3 Keys to Immersive Dialogue (with examples!)

we're sisters best friends and authors on a mission to help you stoke your creative fire and live the life of your dreams we believe that purpose fuels passion and that creativity is your secret weapon for Mass construction there's never been a better time to bless the world with your dream realized you're listening to the Kate and Abby show what is up guys welcome back to another episode of the Kate Navy show we are so stoked to have you here with us for this episode delving into a very popular topic for so many of us as creative writers dialogue some of us love it some of us hate it but regardless of what your relationship with this story building element is dialogue is one of the cornerstones of your stories Foundation when well written it can take your work in progress to new heights making your story feel Vivid and realistic but when written weekly it can feel difficult to believe and connect with and actually distract from the message you are trying to communicate with your reader so whether you're working on a novel a series a screenplay a comic or anything in between these vital dialogue Basics we're about to dive into our for everyone all writers looking to tighten their stories and sharpen their characters so we're going to delve into all of that and more today but first first we have to thank our sponsors who are you guys you're the ones who support this show and keep it going and we so appreciate your support so if you get value out of this podcast go to patreon.com the Kate and Abby show and help us keep this show alive and free of interruptions so dialogue I think is one of is mutually one of our favorite elements of Storytelling yeah for sure I love writing dialogue it's so much fun it is like I have always liked it more than any other aspect because it's it's so it adds so much to the story it just is that element that makes it feel often so submersive yeah and it's a great way to show and not tell and to kind of create and convey your characters what they're like what their conflicts are in a very easy formats for the reader to digest and understand yeah exactly it can make it feel more like watching a film rather than reading a book because like you said you can communicate so much through dialogue instead of feeling the need to info dump through Pros we can actually take to the character and have this new information communicated through a conversation with another character and just flows so effortlessly so Abby and I have talked a lot over the past few days leading up to this episode about some of our top things that we look for and some of the tools that have helped us the most and we came up with some examples and we actually wrote out I we taught we chatted about it and then I started writing some examples that we're going to share with you guys and I was reading them to Abby and then we were kind of like critiquing them and we came up with these story examples that were going to actually read to you guys so for those of you listening you'll be able to listen to the examples but if you want to see the the um the screen cards that are actually going to be coming up on the screen so you'll actually be able to see the words coming up on the screen and can read along yourself seeing what we're indicating will be changed we're going to be kind of editing as we go so we're going to share our process for how we take a piece of writing and decide what should stay in dialogue what should come out of dialogue what should we add back in after we strip it down we're going to take it to that next level of implementing these tools as we go rather than just telling you these these cut and dry tools like hey we do this and this we're actually going to show you how we utilize each one so the first point that we talked about a lot is finding Focus finding the focus of the conversation when writing dialogue because every single conversation just like conversations that happen in real life there's a point there is a focal point to that conversation and to the dialogue that's written right yeah and I think that can be something that you as the writer can get distracted on other things when there's a lot going on in the scene and maybe you think of some other things that you want to touch on or you want to describe but really it's slowing down the point of the scene right I was thinking about it recently listening to an art Channel that I really like watching and um they were talking about how in in paintings painters often utilize these different um aspects and I'm I'm not super into like all the technical terms of painting but a lot of artists utilize sight lines and the way the lighting is falling to illuminate one character in the middle of the frame or whatever the the story and the picture they pick like what is the main character of this painting and then the lines in the painting will sort of lead to that subject the most color might be used on that subject the most light might be falling on that subject and the reason artists have done that throughout time is to draw the viewers attention to what the painting is actually communicating now if everything in the painting The foreground the background the main subjects were all bright colors everything was just as much in Focus everything was just as well lit you may not know where your eye should look you would be like okay there's kind of a lot going on and it's really open to interpretation I'm not really sure what I'm looking at because the story has been lost because our attention is now being drawn to so many things that our brain doesn't know where to look it's like hmm are we supposed to be looking at the foreground are we supposed to be looking at these these subjects here are we supposed to be looking at the background and it's the same thing with writing we have to think about what is the subject