Dialogue

When writing what your characters are saying is called dialogue. And when writing fiction it's all but mandatory to let the reader know what's being said. To not use dialogue is to tell the reader your story. Dialogue allows the story unfold through the eyes and conversation of the characters. This is far more pleasant for the reader than simply being told what's happening. Remember what Mark Twain said, "Show don't tell." Dialogue shows the story.

Here are some examples:

• Bob said, "It's a beautiful day." This is perfectly acceptable. Note the period after said that ends the sentence.
• "It's a beautiful day," Bob said. Also perfectly acceptable.
• "It's a beautiful day," Bob said as he walked into the room. Note there is no comma after the word ‘said’ because what Bob said does not follow ‘said.’ See #1 above.
• "It's a beautiful day," Bob said, "how's things going?"
• "It's a beautiful day," Bob said. "How's things going?" Either technique can be used.
• Avoid long passages of dialogue that do not tell the reader who is speaking. Techniques to keep the reader aware of who is saying what include: Using a character’s name in the dialogue. Again, Bob and Fred are speaking.
• "You know Fred said that. This technique is superb for breaking up the constant use of 'he said' and 'she said.' It also adds variety, interest, and realism to your dialogue.
• Some writers eschew the use of modifiers like: he said sharply or he said disgustedly. J.K. Rowling would disagree as she used this technique in her world class Harry Potter series, became seven movies, and an amusement park. She knows what she's doing. Even more important, she knows what readers want. There’s a message there. Remember: rules are made to be broken but first you must know them.
• One of the finest writers of dialogue was Elmore Leonard. We recommend reading his books to learn how to write realistic dialogue. Read his work and you’ll know why they have been made into movies and TV as well.
• Always start dialogue on an new line and indent it. See above. Whenever a character begins speaking it is on an indented new line. Just as you would begin a new paragraph. Do not go back and forth in the same paragraph. This is wildly confusing to the reader. This is one rule that you never want to break.
• To learn to how people speak listen to them and take notes.
• Always start with double quotes (") and close the comment with them. The best way to learn how to write dialogue is to read it. Yes, that's sounds simple. It's not. Not when you read the works of the best writers. My favorites from Leonard are Get Shorty and the Justified series.
• Note: in the USA we use double quotes (") in dialogue. In the U.K. a single quote (') is used. Also these double quotation marks are not from a word processor. Your word processor will likely include smart quotes. They look like this: “Left double quote. Right double quote.” You will see smart quotes in all of my following newsletters. And do please note that the punctuation goes inside the quotation mark.

My Latest Presentation

• Watch my August 16, 2025 presentation for the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association on Critiquing Your Fiction.

Book Recommendation

• Historical Fiction, World War II Navy Books by P. T. Deuterman are superb.

One of my Favorite Websites for Writers

• Duotrope.com for up to date information on agents and the publishing world. Why? because it is a superb source for agents and publishers.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• ChatGBT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) will generate text, speech, and images in response to your prompts. AI is not intelligent like you are. Your prompts must be spelled out in their entirety. The AI does not know background or nuances.
• AI is designed to give you an answer - and it will - even if that means creating a fictional response that includes fictional sources. Worse, it can hallucinate, that's the term for it going off the rails. Experiencing what we would call a nervous breakdown in a human. We do not recommend publishing AI generated content until it has been edited by a knowledgeable person.

What Wayne's Working On

• My latest project is a short story titled, Island In Time that I am going to submit to movie producers. Currently my writer’s group is critiquing it.
• I just submitted a short story, Shift World, to several agents and will be sending it to more. Hence, my subscription to Duotrope. Shift World has been published online and in my book of short stories Triumph and Tragedy available from Amazon.

Upcoming Events

• I am in discussions with Brian Jud from the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association (CAPA) to provide two more free lectures that you can view online. The first is what to include on your author website. The second is how to construct your book sales page. More information to follow.

Got a question?

• Have a questions on the web, writing, publishing, editing? Send it to Wayne@WayneAEnglish.com.

The Business Blurb

• When there's a dollar on the table you don't have a friend in the room. - W.A. English

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