12 Exercises for Improving Dialog

October 23, 2004 by John Hewitt

Dialog (also spelled dialogue) is one of the most difficult aspects of writing to master. There are many pitfalls you must try to
avoid, such as:
Stilted Language

Dialog that does not sound like natural speech.

Filler
Dialog that does not further the scene and does not deepen your understanding of the characters.
Exposition
Dialog that has the character explain the plot or repeat information for the benefit of the audience.
Naming

Having one character use another character’s name to establish identity. People almost never say other people’s names
back to them, and if they do it is a character trait typical of a used car salesman.
Overuse of Modifiers
Too many dialog modifiers such as shouted, exclaimed, cried, whispered, stammered, opined, insinuated, hedged and a
million others. Modifiers such as this can sometimes be useful, but are often annoying and used as a crutch for poorly
designed dialogue.
Here are a few exercises to help you master dialog as a tool for writing:
1. Write down the things you say over the course of the day. Examine your own speech patterns. You don’t have to get
every word, but you may find that you say less than you think and that your statements are surprisingly short. You
might also find that you rarely speak in complete sentences.
2. Find a crowded place such as a restaurant, a bar, or a shopping mall and write down snippets of the conversations you
hear. Avoid trying to record whole conversations, just follow along for a brief exchange and then listen for your next
target. If you are worried about looking suspicious, you might want to purchase a Palm Pilot, Handspring Visor or other
hand-held PDA device. These handy spy tools make it look like you are conducting business or playing with your
favorite electronic toy rather than eavesdropping.
3. Test responses to the same question. Think of a question that will require at least a little thought, and ask it of several
different people. Compare their responses. Remember that you are focused on their words. Write them down as soon
as you can.
4. Record several different TV shows. Some choices include: sitcom, news, drama, talk show, infomercial, sporting event,
etc.). Write down a transcript using just the dialog and people’s names. If you don’t know the names, just use a
description such as announcer or redheaded woman. You can also transcribe two shows of the same genre, using one
show you like and one you dislike. Compare dialog between the fiction and non-fiction programming you recorded.
Look for such things as greetings, descriptions of physical actions, complete sentences, slang, verbal ticks (Such as
like, you know, uhhhh, well, etc.). Compare how these dialog crutches change according to the show format and
quality.
5. Rewrite one or more of the shows in exercise 4 as prose, trying to recreate the show as accurately as possible. Note
how easy or difficult it is to work in the entire dialog from the show. Does it seem to flow naturally and read well or does
it get in your way. Rewrite again eliminating any dialog you feel is unnecessary. Try not to change any dialog though
until your final draft. Work with what you have. Remember that you don’t necessarily have to rewrite the whole show.
Do enough to be sure you have the feeling for it.
6. Rewrite one of the the transcripts from exercise 4 using as much of the dialog as possible, but changing the scene in
as many ways as possible. Change the setting, change the people’s intent, and change the tone. See how easy or
difficult it is to give the same words a different intent. Again, do enough to be sure you have the feeling for it.
7. Write the dialog for a scene without using any modifiers. Just write down a conversation as it goes along naturally.
After you have completed the dialog, add narrative description, but not dialog tags such as said, shouted or ordered.
Instead, try to work the dialog into the action as a logical progression of the statements. Finally, add any dialog tags
that are absolutely necessary, and keep them simple such as said, told, or asked. Again, only put them in if you can
find not other options. Compare this to the previous dialog you have written and see what you like or dislike about the
changes.
8. Write a scene in which one person tells another person a story. Make sure that you write it as a dialog and not just a
first person narrative, but clearly have one person telling the story and the other person listening and asking questions
or making comments. The purpose of this scene will be both to have the story stand alone as a subject, and to have
the characters’ reactions to the story be the focal point of the scene.
9. Write a scene in which one person is listening to two other people have an argument or discussion. For example, a
child listening to her parents argue about money. Have the third character narrate the argument and explain what is
going on, but have the other two provide the entire dialog. It is not necessary to have the narrator understand the
argument completely. Miscommunication is a major aspect of dialog.
10. Write a conversation between two liars. Give everything they say a double or triple meaning. Never state or indicate
through outside description that these two people are lying. Let the reader figure it out strictly from the dialog. Try not
to be obvious, such as having one person accuse the other of lying. That is too easy.
11. Write a conversation in which no character speaks more than three words per line of dialog. Again, avoid crutches
such as explaining everything they say through narration. Use your narration to enhance the scene, not explain the
dialog.
12. Write a narrative or scripted scene in which several characters are taking an active role in the conversation. This can
be a difficult aspect of dialog to master, because with each additional character, the reader or audience must be able
to keep track of the motivations and interests of the individuals involved. This can be especially difficult in prose, where
the time between one character speaking and the next can be interrupted by action or description. See how many
characters your can sustain within the scene and still have it make sense and be engaging.

