![]() ![]() However, if you're relying on dialogue alone to convey the sentiment, you're cheating your reader out of a rich experience. In fact, scientists suggest that over 90 percent of communication is nonverbal. All of these things can be picked up in face-to-face conversations. You have the added responsibility of conveying tone, mood, and body language. For example, one character can say in his dialogue, "I'm sad." However accurate it may be, it's not descriptive.Įven though in the real world, someone may say "I'm sad," it's not the same when written. It's really, really easy to use dialogue to tell something about a character. If writers had a motto, it would be "Show, don't tell." Instead of setting up this predicament for your character and the reader, why not reveal things a little bit at a time? Keep your dialogue focused on one topic at a time to make the next step obvious for your character. ![]() If the characters discuss too much at one time, then what action will they take, and why should they take that action over another? For example, if the character learns that Johnny cheated and Mary Beth killed the cat, what's the next step? Should she confront Johnny or wait for Mary Beth? Not only that, information dumps also disrupt the pacing of your story. But if you give too much information in one scene (known affectionately as an information dump), you'll confuse and overwhelm the reader. The principal purpose of any dialogue scene should be to move your story forward. One of the most egregious mistakes you can make in dialogue is to cover too much ground. Mistake #1: Trying to Cover Too Much Territory ![]()
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