Back to Basics: Writing dialogue for gut-wrenching scenes

 

Recently I mentioned writers can use dialogue to convey grief, terror, or other emotional situations. Below is an example from The Letter Keeper by Charles Martin.

 

The story is about David Bishop and a priest named Bones who rescued teenage boys and girls who were abused, physically and emotionally, and forced into the sex trade. Some had been kidnapped, others of them abandoned by their parents.

 

In this scene, one night the narrator, David Bishop, and his wife Summer were awakened by their dog and noticed a young lady they’d rescued from sex trafficking, Casey, standing by their bed.

 

“I’m afraid.”

 

“Of what?”

 

“Going outside.”

 

Summer rubbed her eyes. “Why?”

 

Casey glanced out the window into darkness. “’Cause he’s still out there.”

 

. . . Her bottom lip trembled. . . . She waved her hand across the two of us. “I was wondering if. . . .”

 

Casey had one wound left to heal, and maybe I alone had the power to do so. . . . “Can we go for a walk?”

 

Casey nodded.

 

. . . The three of us shuffled . . . out into the cold . . . and into the chapel. . . . I turned to Casey. “I want to ask you a favor.”

 

She nodded above a trembling lip.

 

“One of these days, some young man is going to fall head over heels for you. . . . He’s going to have to ask someone for permission to marry you.” . . . Casey’s head tilted sideways, spilling tears out of her eyes. “And then someone is going to have to give you away.” At this, Casey sobbed and buried her face in her hands. . . .

 

I lifted her chin, knowing there is no deeper pain than that caused by the rejection or abandonment of a father or mother. . . . “Will you let us call you Daughter?”

 

Casey crumbled, hitting her knees, and fell into Summer. . . .

 

. . . “Will you let us adopt you? . . . Will you be ours? Forever?”

 

The sound coming out of Casey’s stomach had been there a long time, and I had a feeling it was the deepest of layers. . . . A beautiful cry. The sound of pain leaving and joy entering. . . .

 

As Casey melted into the floor at my feet, I began to whisper the one word she needed to hear. . . .

 

“Daughter. . . Daughter . . . Daughter. . . .”

 

When I finished, Casey lay in a fetal ball clinging to us. . . .

 

When she emptied herself, I sat her up. “Casey?”

 

. . . “Casey Bishop?”

 

She nodded.

 

“From this moment on, we take you as our own. . . . Forever.”

 

Now read the passage again and note how Charles Martin wrote:

 

• He used few words—his writing style is called “sparce”. He was concise, succinct.
• He used simple words which were, for the most part, only one- and two-syllable words. He avoided flowery and multisyllable words.
• He used no exclamation points. He didn’t need them because his word choices, sentence structure, and context conveyed the emotion and pain.
• He used almost no adverbs or adjectives (modifiers or qualifiers—sometimes called padding or fillers). When you write, use strong nouns and verbs. Rather than saying a person is “very poor,” choose one strong word, such as “destitute” or “impoverished.” Instead of writing that a person is “very worried,” choose one strong word, such as “anxious” or “frightened.” Avoid words like pretty, big, very, small, heavy, really, lovingly, speedily, haltingly.

 

Experiment with your passage to find the right balance: (1) Avoid making light of—or diluting—the seriousness of the situation, but also (2) avoid being overly dramatic. Melodrama is not a mark of good writing.

 

Finding words to write your traumatic accounts 

might be painful for you, even agonizing, 

but I urge you to pray your way through it. 

Take as long as you need.

 

Also recognize the opportunity you have

—as well as the responsibility—

to write your stories.

 

Maybe today you can’t imagine how God can use them

to bless your readers—your kids, grandkids,

great-grands, friends, and even strangers.

 

But keep reminding yourself that

you are part of a story much bigger than yourself.

Writing your memoir is more than a hobby

—it is a ministry.

You have a story no one else can tell.

