Character Dialogue- Podcast Edition

Podcast Link:

MAL S3E5, 2/4/24

Word of the week:

Eloquence:

Persuasive spoken or written language that is done with ease.  

Quotable Quotes:

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.”

– Peter Drucker

Literary Device:

Foreshadowing: 

Foreshadowing involves giving hints or clues about what will happen later in a story.  This can create a sense of mystery, and lead readers to anticipate what’s coming next.  Foreshadowing can also provide readers with hints about future events when strategically incorporated into dialogue.  Using foreshadowing can help to engage the audience as it adds complexity and depth to the story.

Highlight of the Week:

Per Chance Random Dialogue Generator:

Need ideas for dialogue? Check out this random generator! Random Dialogue Generator ― Perchance

Reading:

Wuthering Heights

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë 

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Tips:7 Tips on Writing Dialogue 

Dialogue serves as the heartbeat of a narrative, revealing a character’s innermost thoughts and showing the reader important details about the story.  Crafting meaningful and realistic conversations can transform your characters from mere words on a page to realistic entities your readers can connect with.  Here are 7 tips on Writing Dialogue: 

1. Show, Don’t Tell: Use dialogue to reveal a character’s emotions,  traits, and relationships. Allow characters to show who they are through their words, instead of explicitly stating information.
2. Listen and Observe:  Study natural speech patterns.  Dialogue should sound authentic, and looking at natural speech patterns will help you to make your dialogue sound natural.  In everyday conversation, informational language, colloquialisms, and contractions are often used by people.  Use natural language to make your dialogue seem more believable!  
3. Mix up sentences!  Sentence length should vary to avoid repetitive dialogue.  To create an engaging and dynamic dialogue, mix it up!  Create short and to the point sentences and mix them with longer, more complex sentences.  
4. Pace and Rhythm: Balance moments of tension and release, creating a rhythm within the dialogue to help pace the story.  Dialogue will contribute to the overall pacing of your story, and you can balance this in the way you write the back and forth rhythm of the dialogue.  
5. Show Character Relationships: How your characters speak to each other can show a lot about their relationship.  Use tones, such as friendly, indifferent or tense to reveal details about how the characters relate to each other.  
6. Unique voices: Give each character their own, distinct way of talking.  Your reader should easily be able to differentiate between characters.  
7. What’s the purpose?  Dialogue should have a specific purpose within the story, such as advancing the plot, building tension or revealing something about the character such as their traits.  If the dialogue doesn’t contribute to the broader story, get rid of it or modify it so it does.  Dialogue should help to advance the narrative and develop the characters.  

Prompt: 

Create a dialogue-driven scene between two characters who have not seen each other in awhile, and have unexpectedly crossed paths in a crowded city.  Use dialogue to unfold the layers of their past and present, and the unspoken tension between them. 

You can explore memories, emotions, and surprises as they navigate through the unexpected reunion.  Let readers see the complexity of their relationship, showing how they greet each other, topics they avoid, and truths that surface as they talk.  Leave readers eager to know more about the shared history between the two characters.