On Writing : Help with dialogue by Alex Alexander

https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/tips-masters/elmore-leonard-10-ru...

The best dialogue is with characters that have multiple areas of internal conflict..

James gandophini on sopranos. He just is..The gangster with internal conflict and issues. He does it all. Hard,soft,discerned,confused,straight, and strong when needed.

Don't go too deep into anything. Just dial it in and leave it like that. Each fiber of the character is a intricate piece to the entire tapestry of the script. Design the character and put them in the mix of the situations to set it off just right. The good,bad and ugly..The best ingredients to flavor a great script.

Matthew, I am in the same boat - terrified by being asked to do a book when all I know is screen. "Huge difference, kids." The advice from others and the path I'm now embarking on is to just write it as you would for screen, but add your vision (beyond a DP view) and let it flow. You don't need validation of format - you need trust in your content. You are a writer. Be that writer. Format comes later. Tell the story. You actually CAN do dialogue because it is in your head. Don't get hung up on venue. Get excited about content. Just WRITE! Let others translate your vision to the correct outlet. "Technical minds create the framework for life, creative minds fill it with glory." Let you be you. Just write ...

Thank you everyone, I appreciate the motivation and advice

I agree with David and Christopher. I can be a bit of a 'grammar nazi' but when I am in Creative Mode it all goes out the window. Just get your story down on paper. Let it flow without worrying about grammar or format. Editing is stage two. :-)

Just start writing... You can change what you don't like. Be warned though, if traversing via self-publishing it's a steep learning curve unless you're willing to pay for a service that does it for you. I did that for my first book, merely because I wasn't familiar with the process but still found I had to do virtually all the work associated with formatting etc. Hiring a professional proof-reader is VERY expensive. I found a really great guy here in the jobs section who did a super job and was happy with what I could afford - I'll definitely use him again and hopefully next time I can pay him a little more. :-)

Start with, people don't speak in complete sentences. What is their education? How well to the two people know each other?

Mathew I noted that you're from Cleveland so I'm confident that you grasp the little speech differences between Beachwood and Parma. You Ohioans talk a lot different than a High Plains Drifter, a Texas wildcatter, a gruff stevedore, a California surfer... It's your job as a writer to paint each of your characters uniquely. (Look how we wrote the dialog for the characters on Northern Exposure.) Film is a talking visual art form in which each character stands apart from every other.

I recently came across a fun little book by Zosh Katz titled Speaking American (How Y'all, Youse and Youse Guys Talk.) I think you'd find it helpful.

@A.S.Templeton - revising as you go is, in reality, no different to writing then "fixing in the rewrite". However, I do believe that revising/fixing as you go works better for me as it keeps me in touch with my story and characters. That said, I still ended up re-arranging significant portions of my first horror novel, "The Roots of Evil" to get the flow right after I'd finished it, so both methods (both of which are essentially rewrites) work.

Matthew as the writer of eleven novels the piece of advice I can give to you concerning dialogue is to let your characters speak to you. Don't force words into their mouths. As you write, the characters will become part of you and you'll find it easier to write what they want to say. I know sounds a bit 'crazy' but that's how it goes in the world of novel writing. Just like a screenplay, you want the readers to hate, love, be saddened, etc by what the characters say and do. It gets easier as time goes on. Just write about something that 'YOU' want to write about and not something that you feel will sell. That doesn't work, the character's voice won't be heard. Unlike screenplay writing, novel writing is the time to write out EVERYTHING. Your readers ned to know almost every description to get te feel that they are there.

I've written a lot of dialogue (with favorable feedback), so I'll pass along this little tidbit that I found helpful. Dialogue is like a popular singers "Best Hits" album release. In other words, skip the small talk and just go for the juicy tidbits or highlights of a real-life fictional conversation.

If the writing is as poor as A.S. Templeton suggests it might be, then no number of rewrites, even those as you go, will fix it.

You could write down ideas for scenes/dialog on 3/5 cards, one idea/scene/dialog to a card. That frees you from feeling stuck about what comes next.

When I wrote my book, I wrote it, read it back and edited what I had written that didn't sound right. Also, if you wanted to have it read back to you, make a PDF and activate the "read out loud" function on the Adobe software. Of course, if you want an editor/ghostwriter, there's probably none better than myself.

Dialog is not proper grammar (period).

I write dialogue by writing the way I speak. Remember, you have to think of your characters as real people who are talking to each other, not just as words on a page. I also try to envision the characters speaking to each other and play the entire scene out in my head. Sometimes I say the dialogue out loud--both sides of the conversation--and try different responses, etc. It may make you sound a bit crazy to others when they hear you having a conversation with yourself, but it really helps to hear the words out loud. Hope that helps. Good luck with your writing.

Sounds like to me, Matthew, you're asking primarily about the prose around the speech, right? The dialogue tags and action. As a script writer, I would assume you have raw dialogue (what the characters actually say) down and it's the supportive writing you're worried about.

With that being said, A.S. Templeton has a lot of great suggestions. I've written several novels and used to be an editor for two small press publishers. The current trend today is less "he said/she said" tags and a bit more of the action before or after the dialogue, which identifies the speaker.

Stick with action words. There's NOTHING wrong with using he/she said or other dialogue tags. Just use them sparingly.

And considering your apprehension, I totally agree with those who have said, "Just write it!" Give yourself permission to write crappy. That's what editing is for - to fix those mistakes. At this stage, to help you overcome the fear - WRITE. Once you push through, it should be easier. You're terrified because you're being too hard on yourself and expecting to get it right the first or second time. If not consciously, on a subconscious level. My mother always said, "YOU are your worst critic." ;)

Write and have fun!

DOH! I just realized you posted this two months ago! How about an update????

Hey buddy!! All you need is a five minute education on some amount of grammar and more importantly the "rules of writing". So click the URL below for more info.

https://www.cheapestessay.com/post/rules-of-writing

Looks like you've gotten some great advice here and I'll just chime in to say don't let any of these things slow you down--first drafts don't have to be perfect and we all have editors who help us make things sound better and follow grammar rules. =)