of this conversation we have a few characters they're in a discussion what is the point of their discussion and am I drawing the reader's attention to that point that's going to then move the story forward or are we getting distracted looking at this and that and the other thing yeah and also like whenever you mention something or describe something or have a character talk about something else um it's showing the reader like this matters because it's drawing your attention to it so if it doesn't matter as much then you're drawing you're kind of putting the spotlight on that thing and why does it matter you know like I always say on my channel why it doesn't matter right so asking yourself what is the focus of this conversation what is happening here and where do I want to draw my reader's Focus this can these can all be really good questions to ask yourself and when you're going back and reading through a conversation bring those questions to mind and actually find the focus find the subject what is the main subject here and so that's what we're going to do in this first example all about finding the focus what is the focus of this conversation what's the focus of this dialogue so first we're going to start with a weak example this is a little piece of flash fiction and we're going to discuss it after we read the examples so first a week example what are you doing in here I hissed barely able to see in the dark room lit only by the pale glowing Moon beyond the Frosted bay window no one's supposed to come in here you heard what Mrs Swanson said Mrs Swanson's hiding something James cut in before I could finish in one hand he grasped a flashlight and in its Illuminating beam I could just make out the features of his long thin face there was a curious glint in his deep brown eyes you won't breathe a word about this if you know what's good for you as the Moonlight drifted through the curtain lace and reached over the old wooden floors and mahogany Furniture something else caught my attention a glint in his hand his fingers were curled around a shiny brass skeleton key it looked old and James seemed almost reluctant to show it to me what is that I asked curiously I think it's the key to the attic James whispered glancing worriedly around the room and at the old ornate door leading out into the hallway through which I had just entered I found it in one of the drawers but we're not supposed to Snoop this isn't snooping it's exploring but he lifted his index finger to his lips his deep brown eyes narrowing into an angry glare who's going to tell you so there's the first example and we really wanted to make these examples feel like we just cracked open a book in the center and now we're reading some dialogue because oftentimes that's what we do when we're deciding whether or not we want to read a book we're going to say hmm who are these characters what are they like what's what's going on here so there there's a weak example and you'll see on the screen that's in front of you now if you're watching on the YouTube version that there's some stuff highlighted and those are the things that we're going to focus in on we have a lot of things that we're focusing on in this example so asking ourselves like what are we focusing on what is the focus of the conversation I'm not really sure exactly right yeah yeah because your your attention is kind of drawn to a lot of different things in the room and the description of what's happening the Moonlight the curtains the furniture and like a lot of things are are being having our attention drawn to them right so so like in in a in a book versus like a film or painting we're not able to look at it and see exactly what the author is seeing in their mind so we have to decide for ourselves what are we looking at here you know what I mean we can only we can only see what you're telling us so each word is drawing our attention to that we're looking at the Moonlight the room is dark we're seeing the glowing Moon now we're outside the Moonlight coming in we're talking about the furniture we're talking about what kind of furniture it's mahogany Furniture the floors are old we're talking about a lot of the setting so there's quite a few things that our attention is being brought to in this in this example here now we're going to move on to the tight example the strong example what are you doing in here I hissed feeling my way through the darkness no one's supposed to come in here you heard what Mrs Swanson said Mrs Swanson's hiding something James cut in before I could finish his face ghostly in the beam of his flashlight you won't breathe a word about this if you know it's good for you a brass skeleton key glinted in his clenched hand what is that I think it's the key to the attic James whispered his eyes fixed on the door as if afraid someone would walk in at any moment I found it in one of the drawers but we're not supposed to Snoop this isn't snooping it's exploring but he pressed a finger to his lips his eyes slitted who's going to tell you so as you can see in that example we have a lot less words going on but there's still a lot of flavor there's a lot of moon there's a lot of mood to what's happening we see that it's a dark room because we're feeling our way through the darkness so when what we can shorten up a dialogue tag from barely able to see in the dark room lit only by the pale glowing Moon beyond the Frosted bay window to feeling my way through the darkness and I already see it's a it's a dark room there's lots of stuff there's lots of furniture that we're like feeling our way through this dark kind of clunky space right but we don't need to be like the furniture the Moonlight the bay window the Frosted bay window the curtains the floors yeah yeah exactly and a lot of times um those transitional pieces end up being um you know fill have filter words in them like I see I