Hello all you fantastic swcers! I'm Skye if you don't know already and I'm going to be walking you through writing realistic dialogue, with some tips on avoiding too much exposition, dialogue tags, and more.

First off, we're going to start on writing realistic dialogue.
writing realistic speech and conversations between characters can be hard, but here are a few tips on how to get better at it!
think about your character's emotion before writing dialogue! In real life, someone's response will vary depending on how they're feeling. if a character is angry, they may emphasise certain words and speak quite loudly. dialogue tags also help with showing emotion, but we'll get into that soon.
avoid info dumping! It slows down the conversations, and although it is good to give the reader information, realistically, someone wouldn't dump a paragraph or two of information unless they’re rambling and can’t stop. This kind of dialogue could be used when a character is stressed

exposition - how to balance the use of it
I personally struggle with this sometimes, but it's helpful to know a few things on how to avoid it!
if you don't know what exposition is, it's a literary device that is used to give the reader a backstory/some information about a main character or an event. It's hard to write the perfect amount of exposition, because too little may confuse the reader while too much could bore them. They don’t want all the information at one time because it takes away some suspense from the story.
You could incorporate exposition into your writing through narration and dialogue! through dialogue, you could weave exposition through an argument, or some sort of deep moment you see in those TV shows before the characters get interrupted. While writing exposition through dialogue, it's best to not dump it all out in one big clump, filled with too much detail. it's better to separate it into smaller chunks of conversation.


how to use dialogue tags -
dialogue tags, are, quite simply, phrases attached to dialogue that helps the reader identify who is speaking! examples of this are:
“skye mumbled,”
“reese sighed”
“arli shouted”
These are only a few, and as you may have noticed, they're all alternatives to the word “said.” it's okay to use “said” in your writing but repeating it too much removes emotions and emphasis from your character's speech. For instance, if a character is angry, repeating said as they are speaking won’t show it, but changing the dialogue tag will.

“What are you doing?” Raya said.
“Why do you care?!” Nova said.

Now there is an alternative where you could add an adverb to the end of this, but I’ll get into that soon
So instead of repeating “said” you could change the tags to this:

“What are you doing?” Raya snapped.
“Why do you care?!” Nova scowled.

Now this is a pretty basic example as there’s so much more you can do with dialogue tags, and so many different ways to format them:

“I can’t find the mangoes,” Floris fretted, “did you put them somewhere?!”
Rainy gasped, “no! We can’t lose the mangoes.”

Now, the amount of times I felt tempted to add an adverb into that sentence was very overwhelming. And sometimes that’s okay to do, but along with many things in writing, we don’t want to overuse them. There are some alternatives to this, like adding an action after the dialogue tag. This is an example of “show, not tell.” This is a frequently talked about term in writing. It helps the reader
create a more vivid image in their mind of what the character is doing and that can lead them to think about how they’re feeling. Now it’s important to balance both actions and adverbs so the dialogue doesn’t become too repetitive and loses the reader's interest. When writing you want to keep the reader hooked on every word, whether it’s narration or dialogue.


here's a list of alternatives to said: (organised by emotion)

happiness
assured
gushed
exclaimed
joked
beamed
babbled
marveled
cheered
laughed
piped
praised

anger
snapped
scowled
hissed
growled
yelled
hollered
barked
demanded
fumed
mocked
scoffed

sadness
moped
weeped
sniffed
whined
wailed
cried
sighed
croaked
worried
whispered
sobbed

misc
replied
muttered
asked
stated
noted
offered
explained
added
murmured
sighed
gasped


Hopefully all of these tips have helped! After reading through this, it's time to start the actual activity -
Start by posting a line of dialogue in the comments. Then, choose two lines from others’ comments. Write 300 words of an interaction including these two lines and at least 250 words of dialogue for 400 points. Gain an extra 100 points by sharing your story.

thank you to raya, nova, rainy, floris, reese and arli for letting me use their names in this :D
also thank you to the incredible INCREDIBLE daily team for dealing with my late hand ins
and school wifi mishaps + blocked sites </3

it's beautiful skye :0 you did amazing. one thing– would it be possible for you to include some alternatives for said or link an alternative list somewhere? i feel like i use ‘said’ too much but i'm yet to find a useful list

green_skyy wrote:

it's beautiful skye :0 you did amazing. one thing– would it be possible for you to include some alternatives for said or link an alternative list somewhere? i feel like i use ‘said’ too much but i'm yet to find a useful list

thank you fen hehe <3 i feel like this isn't my best work- of course i can!!

this is so helpful :00 thank you so much :DD

the most beautiful words of all posts

“I can’t find the mangoes,” Floris fretted, “did you put them somewhere?!”
Rainy gasped,

“no! We can’t lose the mangoes.”

litzomania- wrote:

this is so helpful :00 thank you so much :DD

i'm glad it helps <3