Browse > Home / Fiction Writing, Novel Writing, Short Story Writing, Writing / Fifteen Writing Exercises

Fifteen Writing Exercises

October 21, 2004 by John Hewitt

Writing exercises are a great way to both increase your skill as a writer and to generate new ideas for future work. They can
also give you a new perspective on your current project. One of the great benefits of private writing exercises is that you can
free yourself of fear and perfectionism. To grow as a writer, it is important to sometimes write without the expectation of
publication. Don’t be afraid to be imperfect. That is what practice is for. What you write for any of these exercises may not be
your best work, but it is practice for when you will need to write your best work.
 Pick ten people you know and write a one-sentence description for each of them.
 Record five minutes of a talk radio show. Write down the dialog and add narrative descriptions of the speakers and
actions as if you were writing a scene.
 Write a 500-word biography of your life.
 Write your obituary. List all of your life’s accomplishments. You can write it as if you died today or fifty or more years in
the future.
 Write a 300-word description of your bedroom.
 Write a fictional interview with yourself, an acquaintance, a famous figure or a fictional character. Do it in the style of an
appropriate (or inappropriate) magazine or publication such as Time, People, Rolling Stone, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen or
Maxim.
 Pick up a newspaper or supermarket tabloid. Scan the articles until you find one that interests you and use it as the basis
for a scene or story.
 Keep a diary of a fictional character.
 Take a passage from a book, a favorite or a least favorite, and rewrite the passage in a different style such as noir,
gothic romance, pulp fiction or horror story.
 Pick an author, one you like though not necessarily your favorite, and make a list of what you like about the way they
write. Do this from memory first, without rereading their work. After you’ve made your list, reread some of their work and
see if you missed anything or if your answers change. Analyze what elements of their writing style you can add to your
own, and what elements you should not or cannot add. Remember that your writing style is your own, and that you
should only try to think of ways to add to your own style. Never try to mimic someone else for more than an exercise or
two.
 Take a piece of your writing that you have written in first person and rewrite it in third person, or vice-versa. You can also
try this exercise changing tense, narrators, or other stylistic elements. Don’t do this with an entire book. Stick to shorter
works. Once you commit to a style for a book, never look back or you will spend all of your time rewriting instead of
writing.
 Try to identify your earliest childhood memory. Write down everything you can remember about it. Rewrite it as a scene.
You may choose to do this from your current perspective or from the perspective you had at that age.
 Remember an old argument you had with another person. Write about the argument from the point of view of the other
person. Remember that the idea is to see the argument from their perspective, no your own. This is an exercise in voice,
not in proving yourself right or wrong.
 Write a 200-word description of a place. You can use any and all sensory descriptions but sight: you can describe what it
feels like, sounds like, smells like and even tastes like. Try to write the description in such a way that people will not miss
the visual details.
 Sit in a restaurant or a crowded area and write down the snippets of conversation you hear. Listen to the people around
you — how they talk and what words they use. Once you have done this, you can practice finishing their conversations.
Write your version of what comes next in the conversation. Match their style.