Take in Erin Morgenstern's words:

“Someone needs to tell those tales. . . . 

For each and every ear it will be different, 

and it will affect them in ways 

they can never predict. 

From the mundane to the profound. 

You may tell a tale that takes up residence 

in someone's soul, 

becomes their blood and self and purpose. 

That tale will move them and drive them 

and who knows what they might do because of it, 

because of your words. 

That is your role, your gift.” 

(Erin Morganstern, The Night Circus)

 

.

 

 

Back to Basics: How to craft dialogue that brings life and personality to your characters

 

Are you having fun crafting dialogue for your main characters? I hope so!

 

Today let’s look at another aspect of effective dialogue. (If you missed it, click on Dialogue enriches your memoir—but how can you reconstruct old conversations accurately?)

 

This can be enjoyable: Create dialogue that sounds like the person speaking, natural and unforced, something readers can really hear. Spend time pinning down your key characters’ unique speaking styles.  

 

Here’s an example of people who talk with accents taken from Marie Bostwick’s The Second Sister:

 

I was just about to leave when I heard someone calling my name. . . .

 

“Lucy? Hey, der! C’mon over here, why don’tcha? Got an open spot here on da end.”

 

The Wisconsin accent was thick and very familiar. . . .

 

Clint laughed. “Well, until four years ago, dat was about it. After Dad died I decided t’spruce da place up a little. . . . [The old guys:] Dey kept dyin’ off, don’tcha know. . . .” (The Second Sister)

 

The next example contrasts the distinct speaking styles, and even cultures, of three people. It’s taken from Jamie Ford’s The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet about a Chinese family in 1940s Seattle.

 

The older generation, Henry’s parents, spoke like this:

 

“No more. Only speak you American.”

 

“. . . I send you to school. I negotiate your way—into a special school. I do this for you. A top white school. . . .”

 

Henry and his wife always imagined their son Marty would marry a Chinese girl, however:

 

“Dad, I’m engaged. . . . She’s inside, Pops. I want you to meet her.”

 

Henry heard a click as the door opened behind him. A young woman poked her head out, then stepped out smiling. She had long blond hair, and cool blue eyes. . . .

 

“You must be Marty’s father! . . . I’m Samantha, I’ve been dying to meet you.” She stepped past his hand and threw her arms around him. . . .”

 

Do you like the way the author captured and contrasted the speech and personalities of Henry’s father, Henry, and his fiancée, Samantha?

 

I also appreciate Jamie Ford’s respectful way of portraying Henry’s father’s culture and his generation. That’s important.

 

As you draft your memoir, identify the speaking style of each key character.

 

If you’re writing about a cowboy from Texas, make him sound like a cowboy from Texas. Or if she’s from Quebec, make her sound like she’s from Quebec.

 

How would the following people speak?

• a Ugandan lady
• an introverted pathologist
• an idealistic first-year teacher
• a person whose mother just died
• a grumpy old man
• a woman with dementia
• a preacher
• a surfer
• a spinster from Boston
• a teenager from Atlanta

 

If two people habitually interrupt each other, or if they finish each other’s sentences, write your dialogue in the same way.

 

If a character routinely starts a sentence five times in different ways, work that into your dialogue. (But don’t overdo it—it can get old.)

 

If your character grew up in a slum and didn’t finish high school, how would his speaking and vocabulary be different from that of a CEO with a Ph.D.?

 

To reacquaint yourself with distinct speaking styles, Brooke Warner recommends: “Listen to dialogue—around you, on shows, on YouTube if you need to jog your memory of regional dialogue.”

 

Experiment. Then set your manuscript aside for a week or so.

 

Read it aloud. (Your ears will catch what your eyes overlook.)

 

Does it accurately convey the character’s manner of speaking and his/her personality? And is it respectful of him or her, rather than poking fun?

 

Does it sound natural—or is it stiff? Too formal or too informal?

 

Revise your rough draft

until you make your dialogue and your characters

come alive.

