Sandra, the Editor in Chief at Aspen Mountain Press, has passed along another of the articles she gives to her up and coming eBook writers. This writing tip article is about dialogue tags.
Sandra is getting a rep for being an editor who cares enough to send it back as many times as it takes to get it right. Her authors love her and the eBook stories at Aspen Mountain Press show the hard work and dedication Sandra and the authors have for their craft.
Dialogue Tags
Long ago, when we were in elementary school we were taught how to properly write a sentence of dialogue. Quotation marks were put at the beginning of the dialogue and when we got to the end we used a comma, end quotation marks and then we identified the speaker before putting an end mark to the whole sentence. Our sentence of dialogue in the early stages of our writing went something like this:
“I’d like to go to the park today,” said Mary.
Later, once we had this particular form perfected we added the second speaker. The dialogue then went something like this:
“I’d like to go to the park today,” said Mary.
“I heard it was going to rain. I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said John.
“Rain, sprain, I want to go,” said Mary.
All in all, not bad for a third grader. But, we are aiming for professional heights. Identifiers are another of those special spices. We only need them occasionally to keep track of who is speaking. Once Mary and John have been introduced in the scene it isn’t necessary to use the identifier over and over.
When writing a scene of high emotional impact, interrupting the flow with identifiers steals a lot of energy and dilutes the impact.
There are ways to identify speakers without using ‘John said, Mary said.’ In the above example we can rewrite it to something like:
“I’d like to go to the park today,” said Mary.
“I heard it was going to rain today.” John pushed the curtain back and looked out the window. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Rain, sprain, I want to go.”
We’ve identified the two speakers. When we noted John, we gave him an action to break up the “he said, she said” type dialogue. Without more than two speakers in the room we can easily follow the conversation. Mary wants to go, John doesn’t. Their dialogue will keep that argument going and we know which side each supports. We could keep this exchange going for a time but after a while we need to break up the conversation just to keep our readers from getting lost or bored.
If we continued our chat with John and Mary we could add a bit of action. How did Mary sound? Whose point of view are we in? What does the other look like to the point of view character? What is the point of view character thinking? Our simple dialogue could easily deepen.
“I want to go to the park,” said Mary.
“I heard it was going to rain today.” John pushed the curtain back and looked out the window. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Rain, sprain, I want to go.”
John took in the frown on Mary’s face. He’d do near anything than disappoint her, but the thought of catching a cold or being struck by lightning didn’t appeal to him either. And in Mary’s fragile condition and having just gotten over pneumonia. No, on this he would stand his ground. Mary was far to used to getting her way. He turned toward her and held out his hand. “Mary, love, there’s an excellent movie at the Mayan I’ve been wanting to take you to see.”
Relief spread through him when she stepped forward and placed her fragile hand in his. This once, he’d succeeded.
“Really? Oh do let’s go. I love the movies.”
Without identifiers at all, though, we wouldn’t have any idea who was speaking, but given the attitudes and reactions of the characters in this short scene we’ve avoided many of them. By adding internalization we’ve also learned more about the characters. We’ve added in a tiny bit of back story without doing a history dump. We know Mary is pregnant, had been seriously ill and has a tendency to get her way. We could deepen this even more using John’s perspective. Did she whine? Retort with anger? Sigh in disappointment? We also know that John is not used to putting his foot down with this woman. From the sound of it he’s a non-confrontational. Mary probably has him tied around her fingers. We can already see a hint of where each will have to change if the relationship is to be healthy and survive.
There is much more to dialogue than just identifiers. Stay tuned for more hints on having your characters speak.
Homework:
Post a bit of dialogue you’ve written, then take the same dialogue and eliminate some of the identifiers. Is it still clear who is speaking? If not, add some action (choreography). If necessary, add some internalization from the viewpoint character only.
