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Dialogue

Jack from Vail, CO, writes: “How do you write dia­logue? When I write my dia­logue sounds dull!”

dialogueI believe that the most impor­tant thing to know about writ­ing dia­logue, is that it is not the way peo­ple, in fact, speak. Talk between real peo­ple is very rep­e­ti­tious, redun­dant, filled with frag­ments, incom­plete sen­tences, often ram­bling, and not nec­es­sar­i­ly on point. Just lis­ten to it. We under­stand this, accept it, and indeed, talk it. But to write it that way makes the dia­logue fall flat. 

By way of con­trast, writ­ten dia­logue, while it echoes this kind of speech, and uses some of its man­ner­isms, needs to be pur­pose­ful. What dis­tin­guish­es one char­ac­ters’ “spo­ken” words in text might be man­ner­ism, or col­lo­qui­alisms, but most­ly it has to do with what the char­ac­ter wants. Beyond all else it reveals the char­ac­ter’s thoughts. 

Who Was That Masked Man Anyway?In this con­text, one of my proud­est accom­plish­ments is my book, Who Was That Masked Man Any­way? Soon to be reis­sued by Scholas­tic (This is the old cov­er; the new cov­er is not yet avail­able.), it is one hun­dred per­cent dia­logue, the result of an edi­tor’s challenge.

It’s about two boys in the 1940’s who are addict­ed to kids’ radio adven­ture shows. And it is, in its fash­ion, a radio show. There is not one “he said,” or “she said,” in the whole book. As you read it, you hear it. At the book’s cli­mac­tic moment, there are eight char­ac­ters in a room, all talk­ing, and I like to think the read­er can tell who is speak­ing because you know—hopefully—what they would say in the situation. 

I also think it is the fun­ni­est book I have writ­ten. Maybe I should be writ­ing radio plays.

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