How To Write A Wattpad Story [A Guide To Becoming A Better Author]

Lesson 6: Dialogue

Dialogue can sometimes be the most difficult part of writing a novel. Do you put a comma there? Should you throw in a period there? Do I capitalize that? Is this helping my story or is there really no need for it to be there? Is this boring?

The answers to these questions (and more) lie below.

Dialogue Punctuation:

There are many ways of ending dialogue (exclamation mark, question mark, etc) but ending dialogue with a comma or period can sometimes get confusing.

The Period Way:

When you write dialogue ending with a period, you've completely closed off the sentence.

The Correct Way: "I hate you." She crossed her arms and pouted.

The Wrong Way: "I hate you," she crossed her arms and pouted.

For the Correct Way, do you see how after the dialogue there is a NEW sentence? This sentence is not attached to the dialogue whatsoever so the 'she' should be capitalized and the dialogue should be ended with a period.

For the Wrong Way, do you see how the 'she crossed her arms and pouted' should be a new sentence instead of being attached to the dialogue?

The Comma Way:

When you write dialogue ending with a comma, this means that the sentence is not yet closed off.

The Correct Way: "I hate you," she said, crossing her arms and pouting.

The Wrong Way: "I hate you." She said, crossing her arms and pouting.

You see how the second part (the 'she said, crossing her arms' part) is almost like a continuation or extension of the dialogue? If you have that kind of continuation/extension, put a comma after the dialogue instead of a period. 

Extension Capitalization:

What if you don't end the dialogue with a comma OR period? Instead, you end the dialogue with a question mark or an exclamation mark. Then what? Do you capitalize the extension or not?

It's basically the same thing.

If you have a 'continued part' after the dialogue, then the first letter of the first word is NOT capitalized. Here is an example of what I mean.

The Correct Way: "Where are you going?" she asked, her lips quivering.

The Wrong Way: "Where are you going?" She asked, her lips quivering.

If you do NOT have a 'continuation,' then the first word of the extension IS capitalized. Here is an example of what I mean.

The Correct Way: "Where are you going?" Her lips quivered as tears flowed down her swollen cheeks.

The Wrong Way: "Where are you going?" her lips quivered as tears flowed down her swollen cheeks.

A QUICK REVIEW:

1. If there's a new sentence after the dialogue, then close the dialogue off with a period and capitalize the first letter of the first word of the new sentence. (Read carefully.)

2. If there is almost like a 'second part' to the dialogue, then close the dialogue off with a comma and do NOT capitalize the first letter of the first word of the 'second part.' (Read carefully.)

3. The same rules above apply to dialogue ending with an exclamation mark or question mark.

Boring Dialogue:

When reading a published book, do you notice how almost every piece of dialogue contributes to the plot or develops a character in some way?

If the dialogue in your story does not do any of these things, it's best to take it out.

Does this excite you or contribute to any sort of plot/character development?

"Good morning, Jim," yelled Tim.

"Morning!" Jim responded.

"How are you feeling?" asked Tim.

"Good."

"That's nice to hear."

"Nice weather, isn't it?"

"Indeed."

This is so boring, right? Who wants to read this sort of stuff? Nobody, that's who. So if you have dialogue like that in your story, it's best to take it out.

How to Write Good and Realistic Dialogue:

1. Listen to how people talk. When walking on the street or browsing through a magazine at the store, eavesdrop on other peoples conversations and listen to what they say and how they say it.

2. Edit out all the boring dialogue in your story.

3. Let things unfold naturally. At the beginning of a story, we don't want everything thrown at us. We don't want to know everything about each character right away, for example. We want to get to know each character throughout the book and discover new things about them along the way.

.4. In-between dialogue, throw in some action! Maybe while that person is talking, she notices a street fight from the corner of her eye. Or maybe she's fidgeting because the person she's talking to is making her nervous. It's easier for readers to read a long piece of dialogue when there's a bit of action thrown into the mix. 

5. Instead of distracting your readers with different words for 'said' after the dialogue, let them focus on your brilliantly written dialogue.

Example of Distracting Dialogue:

"Why did you cheat on me?" she screeched, a tear escaping her eye.

"We were never dating!" he screamed.

"Why did you cheat on me?" she repeated, throwing her arms in the air.

Although this dialogue isn't exactly that brilliant, do you notice all the she/he tags at the end of the dialogue? We want to avoid over-doing this when writing dialogue. It can get really distracting.

6. The thing is, you don't always have to continue or extend dialogue. You can also leave it by itself.

Example: "I hate you!"

There doesn't always have to be something after it.