![]() This runs quicker than an auctioneer - the reader is begged to fly down the page. Hit me first, actually.”īad dialogue is often longwinded dialogue. “Ran into her bedroom and slammed the door. “Did you tell him you were going to ask Helen to marry you?” The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon This is using the age-old comedian strategy of straight-man and the comic, and allowing the comic to play off the straight man. How do you spice that up? With witty retorts to each line. Nothing is more dull than someone saying good morning, or announcing their name. It makes the reader wait for it - and that delay increases the tension. ![]() Make them trail off.Īvoiding a word, and making the other character say it, always increases the power of that word. When you have a truth that a character can’t acknowledge, don’t make them say it out loud. Her arms had a lovely tan, although a scatter of raw pink patches marred the skin above one wrist. Use Ellipsis to Avoid Saying Hard ThingsĪ Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan These fifty examples of excellent dialogue include everything from writing comic dialogue to writing dialogue between two people (and three people!), and focuses exclusively on fiction. And whether you’re writing a novel or working on a short story, the examples below will help you.Īfter all, dialogue is where characters come alive, and characters are the heartbeat of fiction. It doesn’t matter what genre you write: every writer needs to improve their dialogue. This post isn’t about how to punctuate dialogue, or the basics of how to write dialogue, but more advanced techniques, as shown by established authors. And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled 50 Examples of Dialogue to Inspire Writers ‹ Back to blogĮvery writer needs to learn dialogue from the great writers preceding them. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. But her loose fair hair was wet there was a wreath of roses on her head. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. ![]() The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere-at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself-were flowers. ![]() He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. ![]() He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday-Trinity day. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window. ![]()
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