And have fun!

 

Back to Basics: Dialogue enriches your memoir—but how can you reconstruct old conversations accurately?

 

Dialogue, well written, can accomplish important goals for your memoir. It can:

• acquaint readers with key characters’ personalities, values, perspectives, emotions, and attitudes
• add pizzazz—or grief or terror
• present information readers need to know including backstory (significant events from the past)
• let readers feel they’re experiencing your story (important)
• keep up your story’s momentum
• entice people to keep reading.

 

But crafting dialogue can be problematic.

How can you accurately reconstruct conversations

from years ago

if you don’t have them on tape or videotape?

 

If you call your story a memoir, you claim to have written a factual story (not fiction), and you’re promising readers you’re telling them the truth. Readers want to trust you. They need to trust you. If they can’t rely on your dialogue, how can they believe the rest of your story?

 

Here’s good news: You can’t always succeed in penning decades-old conversations with complete accuracy.

 

And that’s okay. Take comfort from Cecil Murphey’s words:

 

“Most readers are smart enough to figure out

that dialogue isn’t word-for-word accuracy;

however, they assume the author strives

to be as close to truth as possible.”

 

So, reconstruct past conversations with integrity. Avoid distortions. Create dialogue that represents your characters, situations, and events truthfully.

 

In writing rough drafts of my two memoirs, I contacted people involved so I could correctly write dialogue. I suggest you do the same.

 

And when I published my second memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir, I included this disclaimer:

 

This is a work of creative nonfiction. Because these events happened nearly half a century ago, some people’s memories might not match mine, but memory is a wobbly thing—for both writer and readers. Based on journal entries, letters I wrote . . . , verifiable historical incidents, and accounts supplied by many people, I believe I’ve written accurately about places, dates, events, individuals, and situations. I recreated dialogue to portray the original conversation in tone and content. For security reasons, I changed some names, as noted.

 

Now let’s take a look at well-written, effective dialogue. In the following excerpt, Pick and his wife Cameron are attending a fancy dinner party in New York. Pick, the narrator, writes about one guest, Felicity, who glared at him as he visited with the hostess, Rita:

 

My southern drawl seemed to unnerve her. . . . Finally, in a vaguely British accent she asked, “I gather you’re not from around here?”

 

“No, ma’am,” I said. “How could you tell?”

 

. . . . “Then where are you from exactly?”

           

“Charlotte, most recently,” I said.

           

“Charlotte?” Her nose squinched, as if I had answered Kazakhstan. . . .

           

“I don’t see how anyone could possibly stand living down there with those people.”

 

“Those people? You mean my kinfolks?”

 

“Surely your relatives are not . . .” She smirked at Rita. “Oh, you know . . . .”

 

I felt my pulse quicken. “Actually, I don’t.”

 

“Well”—she quaffed her wine— “I’m certainly not going to explain.”

 

“Have you ever been down South?” I asked.

 

“Once. I did a commercial shot down there somewhere—” . . . “Raleigh. That was it. Dreadful place . . . I would never live down there.”

 

Our hostess [Rita] smiled diplomatically and asked, “Why not? I hear it’s lovely.”

 

Felicity looked at me. “I couldn’t take all the racists down there.”

 

. . . “How about some duck roast?” Rita chirped, trying to pull the conversation out of the nosedive it had taken. . . .

           

. . . “Besides,” [Felicity] continued, “southerners sound so . . . ignorant. . . .  I could barely bring myself to vote for Jimmy Carter because of that accent of his.”

 

“Well, ma’am”—the chill in my voice could have frozen hummingbirds in mid-flight— “where I come from we call that bigotry.”

 

Suddenly, all conversation ceased at the table. All eyes . . . focused on me. . . .

 

“Please pass the bread, Pick” said Cameron, her face flushing.

 

“Hold on, Cam,” I said.

 

“Pass the bread, Pick!”

