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- New!!
- Level
- Mixed
- Basic and Premium Members Prices
- Premium Member $30 & Basic Member $40
- Category
- Editing
- Dialogue
- Voice
Dialogue is not hard to write. We all talk, don’t we? Sure we do. Except dialogue is not a record of real conversations. This course gives techniques that reveal characterization and move the plot along, while avoiding the obnoxious conversation habits real people often have. You’ll learn how to control dialogue, make it flow and snap, and what to look for when it needs fixed. The course ends with a section on how to add appropriate narrative that not only showcases the dialogue but incorporates it into plot movement.
The exercises consist of writing passages that show characters speaking, thinking, and relating to their story world. You will find that easier to do if you invent new characters just for this purpose. Working with characters you’ve grown to adore can resemble what one student described as “performing an appendectomy on my mother.”
The exercises consist of writing passages that show characters speaking, thinking, and relating to their story world. You will find that easier to do if you invent new characters just for this purpose. Working with characters you’ve grown to adore can resemble what one student described as “performing an appendectomy on my mother.”
- Syllabus
- COURSE OUTLINE
1 Dialogue Has Rules and No Rules.
- a Must provide information and mood.
- b Using tags and punctuation.
- c Internal and spoken dialogue.
- 2a How He Thinks is How He Speaks.
- a Preoccupations and concerns reveal character.
- b Reveals character trying to conceal self.
- c What they aren’t saying (subtext).
- 2b Techniques for Dynamic Dialogue.
- a Sentence length.
- b Word choice and order (syntax).
- c Misdirection and interruption.
a b c d
Sensory blocks and summary lines.
Proportion and balance.
When to tell, when to show.
Using punctuation to control meaning.
