![]() Use dialogue tags to differentiate who's speaking at different points in the dialogue. Common examples of dialogue tags include: Use dialogue tagsĪ dialogue tag is the part of a sentence that indicates who's speaking. Related: Creative Writing Degree Skills: Definition and Examples 12 rules of dialogueīelow are some rules you can use to help you improve your ability to write dialogue: 1. Some of these rules relate to the proper way to punctuate a sentence, while others relate to creating a more enjoyable dialogue for readers.īy using these rules when writing dialogue, you can make your stories easier for readers to follow and perhaps even craft more interesting characters. What are dialogue rules?ĭialogue rules are guidelines and tips writers can use to craft engaging sentences in which subjects or characters speak. In this article, we discuss what dialogue rules are, explore 12 different rules and best practices for writing dialogue and provide examples that can help you craft your own. Knowing more about these dialogue conventions and strategies may improve your writing abilities, along with the quality of your prose. Rely instead on the strength of your voice.If you write short stories or novels, you likely include dialogue in your fictional works. There's an array of formatting conventions and best practices that writers can use to make their writing both easier for readers to understand and more engaging. ![]() Rich dialogue should illustrate the thoughts, the feelings, or the state of mind of a character. Your prose should show me what the adverb is telling me. Ideally, a reader should get a sense of the character’s anger from the actual dialogue itself (always aim for this!), which would render even the “yelling” part a distraction. Why? Because adverbs in dialogue or action tags have a tendency to be a) redundant and b) telling.įor instance, a reader will know a character is angry if they are yelling at someone. In the right place, they can add entire dimensions to a text, but if they’re a part of your tag, you’ve got a problem. To be honest, I love adverbs in moderation. We’ve all probably written or read a novel where the characters are yelling angrily or murmuring helplessly or. I’m not saying you can’t use a different tag if the situation calls for it, but it’s worth noting that in the majority of cases, the tags “said” and “ask” will suffice. If the reader notices it, you’ve thrown them out of the story, and we all know that’s bad bad bad. The strength of your dialogue should be in the quoted speech, not in the tag. My characters were “acquiescing” and “acceding” and “concurring” and “soliciting” and “inquiring.” Let’s just say I was making the most out of Shift + F7.īut dialogue tags aren’t supposed to call attention to themselves. Several years ago, I went through a stage where I was determined to use every word in the English language as a tag. “I love you.” Use “said” and “ask” and forget the rest They can provide beats between quoted speech to vary the rhythm and also show who is speaking.Īction tags are separated from quoted speech with a period. To remember this, ask yourself, can a character smile his words? Can he yawn them? (The answer is no.) But action tags have their uses. They do not influence the words spoken by the character. Secondarily, they can show how the spoken dialogue is expressed (said, asked, whispered), but their primary function is to provide clarity.ĭialogue tags are most commonly separated from the quoted speech with a comma.Īction tags show an action done by a character (smiled, huffed, yawned, shrugged). That is really the only reason to use them. Know the difference between an action and a dialogue tagĭialogue tags show who is speaking. Below I’ve amassed some tips to consider when writing your own dialogue. But in the intermittent years, I’ve learned how to avoid some of the common mistakes I see when I’m editing. ![]() ![]() I went through a lot of stages, a lot of trial and error. I got it wrong again and again and again. ![]() She got me to ask an important question: How should I write dialogue?įinding the answer wasn’t easy. If I ever had a “first” editor, she was it. I never could get the commas in the right places or use the right tags, and she’d return my manuscripts covered in red ink. She wasn’t a writer, but she seemed to know more about the whole tagging business than I did. Here’s something the Muses don’t know about me: Ten years ago, I got my first lesson in writing dialogue from a friend in high school. ![]()
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