I hear I wonder whatever you know that kind of slows down the process of course well of course you see what you're describing because you're describing it to me you know what I mean right so if you don't need IC exactly right because those things are obvious we're already seeing it through the character's eyes or here when we say that something else caught my attention to glint in his hand his fingers were curled around a shiny brass skeleton key it looked old and James seemed almost reluctant to show it to me that last line especially it looked old and James seemed almost reluctant to show it to me are already obvious if it's old if it's a skeleton key we already know it's old if it's in this desk in this kind of haunted sounding setting we are already assuming it's old we're definitely not seeing this as a modern key so we can leave that open to the reader's imagination absolutely James seemed almost reluctant that can easily be conveyed by the fact that it's clenched in his hand right yeah and she's the one who has to bring it up like what is that right it's already obvious that this isn't something he necessarily wants to share even just by the tone of his voice and the words he's using right yes exactly yeah and all that is like a lot of this um goes into like showing and not telling right which we talked about in a separate Episode by the way and we gave story examples very similar to this so if you haven't seen that one that that's definitely worth a watch definitely yeah that was that was a really fun episode because that's that's something that you hear a lot in the writing world like show don't tell but how exactly do we do that how do we break that down and apply that to our writing yeah so in in these examples you can see that one of them has a lot more description about the setting than the next now I know some of you guys will be like but I like that extra description I like it to feel really Artful and I'm really submersed in what the setting looks like bringing all those colors having it be really Vivid and I get that because I feel the same way a lot of times and what I would recommend is write it however you want when you first when you are working on the first draft just whatever comes to your head write it down me and Abby do this all the time and then when you go back and read it which we usually do like later in the day we'll go back over our chapter then start this process of like let's Strip This paragraph down to the Bare Bones and then decide which pieces of description really enhance because what you're really doing is you're enhancing what is happening and ask yourself what is Meaningful what is actually enhancing the scene or is it just description that's slowing down what's happening is it really not necessary is it really necessary for us to know that there's curtains on the window but maybe it's maybe we want to know that the Moonlight is coming in because that's really adding to the spookiness of the scene so for those of you who like to add some of that color back in you don't want it to feel too stripped down we have an in-between example which is kind of what I would do this is this example is definitely my favorite of the three what are you doing in here I hissed feeling my way through the darkness Guided by The Pale Light of the full moon no one's supposed to come in here you heard what Mrs Swanson said Mrs Swanson's hiding something James cut in before I could finish his face his face ghostly in the beam of his flashlight a curious glint in his dark eyes you won't breathe a word about this if you know it's good for you and then the rest is the same but see adding though once we strip it down we're then able to see okay well which ones really added a little bit of extra flavor to this scene that told us about the moon the moonlight now we realize this whole scene is taking place with some Moonlight in it Guided by the Light of the Moon as she makes her way through the room we don't have to know about the moon coming through the curtains and shining on the floor and reflecting on the furniture we only need very we need very few words for us to really get the vibe of this setting right yeah yeah and I think that's a great example that like you have that color and description but it's not overwhelming it's not purple prose you know exactly because purple prose it can be purple dialogue yeah true because this is all part of dialogue when you have people speaking and the stuff in between them speaking it's either slowing down the scene or pacing it really well so we want to just pay attention to that and and to conclude what we're talking about here with these three examples we just gave you guys we're we're trying to nail what is the focus of this piece of dialogue and for this example specifically the focus is James has found a key so what we ask ourselves when we're going back and editing through a piece like this we would look at these three examples and ask ourselves which amplifies that Focus the most the first one definitely detracts from the point being James has found a key we are thinking about the room we're wondering maybe what sort of house this is because we're thinking about the furniture the different materials that are being mentioned James is looking around the room looking at the ornate door case we're not really sure maybe why his attention is drifting there we can tighten that up to be very concise obviously we're in a sneaky situation and James has found a key to something and we want to to really think about what's nailing that point the most right yeah yeah that's excellent point and those are great examples as as Kate was writing these examples I was like oh I want to see where this story is going I know I pulled in right away yeah and and um you can really get the tone it's it's a great exercise actually I highly recommend if you want to just practice