Good narrative writing commonly involves dialogue – conversation between two or more characters in a story. Allowing characters to speak for themselves is a great way to reveal their personalities. It shows what a character is like rather just telling about him. It permits the reader to draw his own conclusions. As much as possible, let your characters be heard.
Mastering the mechanics of dialogue tends to be a problem for student writers, but this lesson will help you. It's really not that hard to remember what to indent and where to put punctuation marks.
Incorrect: "That is the ugliest hat I've ever seen".
I told you never to say, "I don't like oysters"!
Why do you think Elmer said, "My name isn't Elmer"?
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Sentences in quotation marks, just like all sentences, should begin with a capital letter.
"I beg your pardon, but this hat belongs to me," he replied.
When writing dialogue, begin a new paragraph every time your speaker changes. This rule is designed to help the reader keep track of who is speaking.
"No?" Mr. Wilson said with mock surprise.
Mr. Wilson didn't find this amusing, but the class burst into laughter.
Writing realistic dialogue is difficult. It requires a keen ear for the subtleties of human speech. Good dialogue writers must be good listeners. They must be able to pick up on the expressions and rhythms of ordinary conversation and reproduce them in written form.
There is no easy way to learn how to write interesting, believable dialogue. It just takes practice. As you write dialogue, read your words aloud to see if they have the feel of real human speech. Is this the way people really talk to one another?
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Myth Buster: How Many Sentences Must a Paragraph Have?
No, it was not intentional. I think it was a cut and paste error. Thanks for pointing it out. I have corrected the problem.
Hi there! Thank you for the post. I was wondering if you intentionally left out the quotations on two of the lins above? This really helps. I posted the the two lines. Slow. Perhaps it is just my iPad?
No?" Mr. Wilson said with mock surprise.
Mr. Wilson was too quick for that one. "You appear to have a pencil behind your ear. Why would you be looking for it in Miss Randle's desk?