October Meeting Notes: Sara Wiseman

How to Write Incredibly Good Dialogue
Sara Wiseman

For punctuation, match the standards of your genre.

There are four legs of the dialogue table: Music, movement, meaning, and mood.

Music: Rhythm, cadence, beat.
Slang can place you in a time period.
For regional slang, there are online resources.
(A member recommended Talk the Talk, The Slang of 65 American Subcultures, by Luc Reid, Writer’s Digest Books.)

Eavesdrop. Go out and listen to people’s rhythm and phrasing.

Movement: Dialogue moves the plot, the characters, and the reader
If dialogue doesn’t move the plot, it’s a problem.

Dialogue can move characters around the room.

Dialogue moves the reader. Readers respond to the “air” created on the page by dialogue, as opposed to big blocks of text.

Each character’s dialogue should be identifiable on the page, even without attribution.

Meaning:
Dialogue as a story within a story
Dialogue as hidden meaning:
Is he saying what I think he’s saying?
Does he know what he’s saying?
Does he know that I know that he know what he’s saying?

Mood:
Use natural elements and objects to express moods.
Are your clouds wispy, ominous, or is it a bright day?
Does the coffee cup shatter, chip, or hold a soothing drink of java?