with some of this stuff write a piece of flash fiction this was something I wrote in a few minutes and I'm just like okay let's let's pick a couple characters and put them in conversation with each other and then really pay attention to number one what is the focus of the conversation and then go down the rest of the list we're going to move on to the next point now which is using tags now this is something that is so so important in dialogue because you're going to be using it all the time dialogue tags he said she said I say as I slow to a stop beside him as I kneel down beside something or or then going on to describe something else all of that in between stuff dialogue tags yes and all the body language and different transitional pieces happening between like during the conversation which can either make or break it because it can really enhance it or it can slow it down so much that you're like skipping the tags so if you find that like this is a good question to ask your betas to if you um if you as the reader are skipping tags then they really don't need to be there or they're so much slowing down the dialogue that your brain is just like going past them because we don't care about that we just care about the dialogue so it has to you have to keep that sense of um each tag mattering each tag having a purpose and um the points here that we've written down is that your tags should let your reader know who is speaking and add meaning or enhance the description of what's happening so it's it obviously it's like a it depends on the situation but I'll let you read the examples that we can get a better understanding of this right because you're either if you know who's talking you don't necessarily need one because all you have to think about is this is just to indicate to someone who's speaking or if it's something that's adding to the scene in a fundamental way if it's enhancing the scene and it's hard to say the word enhancing because it's so subjective it could be like oh well that really does enhance for me to know that you know the car is red and it's shiny and so shiny in fact I can see my face reflected in it and the Beautiful sunlight coming down it's like you could go on and on and you could be like well all of it's meaningful to me but we really what what what I mean by that is enhance it in moving the story forward you really want to just give your reader just enough so that they know the meaningful things like if the meaningful point is that the car is red we can mention that but we don't necessarily need a lot more we can leave other things open to the imagination so moving on to this example we're going to start with the weak example for using dialogue tags to give you a little bit of a feel for what this is like some of our process the steps creaked as I followed James uneasily up the old attic staircase trying my best to remain as silent as possible we shouldn't be doing this I whispered biting my lower lip anxiously I have a bad feeling we promised that we would stay in our rooms James turned around and looked at me shining the beam of his flashlight into my face you go back to bed then he snapped I'm not scared of some old attic he turned around once more and continued to climb I swallowed hard still frozen where I was my fingers clutched around the railing but what if the rumors are true I whispered my voice uneven what if what if there really is a ghost James grunted I'm not afraid of ghosts they aren't real Tara he paused and cast me a look over his shoulder like I said you don't have to come with me I shook my head and forced myself to continue up the stairs no I said if you're going I'm going so there's tons of dialogue tags in that like loads to the point where I had to read this over a few times to be able to read it smoothly because they're you're almost like faltering over the dialogue tags because there's so many and this is actually a really good example because there's an action taking place two people going up a staircase that doesn't take much time so therefore when we're adding tags and having them communicate on the stairs we don't want to be spending too much time getting them up the stairs because really we're slowing down this movement right something that's gonna we want it to be quick they're going upstairs they're going to go find something in the Attic we don't want he stopped on the stairs I stop on the stairs he continues then he pauses then he turns around then he turns back around then he looks over his shoulder at me it's really slowing down this movement of going up the staircase this is this is something we talk about a lot you know you're currently co-writing a a book an action adventure genre mystery stuff like that and so there's lots of quick action sequences and we did a podcast about this about uh writing realistic action writing better action also writing realistic fight sequences and one of the things you don't want to do is have too much description or tags in between dialogue because it's slowing that action way down yes for sure yeah and I know as a reader a lot of times I skip dialogue tags for this reason because I just have to know who is saying what and if anything really important happens during you know in between lines and if it doesn't then like please don't slow down the story with more dialogue tags exactly so here's the strong version the tighter version the old steps creaked as we made our way up the attic staircase quiet as mice so see right there we were easily able to replace trying my best to remain as silent as possible to quiet as mice really quick really Snappy we know exactly what that means and it even adds a little bit more flavor than using all those words of trying to remain as silent as possible in this case it also adds a little bit to the mood because you have like spooky attic mice all those things go together like