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Characters Using Adversity

 How to Create Fictional Characters Using Adversity

 October 23, 2004 by John Hewitt


 There are very few happy stories in the world. This is not to say that there aren’t happy endings, and that there
aren’t happy characters, but very few stories revolve around the good things that happen to a character, and if they
do, there is generally a downside to the “good things” that happen to them. Stories are about adversity and conflict.
How characters deal with adversity can create comedy, drama, romance, action, mystery and a world of other
emotions and themes, but without adversity, there is no story to tell. Here are some examples of how adversity and
conflict are created. Any longer work will contain most or all of these adversities.
 Physical adversity: Physical adversity is death, injury, illness, and the threat of each. This, depending on the
writer, is generally the most adverse situation that characters face. The death of a friend or relative, or an
injury/illness that can happen to a character someone they are close too. Death is a universal theme that dates
back to the very first stories ever told. The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, and The Bible all concern characters
trying to deal with death.
 Miscommunication and Deception: This is a classic plot complication. One character misunderstands another
character or circumstance and all of the characters must deal with the consequences. Miscommunication is a
classic Shakespearean theme. Romeo and Juliet die due to miscommunication. King Lear disowns his daughter
because of miscommunication. MacBeth believes he is invulnerable due to miscommunication. Deception is similar
to miscommunication, but it involves deliberate lies. While the three witches in MacBeth technically tell MacBeth
the truth at all times, Richard III uses both miscommunication and outright lies in his rise to the throne, and he does
so with malicious glee, destroying the lives around him until he himself is destroyed by his own deceptions.
 Displacement: Displacement is another popular adversity that characters face; it is when a character or
characters enter a local or situation in which they are uncomfortable or at odds. This can be as fanciful as Alice
wandering through Wonderland, as dramatic as Trisha McFarland, lost and fighting for her life in the New England
forest in Stephen King’s The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon. It can also be as simple as sending an introvert to a
party. It is important to note that the displacement works both ways. The focus of a story doesn’t have to be the
displaced character, but rather can be about the other characters reaction to the disruption to their lives by the
displaced character.
 Desire: Every character has unfulfilled wants and needs. Sometimes they are stated and sometimes they are
unstated. One of the classic stories of unfulfilled desire is Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, in which most
of the characters are consumed by the desire to own an almost mythical piece of art. Unfulfilled desire is as key to
action novels as it is romance novels. The witches’ cryptic messages ignite MacBeth and Lady Macbeth’s desire
for power, but it is their desire that dooms them to destruction.
 Relationships: Relationship conflicts run a wide spectrum, and are not limited to human relationships; they can
extend to animals, nature and environment. Relationship adversity is often the result of the previous adversities,
but it is worth a separate category because this is where most resolutions are centered. A character must change
 the relationship, be changed (or even destroyed) by the relationship, accept the relationship or be doomed to fight
the relationship (such as in the Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit).
 There are many other conflicts and types of adversity that a character can run into, but the adversity itself is not the
key component of a story. The key is in how that characters react to and deal with adversity. It is difficult for the
reader to care whether or not the adversity is overcome unless they care about the characters. It is equally difficult
to care about characters that have no complications in their life.
 A perfect example of this phenomenon is the movie Pleasantville. In that movie, two characters are transported
from their modern life into a fifties era family sitcom in which everything is pleasant and perfect (Displacement). At
first, the characters inside the television show have no adversity to deal with. At that point, they are not fully
developed characters and their only interest to the audience is the humor of seeing these happy people through
the eyes of the two modern, jaded teenagers. The presence of these two outsiders, however, eventually throws
this perfect world into chaos. Soon the characters are plagued by injuries, miscommunication, and deception and
especially by unfulfilled desires that grow with each new discovery. Adversity turns these people into interesting
characters. The mother, the father, and the soda-shop owner become fully realized people and what happens to
them matters to the audience. As happy people these characters were a joke, but in the face of adversity they
become the heart and soul of the film.
 The key is to use adversity as a tool for character development rather than use the characters merely to further the
action. To do this, you must explore your characters. Not only do you need to develop a clear sense of what
decisions they would make normally, you must develop how their thinking process changes or fails to change as a
result of their actions. If a character makes the same decision two times and it does not work either time, the
character has not learned. This does not mean the character has not developed, just that they have failed to
change their actions as a result of their circumstances. This is as much of a character trait as a character changing
their actions. A patriotic character may sacrifice themselves for their country more than once, only to be injured or
to lode something important to them. They have repeated the same action, but has their reasons changed? The
exploration comes in why they choose to make the same sacrifice again, if it did not help the first time. Are they
more resigned to their course or do they start to waver? What thoughts lead them to repeat the same action
without reward? On the other hand, a patriot might sacrifice the first time and not the second. This is a major
change in thinking, and for the people reading or watching the story, the choices must not only be within character,
but they must develop the character.
 Accomplishing the development of character through adversity is a challenge for even the most experienced
writers. The keys to accomplishing this are:
 Know your characters well. The more time you spend analyzing your characters and deciding what their thinking
process is, the better prepared you will be to decide how they will react to the adversities they face. For more
information on developing characters see Creating Memorable Characters.
 Decide how you want your character to change and how you want them to remain unchanged. If you know
how you want your character to develop, then you can adjust your plot accordingly. This does not mean that you
tailor the plot to the character. If you want the story to be about blowing up a building or developing a vaccine, then
that is your plot. What you want to analyze is how your character would go about accomplishing that task, and
what obstacles they would face.
 Don’t be afraid to change the circumstances. An idea that seemed good in the planning stage may not always
work in execution. Sometimes events must happen to develop a plot but in the writing process your characters
might have strayed from your original ideas for them. Take the time to work the conflict through. Sometimes the
same event can take place if you change one or two minor details in a story. It is simply a matter of being creative.
 Mix things up occasionally. Some actions are out of character only until a character does it. You may think that
your character would act a certain way in a given situation, but sometimes you’ll want to experiment with having
them do something else. People are full of contradictions, and they don’t always act the way they think they act. A
self-image can be a very deceptive thing.
 In the best stories, plot development and character development work together. Rather than sacrificing one to
develop the other, each is used to the benefit of the other. It is the proper blending of plot and characters that
makes great stories work. When a great story is over, the reader should feel like the distinct way it developed could
only have happened with those set of characters, yet they should find that entirely acceptable. While it is OK to
think that a character should have dealt with the adversity differently, the reader our audience should not think that
that character would have done it differently.