How to Write

Using Dialogue

Okay, the next way to improve your sentence is to put the action before the entire sentence. This also goes along with the whole 'show don't tell' thing we all learned back in the day.

Ex: Carl limped to the water fountain, throat tight and lungs burning "Why do they do this to us? It's P.E , not How to Kill Middle-Schoolers 101"

Jaxon agreed, "I swear they just do this to watch us suffer"

"Maybe," Ally reasons, "'But, I'm pretty sure this is revenge for last week." 

"Oh," Carl's nose crinkled,"maybe we shouldn't have made that substitute teacher cry."

In this example, I had to refer to them all by name simply because none of you are familiar with the characters. Had you already known the behaviors of the characters, I would have omitted the names. 

On to the next one.

Ex: "Who are you?"

"Luke, I'm your father."

"No, it can't be."

" It's true."

"No it isn't."

"Yes it is."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"No."

"Yes."

"Ha! Gotcha'!

"Dang it!"

"I win! I am the champion!"

This is a combination of many things. First, it's hard to follow because we don't have a single occasion on which the author specifies who is speaking. This is acceptable when it's made clear by some other information, but this text provides little to no context. Also, this dialogue is just...impersonal. It provides no information that is necessary to the plot, and it allows no insight into the characters' personalities. It would be easier to insert something sort of action sentence about their back-and-forth rather than providing it through dialogue.

You can skip the dialogue tags, but at least understand that your reader does not always have the ability to see what you want them to see if you don't write provide enough information.

Next up are long paragraphs. Firstly, I'd like to discourage anyone from using huge blocks of text in a book. It looks a little intimidating to the reader, and it gets a little hard to follow because you lose track of where you were reading. So, it is wise to split this up. In these cases, it is wise to only provide the bare minimum in order to cut down the massive amounts of dialogue.

Ex:

"Text text long text, text text long text, text text long text, text text long text, text text long text, text text long text, text text long text , text text long text, text text long text

"Also, text text long text, text text long text, text text long text, text text long text, text text long text, text text long text, text text long text , text text long text, text text long text."

After pausing, she added, "really long text text."

If it's the same person talking, you just don't add the end quote at the end of the paragraph. You do still need to start the next part of the character's dialogue with a quotation mark, however.

To write an interruption, you write a dash. For someone trailing off, you write an ellipsis, which is three dots (periods), not just a random number of them.

Ex: "Hey, Mom. Can you buy me the-?"

She doesn't even look up from the newspaper as she replies "No."

"But I'm, like, the only one at school who doesn't have one." She whines

"One what? Boyfriend?" she asks "Honey, you can't buy one of those. Now, if you asked me if we could kidnap one..."

"Mom!" she screeches "That's so uncool! Why are you so creepy all the time?"

The dialogue shows you the personality of the characters as well as their age and their role in life. One is likely a teenage girl, and the other her mother. Note the position of the punctuation and how they show these things (when paired with the dialogue tags).

That's about it, I think. 

Let me know in the comments if something is too vague or if you think I didn't cover something. 

Thanks!