really it adds it tightens it it just makes it tighter we shouldn't be doing this James I bit my lip we could easily take out biting my lower lip anxiously because we already know she's anxious because she's biting her lip and we don't care that it's her lower lip we already assume that so little things like that tighter I have a bad feeling we promised that we would stay in our rooms James flashed his light over my face you go back to bed then I'm not scared of some old addict but what if the rumors are true I whispered unsteadily we were able to easily replace I swallowed hard still frozen where I was my fingers clutched around the railing and then I whispered my voice uneven because we already understand her nervousness she's faltering she doesn't really want to go on this spooky Adventure in the middle of the night up into that like we get that already without all those words and it keeps the pace faster but what if the researcher I whispered unsettly What If there really is a ghost I'm not afraid of ghosts they aren't real Tara and like I said you don't have to come with me no I shook my head if you're going I'm going so we're getting them up the stairs much faster we're not slowing down this action with so many tags and we clearly understand who's talking especially in this instance of only two characters going back and forth with each other when you have two characters you don't really need to have too many dialogue tags too often also I think that's worth saying yes because a lot of times it's clear exactly who's talking yeah now if this was like a group of people going up the stairs maybe we would need more tags if there was three or four people because we would need to know who is it who's saying what but here in this instance it's quite clear so we don't have to use as many tags then if we want to add something in between we could say at that last line no I shook my head ignoring the knot of dread in the pit of my stomach if you're going I'm going so we could always add that back in so that was something I literally did this exercise while writing up these examples for you guys I'm like how can we just add a little bit more to her her feeling of dread on over going on this spooky little midnight Escapade the knot of dread in the pit of my stomach but stripping it down first is what helps you arrive to what should be added back in like when we were chatting about this I I likened it to like fixer-upper when you're watching them renovate houses first they take everything out and redo the structure and then that's when they decide okay what sort of furniture should we put back in this place right we don't we don't just leave a bunch of let's just sort of pick our way around what's already here it's like don't Let's Take It All Out see what it looks like and then decide what pieces really complement this space it's the same thing with your writing yeah 100 so asking yourself what is the purpose of this tag is it letting my reader know who's speaking or is it adding meaningful and or enhancing description that's helping to move the story forward in a meaningful way not Overkill but things that are actually adding right adding colors flavor flavor yeah yeah for sure I think that's a those are great examples of that that what what to do and what not to do and just ways that you know I find it helpful watching examples like this where you're kind of editing as you go so you can get a better idea of how to clean up your own work right exactly so our third and final Point here with the dialogue is character voice like we said at the very beginning character voice is a great um element to add to dialogue and dialogue is such an awesome vehicle for serving character voice literally because you know it's their voice it's it's how they communicate and you can express a lot about their personality and their beliefs through how they communicate so this is something that I think it comes with a lot of practice you know time time time and just writing a lot writing these characters voices a lot and it also helps like you're saying to not have to do so many tags because a lot of times if you have a character with a really distinct voice and we've established their voice we can almost tell when they're talking because right it's we know them at this point you know we know what their character is like and that to me comes with a lot of writing in this character's voice and expressing their personality through their dialogue right and so like even practicing like we were saying earlier with flash fiction like this is a little tiny piece of story but already we can tell a lot about the characters from what we've read so far that James has more of a bold personality he's kind of sharp and blunt and ready to go take on the world and the other character Tara is kind of more subdued laid back timid doesn't really want to do adventurous things necessarily in the middle of the night in like this haunted setting not really her thing we kind of get that just from these few paragraphs we've read and that's how powerful character voice can be is choosing how are they talking what are they saying are is this type of voice something that they would say and you can recognize it sometimes like we recognize it a lot in film like a TV series in a later season a character says something you're like that totally doesn't sound like something when they would say this is a different writer and that's what that is it's character voice their voice has been at least for that line kind of dropped a little bit the writer may not have been really asking themselves these questions that we're asking now hey does this match what we've already established that this character speaks this certain way what is their personality what is their um what is their their personality is going to be based off their internal conflict their backstory Abby just did an