would really say, delete it. Second, you can track the flow.
Does the conversation progress organically or is it clunky, does it go off on tangents? And third,
you get a much better idea of pacing. If your conversation is supposed to be firing off but it's
reading very slowly, that's a problem. Maybe the dialogue itself is too long. Or maybe you've added
too many tags or too much narrative. All of this is so much easier to determine if you read it out
loud to yourself or to a willing party. So that’s all I got for you today. My next dialogue video
will be all about dialogue tags. So be on the lookout. Again, thank you so much to Skillshare
for sponsoring today's video. I am so appreciative of everything that they've done for me as well as
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