IMPROVING YOUR WRITING DIALOGUE

                           

Dialogue in writing is usually used to develop and reveal characters and as well evoke some sort of emotion form the reader. Dialogue is the exact words your characters say aloud or think to themselves. Through dialogue, you show rather than tell readers about the characters in your story by conveying the traits and attribute of that particular character effectively. As you proceed, look for chances to use dialogues rather than descriptions.


TELLING BY DESCRIPTION:
    John caught sight of Harry and greeted him with enthusiasm in the hallway. Harry, feeling totally embarrassed, tried to avoid his friend but he had no choice.

SHOWING BY DIALOGUE
  "Hey, chap! Good to see you!" yelled John, catching site of Harry in the hallway
  "Yeah" Harry said weakly "Good to see you too"
"What luck running into you here and all"
"Yeah, luck . . . huh"

From the above example, you can see that Dialogue provides elaboration much more. You get to understand the traits of each character a lot better.

•    Note that also, when drafting your story avoid always having your narrator explain explain what happens next. The dialogue could do a good job in revealing further plot events.

       DESCRIPTION OF PLOT                                              PLOT REVEALED BY DIALOGUE
        Jane was very angry with her mother                               "Mom! How could you forget? I keep
       for forgetting to take her to the cinema.                              reminding you everyday to take me
       Besides, her mother promised her about two                     to the cinema. And you just keep 
       weeks ago. Now, she just wanted to cry                           letting me down! I could just cry"

• Do net let your dialogues be predictable. Otherwise, the whole thing could turn out to be a bit of a bore.

        "I'm glad you love me" Sam said, with passion in his voice.
         "Me too" said Jane, " I love you, Sam" 

•     Rather make it look like it's the character's speaking:

                     
     "Gosh, I like that you love me" Sam said with passion in his voice.
      "I like that you like that I love you" Janet said amusingly.
      "Whoa! you just got me confused there, lady" Sam giggled and Jane joined up.
                        
                 

• Be realistic! Make the dialogue seem humanly possible.Go natural. Do not go about bringing archaic up and big words which you do not know their meaning. It will look ambitious and fake. Unless you want to end up sounding like Shakespare, avoid big words in dialogues:                                                                                                                           "The day has proven to be a callous one, hereof. That post was ostentatiously taken from me when that lackadaisical brat showed up. What a megalomaniac!"                                            

•  Don't forget, your ultimate goal is to make your reader feel something. So, no matter what you do, or how you do it, do not deviate from the plan.