awesome video about building your characters yes yeah recently I posted one about character arcs over the course of a series and just some really awesome tools for building your characters personality and their internal struggles which just translates to every expression of their character right and you use the Enneagram a lot to figure out personalities and I think that can carry over into voice because that's that's really the building block of figuring out your character's voice is figuring out who is this person yes yeah not character person who is this person you want them to sound like a real person what's their personality and their attitude towards life and what are their relationships with other characters all of that comes into play exactly so based on what we just said about these two characters in this piece of flash fiction we have James this more bold character kind of snarky a little bit salty um we have this other character Tara she's kind of more laid back more timid so let's dive into the character voice example of starting with the weak example see if you I bet you guys are going to catch a lot of these right off the bat just based off of what we just talked about the soft click seemed as loud as a gunshot and the Stillness as James turned the key in the lock the old door creaked open my assumption was right James concluded sounding satisfied it's the right key she's probably hidden it there for years but why I hesitated at the door for a moment before following James reluctantly into the attic see that trunk over there James asked pointing why don't you check it out making my way around ghostly shapes of covered Furniture I came to an abrupt halt in front of an old wooden trunk I tried the lid but it didn't budge this old thing won't open I muttered give give me a hand here let me have a try James dropped down beside me it seems as though it may be rusted with a little more effort the hinges gave way with a groan could I see the flashlight James asked extending a hand I gave it to him and he shot it down into the trunk Illuminating the contents Within so right away we notice that James's speaking mannerisms have shifted over to sound much more mature much more formal much more laid back we also have an instance here where Tara the other character says this old thing won't open I muttered give me a hand that sounds more like something James would say that's another thing to watch for is because you as the author you're writing everybody unlike a film where you have separate actors playing the different characters you're not going to have like you know confusion yeah you're not gonna have confusion but you as the author you have to keep them all straight in your head as if it is a cast of characters so since you're writing each one of these you have to really pause and think would that character say that or does that sound like you know that other that other character that I'm writing because that can happen yeah yeah for sure that's something to look for definitely when you're editing and even when you're writing and it can really help to sort of visualize this character as if they are you know a person standing before you or watching you're watching the scene like in a visual format and um just try to imagine can you imagine them really saying that right which we're gonna we're gonna talk about in a few minutes after you finish reading the rest of these examples a pro tip that we have for uh kind of locking into your character's speech patterns yeah it's a really funny it's a really fun tool yeah it's a fun tool all right so on to the the tight example and you'll see here just watch for how the voice shifts the soft click seemed as loud as a gunshot and the Stillness as James turned the key in the lock the old door creaked open I knew it James said satisfied she's probably been hiding this old key for years I hesitated at the door for a moment before following James reluctantly into the attic try that trunk over there James instructed making my way around ghostly shapes of covered Furniture I came to an abrupt halt in front of an old wooden trunk I tried the lid but it didn't budge I I can't it it's too heavy I stammered let go I've got this James dropped down beside me the darn things rested shut with a little more effort the hinges gave away with a groan quick give me that flashlight James hist reaching over to tug it from my grasp he Shone the light down into the trunk Illuminating the contents within so boom right away we're back in that character's voice a lot more where he's he's speaking in a more a more blunt hectic you know wants to muscle his way through this situation which is how we've kind of already painted this character to to be he's not asking for things he's grabbing things out of people's hands and marching forward with this one track mind agenda of opening this trunk and figuring out what's in there so and then we have Tara acting more subdued like we've already painted her to be she's a little more shy about this whole situation I can't do it's too heavy stammering instead of muttering which would be a more um a more bold standpoint a more aggressive nature like to mutter it's a little more arrogant whereas stammering brings in that timid a little bit scared a little bit afraid yes exactly yeah and again like using um sort of the the verb element here of the tag to um convey the emotion because a lot of times you can kind of get in the pattern of just said said said which does get boring after a while I mean like you definitely don't want to avoid it completely right to the point where and I've seen some writers do this like they're they're almost like allergic to said and they like try so hard to do anything else it was like you know murmured in toned exclaimed and it gets to the point where you're like well you know I'm okay with a few sets right you just want to