 

Rita scrambled for the bread basket, desperate to do something, anything. . . . (from The Bridge by Doug Marlette)

 

Through that dialogue, you witnessed the dynamics between these four people. You sensed the tension. You discerned Felicity’s personality. What did you learn about Pick? About his wife, Cameron? About the hostess, Rita? Just think—Marlette accomplished all of that through a few lines of dialogue!

 

Next week we will continue with dialogue, but for now, study the above conversation and experiment with similar techniques to develop your main characters, their settings, and interpersonal dynamics.

 

Good dialogue is essential to your memoir.

 

If you doubt that, ponder Joan Didion’s words:

 

“I don’t have a very clear idea of who the characters are

until they start talking.”

 

Have fun writing your memoir!

 

Learn from a Holocaust survivor: Describe your memoir’s characters by going beyond physical details

Reading time: 2 minutes, 12 seconds

Last Thursday we looked at developing your memoir’s key characters by writing about their physical attributes. One way is to include sensory details: Describe what a character sounded like, smelled like, looked, felt, and maybe even tasted like. (If you missed last Thursday’s post, click on Are your memoir’s main characters real enough?)

But there’s more! You need to let readers know enough to get acquainted with a character, enough to grasp what’s most important about him or her, enough to know what’s inside.

So, today we’ll look at developing a multi-dimensional person by going beyond a physical, sensory description:

• What was endearing about her?
• What was annoying about him?
• What was comical, scary, heroic?
• What did she obsess over? And was that a good or bad obsession?
• What did other people say or think about that person?
• What moral character did he display?
• What courage, what integrity did she demonstrate?
• What passion, what commitment did he possess?

Peel back layers:

Readers need to know what was happening

beyond the sensory details.

What was happening

between the lines in your character’s life?

What was going on inside?

What were that person’s thoughts?

What do readers need to know about the character’s history,

beliefs, goals, faith, fears, experiences, successes,

quirks, failures, dreams, or values?

And don’t forget about heartaches.

Here’s an example—gripping, unforgettable—from Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night. Note how he includes sensory details, but so much more:

Heavy snow continued to fall over the corpses. 

The door of the shed opened. An old man appeared. His moustache was covered with ice, his lips were blue. It was Rabbi Eliahu who had headed a small congregation in Poland. A very kind man, beloved by everyone in the camp, even by the Kapos and the Blockälteste. Despite the ordeals and deprivations, his face continued to radiate his innocence. He was the only rabbi whom nobody ever failed to address as “Rabbi” in Buna. He looked like one of those prophets of old, always in the midst of his people when they needed to be consoled. And, strangely, his words never provoked anyone. They did bring peace. 

As he entered the shed, his eyes, brighter than ever, seemed to be searching for someone.

“Perhaps someone here has seen my son?”

He had lost his son in the commotion. He had searched for him among the dying, to no avail. Then he had dug through the snow to find his body. In vain.

For three years, they had stayed close to one another. Side by side, they had endured the suffering, the blows; they had waited for their ration of bread and they had prayed. Three years, from camp to camp, from selection to selection. And now—when the end seemed near—fate had separated them.

When he came near me, Rabbi Eliahu whispered, “It happened on the road. We lost sight of one another during the journey. I fell behind a little at the rear of the column. I didn’t have the strength to run anymore. And my son didn’t notice. That’s all I know. Where has he disappeared? Where can I find him? Perhaps you’ve seen him somewhere?”

“No, Rabbi Eliahu, I haven’t seen him.” (from Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night) (Read our recent post about Elie Wiesel by clicking on There must never be a time when we fail to protest.)

I don’t know about you, but that description sent the Rabbi straight to my heart. I’ll never forget that passage.

Look over your manuscript and examine

the way you’ve developed your main characters.

What can you do to make them multi-dimensional?

Find words to make them into real beings.

Creating a sense of place is essential for your memoir

In your memoir, you’ll introduce readers to significant places. Since readers were not there, you’ll need to develop those places well.

