Tips for Writing Effective Dialogue

The workshop was called Tips for Writing Effective Dialogue.

One of the most common mistakes writers make when creating dialogue is in the way they punctuate it. Here are a few tips Lisa shared yesterday. Make sure you avoid these mistakes when writing dialogue. They’re easy mistakes to make, and no doubt you’ve made some of these mistakes in the past. We all have.

Tip 1: When dialogue is tagged with action, rather than with a speech verb, the two parts are two separate sentences. The quotation ends with a period (or exclamation point or question mark), and the action sentence is capitalized.

Correct:
“I’m a faulous writer.” Danielle Steel straightened her tiara.

Incorrect:
“I’m a faulous writer, “Danitelle Steel straightened her tiara.

Tip 2: Only tags containing actual speech verbs (i.e. he said, she asked, John Grisham whispered, Stephen King screamed) should be set off with a comma. Words like smiled, glared, shrugged, and laughed are not speech verbs. You can’t smile or glare a sentence.

Correct:
“But I heard you say I was a fabulous writer.” Danielle Steel glared.

Incorrect:
“But I heard you say I was a fabulous writer,” Danielle Steele glared.

Tip 3: Avoid overusing adverbs to describe speech verbs.

Clunky
“Patricia really did say she was a fabulous writer, “Mary Higging Clark said quietly.
“I never said she was a fabulous writer,” Patricial Cornwell said loudly.

Better
“Patricia really did say she was a fabulous writer,” Mary Higgins Clark whispered.
“I never said she was a fabulous writer.” Patricial Cornwell stormed from the room.