you kind of don't want to even see it after a while you know yeah so you don't even see it after if you don't have it at all you're you're seeing it because you're not seeing it exactly and if you're if you're seeing it way too much then you're like okay come on so it's it's about finding that balance and also asking yourself what exactly are they doing are are they actually just saying it or are they are stammering whimpering shouting exclaiming make sure it's what they're actually doing that can be just a really easy um way of judging it is I ask myself what exactly are they doing are they exclaiming are they saying it in a loud tone are they saying it in a quiet tone and like figure out what that exact thing is because that's the most important thing is to conveying what exactly is happening not making it sound pretty per se what you want is to communicate to the reader exactly what's going on okay last example and you'll notice these don't have in between examples because when it comes to voice there really is no in between yeah you want to nail the voice it's going to be the most important aspect honestly because when we start hearing the characters act out of character such as James saying my assumption was right something he would clearly never say how we've established this character to be a little bit of a of a feisty character he wouldn't say that he wouldn't sound formal so that's something that a viewer will be like uh you know this character is just behaving so out of character and it's not believable anymore that's probably the number one thing you want to avoid yeah so this is the thing to nail all right our next week example this is the last example guys I can't believe it the missing Jewels I exclaimed my voice of whisper Mrs Swanson said they were stolen long ago it would seem she hasn't been honest all these years James lifted a necklace delicately that's why she didn't want us to come here she was afraid we might find out I can't believe she would do something like that I shook my head slowly staring wide-eyed into the trunk James Shrugged his shoulders sometimes people aren't always as they seem okay so once again we have a lot of uh formal words right we have the more subdued character exclaiming a statement very boldly so feels a little out of character for her we have James shrugging his shoulders and saying oh some people aren't always as they seem very passive response to a situation like this so it feels a little bit out of character moving on to the tight version it can't be I whispered in disbelief but but Mrs Swanson said her Jewels were stolen long ago how can that be so right away switching from I know this information I'm exclaiming it to now I'm I'm in disbelief and I'm asking a question how can this be possible which is perfect for her voice it's obvious she's been lying James snatched a necklace to examine it because this character would never delicately lift anything no wonder she didn't want us here I shook my head slowly staring wide-eyed into the trunk do you really think she could do something like this so right away giving the other character giving this Mrs Swanson character the benefit of the doubt instead of saying I can't believe she would do something like this do you really think she could do something like this so we're asking a question we're more passive we're more curious I don't know James Jaws set but we're going to find out boom matching his personality he want he's a go-getter he wants to figure out what the heck's happening here he's not going to shrug his shoulders and be like well whatever next topic so boom there's that's our last example I feel like Abby how many times I'm saying boom but boom yeah those are excellent examples and I think that's it's a good way to judge yeah it clearly shows the contrast between you know too much and really nailed you know what nice and tight and sharp short sharp you know gets right to the point but also has some flavor and color to it you know and so that's something to definitely pay attention to with with your character voice is considering their personality their speech patterns their habits their attitude towards life even their backstory where they've been this is another thing that's like um just kind of bonus tip here is like understanding where this character came from um not just like physically but that too um even if they you know even if they have like different speech patterns or an accent or different words that maybe they use and their their culture and their family things like that but also taking into consideration like what what kind of words that they would use based on maybe their education level or their age and so all those things come into the character voice and making them feel real yeah it makes them feel real it makes it feel so vivid and realistic and notice that when you're watching some of your favorite shows some of your favorite films reading some of your favorite books take note of what is making the dialogue feel so vivid to you what what stands out about the character's voice what stands out about all the way the dialogue tags are being used to move the story forward find the focus dude that's a great exercise just pick a piece of dialogue and be like okay what's the focus of this and and you can use I we invite you to go get the resource um you can get the document that I wrote up with all these examples highlighted red blue green the the weak example strong examples in between examples and you can look at that and then apply it to your own writing I invite you to do this as an exercise take a piece of your own book copy and paste it into document and then pick it apart and look at the different elements strip it all the way down to the Bare Bones and then decide what descriptions should go back in what dialogue tags should go back in and then what is the focus of that conversation