That’s why we’ve been looking at how to create a sense of place in your memoir, how to create a setting readers can visualize.

Effectively doing so can be a fun exercise for you, the writer, but it’s more than that. Creating a sense of place is essential if you want readers to experience your story with you.

Last week we considered descriptions of entrances and rooms. (If you missed that post, click on Must-know info about your memoir’s sense of place.) Have you enjoyed working on the settings in your memoir since then? I hope so.

While you continue working on your memoir’s places, include sensory details—what would your readers see, touch, taste, smell, and hear?

Think back: Was the room dusty or polished, cluttered or tidy, warm or cold, old or new, welcoming or unfriendly?

Did the place smell like a florist shop, or overripe cantaloupe, or something worse?—maybe stale cigarette smoke, trash, or chemicals?

What unique sounds resided in that place? Could you hear foghorns signaling to ferry boats and cruise ships and supertankers on foggy days? Did you hear construction noises, or students practicing the flute, or people in prayer? Could you hear wind in the trees? (If so, name those trees—Aspen? Palm? Cedar?)

Spend time recollecting the other sensory details of your place—sights, textures (or feels), and tastes.

For your inspiration, study how Marilynne Robinson created a sense of place in her book, Lila. It’s fiction, but the art of describing a place is the same, whether fiction or nonfiction (memoir is nonfiction—it’s always true). Note how she included dialogue to create that sense of place.

“When they were children they used to be glad when they stayed in a workers’ camp, shabby as they all were, little rows of cabins with battered tables and chairs and moldy cots inside, and maybe some dishes and spoons. They were dank and they smelled of mice…. Somebody sometime had nailed a horseshoe above the door of a cabin they had for a week and they felt this must be important….

“They were given crates of fruit that was too ripe or bruised, and the children ate it till they were … sick of the souring smell of it and the shiny little black bugs that began to cover it, and then they would start throwing it at each other and get themselves covered with rotten pear and apricot. Flies everywhere. They’d be in trouble for getting their clothes dirtier than they were before. Doane hated those camps. He’d say, ‘Folks sposed to live like that?’…”

Your task, then, is to recreate your memoir’s rooms, 

buildings, and entrances to them. 

And be sure to come back next time 

because we’ll continue with this important writing skill.

Happy writing!

Tell Me What He Did: A Memoir

My heart broke over the message Heather Marsten sent telling about enduring years of sexual assault and abuse. “Every morning without fail, after one of my father’s visits, my mom would say, ‘I heard him in your room last night. Tell me what he did.’ She wrote down the details, filling two notebooks….”

The title of Heather’s memoir, Tell Me What He Did, refers to two aspects of her abuse—that question her mother asked, and what He—God—did to rescue Heather from her abusive home.

Her healing was a long, meandering process. It included therapy, paganism, New Age practices, witchcraft, voodoo, Macumba, tarot and, she says, “ultimately real healing through Jesus.” Heather now says, “It was only when I discovered God that I was able to put the pieces of my life back together and walk forward in a joyous life.”

“Writing this book has been an adventure,” she says, “because God has been showing me where He was in the midst of all the chaos of my life. Some of the ways surprised me.” 

For example, Heather now sees that God was in the nots—those bad things that could have happened but did not. She says, “I did not get pregnant by my father, did not go insane, and did not get a communicable disease. At the time I saw God as a do-nothing, but in reality, He had put a hedge of protection around me.”

She sent us the following excerpt, giving a glimpse into her mother’s backstory. Heather was in third or fourth grade in this scene.

     Clotheslines crisscross our backyard. Mommy stretches and rubs her back. “Damn hot. Sheets should dry in no time. I’d sell my soul for an automatic washer and dryer.” 

      I hand Mommy a clothespin. “I like our wringer washer. We make a great team. You send the clothes through the wringer. I catch ’em.” 

      “Bet ya Hazel has one. Bastard takes better care of her than he does us.” 

