The dialogue tag has no wiki summary.
9
votes
5answers
2k views
Dialog, just what's the best way to write it?
I've come across the following conventions:
"What’s this for?" asked Jake.
Sue replied, "None of your business."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it looks darned funny sitting here."
"It’s ...
11
votes
4answers
611 views
I'm getting tired of “he said” “she said” in dialogue; how do I get around it?
I get tired of "he said", "she said", "they replied". Is there a better, but still reasonable way, to indicate dialogue?
10
votes
4answers
351 views
avoiding making all your characters sound the same
We surely all have little quirks to our speech. Like my daughter once criticized my writing for using the word "surely" too much. (See, I used it on this post.)
So how do you keep all your characters ...
8
votes
5answers
547 views
How should dialog be formatted?
Is there any "official" rule that I should keep in mind when formatting character dialog?
Line breaks, placement of quotes, mixing dialog with action descriptions etc.
For example, I want to build a ...
8
votes
5answers
251 views
How does one present spoken dialogue as a secondary language to signed speech?
I was starting to leave a comment on this excellent question when I realized I had come up with a second question which was equally intriguing.
If you're writing a story where 95% of the ...
7
votes
9answers
867 views
How to write realistic female dialogue
I just can't make my dialogue sound like it's being said by a woman. As a friend of mine pointed out, "This woman talks just like you, Jack."
I tried imitating the speech patterns of various females ...
7
votes
6answers
289 views
How can I break up a lengthy explanation?
I have a setting in one of my stories where a character has to describe a very long series of events, giving the history of an object so that others know more about it. This not only provides the ...
8
votes
2answers
242 views
How does one include sign language in a dialogue?
If one character is using sign language and lip reading while the other is speaking normally, how do you represent the lines of the former? Quotations with "he signed" attribution or italics? E.g.
...
2
votes
2answers
151 views
First conversation scenes I've written (looking for errors, conventions, and improvements according to writting standards).
Basically, I would like to know if I'm doing something wrong (according to witting standards) in the following conversation and how to improve it to help readability, quality and feeling (making it ...