yes yeah that's a great point and our final Pro tip by the way oh oh also where can they get that let's let's yeah yeah so you guys can get that um on patreon by joining our patreon at the first available tier I don't even know how many tiers we have we only have like a few I think we have three tiers but you can get at yeah any team any tier um any Patron will have access to this bonus goodie definitely go grab it because it's really great to see that visual yeah comparison I think and we're gonna start adding more resources into patreon so like every time because we were talking about this earlier we're like hey we should these resources we usually we should make available to you guys so that you have these tools going forward so definitely hop into the patreon because there it's going to become a really interesting little Community yes for sure lots of good stuff over there so our final Pro tip for character voice and this is something that Kate taught me that that you used to do and you still do yeah and and ever since I started doing it it really has helped me a lot is to listen to people in real life talk and have conversation um to kind of get your bearings around like speech patterns specifically like watching videos of people talking so like you can you can probably explain this better because you do it so I would do it for if I have a character that I imagine let's say I imagine them to be based off of Loosely an actor that I've seen somewhere that they talk like them like their voice and maybe this is also for people who are more uh I I find that I'm just really drawn to voices and inspired by Voices like I'll hear someone's voice and then us almost assign it to a character so what I'll do is I'm like okay you know I want to get in the zone of their voice I will literally go to YouTube look up an interview with that actor look up a clip of a movie with that actor in it really anything any any type of video where they're talking interviews can be great if it's just their natural Voice or if it's a certain character they play in a certain film look up a clip from that film and then I listen to a few minutes of it a lot of times I just look up a trailer and I listen to a couple minutes of it and it's like boom that voice is now in my head those speech patterns are in my head and I now go right and I can literally hear that person's voice in my head as I'm writing the dialogue for that character and it's just so helpful because it helps you step out of your own voice and start hearing like okay the tones the dialect the speaking pattern of this other person and now I'm kind of just mixing that blending that right into my character yeah that makes sense because like you said you know a lot of times you hear your own voice when you're reading a book or whatever you kind of are hearing it in your mind being read in your own voice which is so funny that you can't ever get rid of that it's crazy but but yes I've noticed the same thing like when you listen to somebody else for a while then you hear it in their voice and that's really a great kind of writing hack that I've definitely found useful for writing character voice so use that one I think it got me thinking about it too when I was listening to the narrators who did my audio Yeah that I could um I I would start assigning their voice to the character so it was helpful when I was editing the last Sparrow book because I was like okay I know how they're gonna read that and it's like you can almost step into the voice better it's hard to explain it's I know this is kind of an abstract idea but I feel like it'll serve some of you yes and it can be really fun it can be really fun especially if you don't like I don't really have a voice for this character can be fun to figure out like who would I what kind of voice would I kind of feel like for this character and like look up different look up different things on YouTube can be a great resource um find an actor or a singer or just some someone on YouTube even and be like my kind of picture their voice to be very similar to that character and now I can listen to them and kind of uh get into character right character yeah that's a great point so I think we discussed a lot in this episode but just to recap really quickly remember to First find the focus of your dialogue and Center on that be mindful when using dialogue tags don't use too many but allow it to express some of the emotion that's going on and thirdly tap into your character's respective voices and make sure that they don't slip out of Voice or go into another character's voice keeping all of that really clear and in character will just make it feel so much more realistic and come to life on the page so hopefully you guys took some notes hopefully you found this episode helpful um hopefully you enjoyed listening to us break this topic down we would love to hear your thoughts on it so definitely comment below this video if you're on YouTube and tell us what you thought and what you think of dialogue do you like writing dialogue do you struggle with it we would love to hear from you guys um and of course don't forget to grab the story examples uh template of all the examples that Kate went through today to help you kind of to kind of guide you through this adventure of writing dialogue and you can find that on our patreon that's patreon.com the Kate and Abby show and thank you again to our amazing patrons over there who support this show and keep it going we love you guys so much and we couldn't do it without you and we hope to see you in the next one guys thank you so much for being here thank you for listening and until next time stay stoked and rock on

Channel: K.A. Emmons

Views: 26,980

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Id: iotWyCLGYo8

Length: 49min 47sec (2987 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 18 2022