Dialogue Basics Activity 16: Checkpoint

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Putting it all together

Putting it all together

There's a lot of stuff happening at once even short snippets of dialogue. Let's examine this snippet from Mango Delight from a few different perspectives, then try writing your own.

First, let’s look at the basic structure.

The snippet starts with action, then goes into dialogue with two speakers. (And there are no speech tags!)

I stopped so suddenly that Brook slammed into my back.

“Hey! What the … ?”

“Sorry. I’m freaking out. What if they start laughing and texting about me again?”

“So, what if? Who cares about those iPhonies? We’ll be the ones laughing when I humiliate the phoniest of them all on the track. Now you listen to me, Mango Delight Fuller. You can’t let those bullies get to you. You’re a survivor!”

Mango DelightFracaswell HymanSource

What are the characters trying to do with their speech? 

We can boil it down to three main actions.

I stopped so suddenly that Brook slammed into my back.

“Hey! What the … ?”

“Sorry. I’m freaking out. What if they start laughing and texting about me again?”

“So, what if? Who cares about those iPhonies? We’ll be the ones laughing when I humiliate the phoniest of them all on the track. Now you listen to me, Mango Delight Fuller. You can’t let those bullies get to you. You’re a survivor!”

Mango DelightFracaswell HymanSource

What about emotions? What are the characters feeling?

I stopped so suddenly that Brook slammed into my back.

“Hey! What the … ?”

“Sorry. I’m freaking out. What if they start laughing and texting about me again?”

“So, what if? Who cares about those iPhonies? We’ll be the ones laughing when I humiliate the phoniest of them all on the track. Now you listen to me, Mango Delight Fuller. You can’t let those bullies get to you. You’re a survivor!”

Mango DelightFracaswell HymanSource

And voice? There’s a combination of word choice and expanded details to give us a sense of character.

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I stopped so suddenly that Brook slammed into my back.

“Hey! What the … ?”

“Sorry. I’m freaking out. What if they start laughing and texting about me again?”

“So, what if? Who cares about those iPhonies? We’ll be the ones laughing when I humiliate the phoniest of them all on the track. Now you listen to me, Mango Delight Fuller. You can’t let those bullies get to you. You’re a survivor!”

Mango DelightFracaswell HymanSource

Okay, so now you should have a pretty deep x-ray view into this snippet. Time to write your own version.

You need to blend action and dialogue (feel free to put in some reported speech if you want), as well as think about:

  • What are the characters trying to do from moment to moment?
  • What are they feeling?
  • What do they sound like? What are their voices?
Your turn
"I have no idea," he screamed, "where to put the punctuation marks in this so-called 'dialogue'!"

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