Writing Stack Exchange
Writing Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [dialogue]

He said, she said, or what your characters are saying.

618 questions
71
votes
8 answers

How to avoid turning dialogue into Q&A session?

I noticed a problem I have in my fictional writing. My dialogues quickly turn into interrogations. Here is an exaggerated example. "How did you do it?" he asked. "..." "Will it kill us all?" "..." "What about your family?" "..." I can spruce it…
user18993
  • 867
  • 1
  • 7
  • 6
43
votes
7 answers

How do I say that a character said something without resorting to "said Character" every time?

I have one big problem with my writing - when I'm doing dialogue, I find myself writing it and following it with "said Character" quite a lot. I can mix it up sometimes by using a synonym or descriptive way to indicate the character said something…
Zibbobz
  • 1,035
  • 1
  • 8
  • 12
35
votes
10 answers

My story is written in English, but is set in my home country. What language should I use for the dialogue?

I'm an amateur writer from the Philippines. I am writing a novelette for an international writing contest. My story is written in English, but is set here, in my country, with my POV character being a full blood Filipino. My question is, is it…
Jan Derick Malelang
  • 351
  • 1
  • 3
  • 4
33
votes
10 answers

How to write dialogue for someone who is intelligent but barely speaks the language?

I have a character who is a refugee from another country. She comes to the protagonist, and they have a couple of scenes together, viewed from the protagonist. I read about how important it is to make dialogue convey information about the character,…
KeizerHarm
  • 703
  • 1
  • 6
  • 14
30
votes
14 answers

Writing in a Christian voice

I'm Jewish. My middle-grade fantasy novel is very Jewish. Most of my characters are either Jews or converts/future converts or people with at least one Jewish grandparent. But some are not. My main character, Ruth age 12, is 100% of Jewish…
Cyn
  • 32,483
  • 6
  • 77
  • 145
30
votes
9 answers

How to avoid constantly starting paragraphs with "The character did this" "The character did that"?

This is one of the tics I've noticed in my writing recently, and it's starting to bug me. Almost every single one of my paragraphs, particularly during dialogue sequences, starts with "The character did this". The main exceptions are when I use…
F1Krazy
  • 11,447
  • 4
  • 38
  • 69
28
votes
10 answers

Using colloquialisms the reader may not be familiar with

I'm from Ireland, most of my stories take place in Ireland, and many of my characters will speak with Irish accents and/or dialects to varying degrees. For the most part I think this is OK, and can often be endearing to non-Irish readers. However I…
sudowoodo
  • 1,954
  • 1
  • 14
  • 31
26
votes
4 answers

How do we handle pauses in a dialogue?

How do we handle pauses in a dialogue? Let's say that character A speaks and then after a pause character A speaks again. How should we separate the two moments, should we write two lines of dialogues or should we cut the two lines of dialogues with…
user36239
26
votes
7 answers

How do we objectively assess if a dialogue sounds unnatural or cringy?

By unnatural, I don't mean ungrammatical, but something people wouldn't really say. For example, in many fictions, you find yourself in very weird situations and it's hard to know how a person would react and what they would say in such situations.…
user36239
26
votes
11 answers

What's the best way to show a foreign language in a manuscript?

What's the best way to show a character speaking a foreign language in a fiction manuscript? Should the foreign words be italicized and include a translation? Should it just be included in the sentence and try and make sure the reader can guess at…
Ralph Gallagher
  • 8,736
  • 5
  • 40
  • 61
23
votes
7 answers

Using font to highlight a god's speech in dialogue

At one point in my story, the characters are addressed by a god. In the ensuing dialogue, this god has a more archaic way of speaking, but even so, I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to visually distinguish the god's speech from the other…
Llewellyn
  • 3,315
  • 11
  • 24
22
votes
7 answers

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. "When did you first feel the pain?" asked the…
HNL
  • 837
  • 1
  • 7
  • 12
22
votes
8 answers

How can I make a "meeting in VR" less dumb?

I've written myself into a sci-fi cliche which I have never seen done well: two characters meet in virtual reality. The gist of my scene is one character has been in a pseudocoma, more aware of her surroundings than anyone knew. Another character…
wetcircuit
  • 29,603
  • 4
  • 51
  • 129
22
votes
5 answers

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?
RolandiXor
  • 809
  • 7
  • 17
20
votes
9 answers

Can non-English-speaking characters use wordplay specific to English?

Would it be jarring if in an original (non-translated) story, the characters, who don't speak English in-universe, use "untranslatable" wordplay/puns that are specific to English? By "untranslatable" I mean that if a pun is translated literally into…
Friendly Neighborhood Demon
  • 1,038
  • 6
  • 8
1
2 3
…
41 42