      Shut up about Hazel. 

      After the sheets dry we make my bed. I point to a photograph hanging on my wall—a short-haired Indian princess wearing a fancy dress and a sparkly headband with a feather. “Who’s that?” 

      “Me in my favorite dress. Don’t I look good? Let’s get a drink to cool off. I’ll tell ya about it.” 

      I sip cherry Kool-Aid at the kitchen table. “Why does the dress have those hangy things?” 

      “Fringe. That fringe moved like wild when I danced. Maggie, a hoity-toity maid who worked down the block from me, wanted that dress too. I bought it. You shoulda seen her face when I wore it on my day off.” Mommy smiles and sips her orange juice. “Had this picture taken right after I got my Flapper haircut. Was all the rage. My parents said I was trashy to have my hair so short.” 

      “Flapper?” 

      “We called ourselves Flappers in the twenties. I was so good at dancing the Charleston. Here, let me show you.” She puts her cigarette in the ashtray and stands. She wiggles her hips as she walks forward and backwards, puts her hands on her knees and quickly moves her hands back and forth across her knees while her knees move in and out. “My fringe flied.” 

      “I saw someone dance like that in a movie.” 

      She sits. “Saved five months for that dress. Back in those days you only earned a few bucks a week. That’s the first new dress I ever had.” 

      “Your parents didn’t buy you new clothes?” 

      “There was twelve of us. Daddy was a coal miner. We were dirt poor. We used to run and meet him after the whistle blew. He saved crusts of bread from his sandwiches to give us kids as a treat. Couldn’t afford new clothes. All my dresses were passed down from my three older sisters.” 

      “Didn’t the kids in your class make fun of you?” 

      “No, we were all poor. ’Sides, I only went to school ’til eighth grade. My baby sister, Anna, was the only one to get new clothes and graduate high school.” 

      “You didn’t go to twelfth?” 

      “Nope. My parents needed money so they farmed me out as live-in housekeeper to a rich family in Chicago. Most of my money went home. With the little I could keep, I bought the dress.” 

      “That’s not fair.” 

      “Anna got everything. I got shit.” She sighs and sips her orange juice. “Still, I had fun. On my day off, my friend Betty and I went dancing. Those were some good times. Go play.” 

      I can’t imagine Mommy dancing and having fun. She never smiles.

Wow!

After you catch your breath, notice Heather’s writing—how she develops her mother’s personality and her own, sets the tone, includes details, writes tight (avoids wordiness), and creates curiosity for readers. Especially note how Heather writes dialogue. We don’t find even one “she said,” yet we all understand who is speaking. That’s impressive! Good job, Heather!

She is writing her memoir to encourage those who have endured abuse. In fact, even before publication, her story has brought help to others. God has lovely and powerful ways—even miraculous ways—of using our stories. I know He will continue to use Heather’s memoir to bring His healing to countless others.

Heather is a happily married mother with three young adult children. She and her husband are proud to witness their kids grow into compassionate, loving people venturing into the world.

A scene from her memoir-in-progress, Tell Me What He Did, appeared in Heavenly Company: Entertaining Angels Unaware, an anthology compiled by Cecil Murphey and Twila Belk.

Tuesday Tidbit: Don’t overlook this resource!

You’re in for a treat today! Kate Krake offers you a wealth of resources in her post, The 100 Best Writing Advice Articles: The UltimateWriting Resource.

Her info is generally aimed at fiction writers but she points out that nonfiction writers will find top-notch advice, too, and I agree.

Kate has divided her post into topics, each of them important:

Creativity and Ideas

The Writing Process

Structure and Style

Character Development

Writing Dialogue

Writing Setting

Writing Tools and Rules

Productivity

The Writer’s Life

The Writing Business

Don’t overlook Kate's valuable resource!

Set aside plenty of time

to take in Kate’s materials

because they’ll make you a better writer—

they’ll help you give your “readers true things

and give them weapons and give them armor

and pass on whatever wisdom we have gleaned

from our short stay on this green world…."

