I will apologize in advance for any grammar/spelling mistakes. I write these things in a hurry as I head off for the day….

I sat in on a presentation by Julia Quinn on Dialogue. If you get the chance to see her speak, she’s really awesome. Great sense of humor and quite entertaining. Julia writes historical romance.

This is very brief. Basically there are two main parts to dialogue in writing. One, the part between the quotation marks. Two, the part outside the quotation marks.

Inside the marks

This needs to be appropriate for the person talking. Be careful with accents or slang. Make it appropriate for the personality. If writing historicals, don’t use terminology from present day. Make it appropriate for that timeframe.

Outside the marks

This consists of dialogue tags and action tags.

Dialogue Tags such as he said, she said, he screamed, she bellowed should be used sparingly and only when it helps to identify which person is speaking. Too many dialogue tags disrupt the read.

Action Tags can be used to identify an action that the person does as he/she speaks. Don’t have a person doing an action and another person speaking at the same time. Action tags actually are great to further develop a character by showing what he/she does while speaking.

Each person’s dialogue should be a separate paragraph. This would include the dialogue tags and actions tags.

Action tags help to define the personality of the person speaking. Example:

“I don’t know — I was working at the time.” John shrugged and turned his back to her.

The words “John shrugged and turned his back to her” are action tags but still show that he did the talking. They also show a level of indifference which defines him further — or at least his reaction to the person he’s talking with.

This is all common sense. Things that writers do and likely not very informative to most.

Note that this is my perception of the take-away from the RWA Conference and in no way represents the opinion of anyone else, nor has it been solicited or compensated in any way for any purpose. It is shared simply for informational purposes.

Have a fantastic day.