(Neil Gaiman)

Click here to read Neil Gaiman on How Stories Last.

The values of well-crafted dialogue in your memoir

Dialogue, written well, can accomplish your most important goals:

• It can bring readers into your stories,
• acquaint them with your memoir’s key characters,
• ramp up readers’ emotions,
• add pizzazz—or grief or terror,
• keep up your story’s momentum,
• share information readers need to know,
• and entice them to keep reading.

Read more at SM 101’s blog post from 2014, Tips for using dialogue in your memoir. 

Dialogue can convey key characters’ emotions and distinct (perhaps conflicting) goals. It can reveal the dynamics between those in a discussion and convey what each values.

Add significant body language to dialogue and you will enhance your story’s message, bring main characters to life, and increase readers’ comprehension and enjoyment of your story.

Read more at SM 101’s post about dialogue from 2014—don’t miss this good stuff!

Also review SM 101’s more recent posts on using dialogue because good dialogue is essential in your memoir:

Are you using dialogue correctly in your memoir? 

Good dialogue is essential in your memoir 

Additional tips onusing dialogue

Create dialogue thatsounds natural  

After you've polished your dialogue, 

set it aside for a week or so. 

Then read it aloud. 

Does it sound natural? 

If not, continue polishing.

Tuesday Tidbit: Create dialogue that sounds natural

Create dialogue that sounds like the person speaking:

Each person has his own unique speaking style,

so make an effort to capture the distinct speaking style

of your memoir's key characters.

Make it sound natural.

Study these many examples at

Tips for using dialogue in your memoir.

More tips on using dialogue in your memoir

Today we’ll look at more tips for using dialogue in your memoir—because crafting it correctly is so important. (If you missed Thursday’s post, click on Are you using dialogue the right way in your memoir?) 

Place quotation marks around the words people speak. (Put your silent thoughts—inner dialogue—in italics, not quotation marks.)

Use simple dialogue tags (he said, she asked) rather than bigger words like he bellowed or she whined or he scolded or she demanded. Using fancy tags instead of simple ones will distract readers—they’ll draw attention to the tags rather than the spoken words. Keep the focus on dialogue rather than tags. (For more on this topic, including examples, read this fun post, A Critical DON’T for Writing Dialogue, by Joe Bunting.) 

Delete adverbs and adjectives with your dialogue tags, such as he said arrogantly or she said bitterly.

In general, if the dialogue is only one sentence long, place the tag at the end of it.

Victoria Costello offers this advice: “If you insert a tag between two or more sentences, the tag always goes after the first sentence” (The Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Memoir). For example, compare these two:

“There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts broken by love,” said Pearl S. Buck, “but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream—whatever that dream might be.”

This is the better way: “There are many ways of breaking a heart,” said Pearl S. Buck. “Stories were full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream—whatever that dream might be.”

Each time a different person speaks, start a new paragraph.

If two people are in a long conversation, not every line of dialogue needs a tag—as long as readers know which character is speaking. To help readers keep track, occasionally include the speaker’s action. For example, the following has no tag but the reader knows who spoke:

“I must go.” Anne stood, threw her scarf around her neck, and turned toward the door.

Here’s another look at crafting dialogue without a tag, based on an example from Joe Bunting’s post. He encourages writers to: “…show…emotion with an action. Like this: ‘I hate you,’ she exclaimed she said, hurling her French book at him. The corner struck him just under his eye. A bright red mark began to rise on his skin.”

Notice two things: (a) Joe changed “she exclaimed” to “she said,” which is good, but (b) Joe could have deleted “she said” altogether. Then the dialogue would look like this:

“‘I hate you.’ She hurled her French book at him….”

I like that better. Do you?

Look over your manuscripts, 

study the way you’ve crafted dialogue, 

and make revisions. 

Your readers will thank you.