WRITING DIALOGUE

Lesson Objective:
• produce your own
written dialogue
ROLE-PLAY: JIN AND MAIA
WHAT IS DIALOGUE?
 Dialogue is a literary device – a technique used to express the speech
or thoughts of a character in a story (usually their exact words).
 How do you identify dialogue in a story?
It is set off from the rest of a story by quotation marks (“ ”).
Example: “How do you do?” asked Ellen.
 Why is dialogue important in a story?
Dialogue makes a story more interesting. How the character speaks
is part of the way we get to know them. In a short story you have
limited space, so use dialogue wisely
STEPS
Use quotation marks around the words someone is saying:
Example: “Get to work,” Mrs Huff screamed. “Your rough draft is due
Monday.”
A comma separates the speaker from the spoken words (dialogue tags).
The full stop, comma, question mark and exclamation point go inside
quotation marks
Capitalise the first letter of the sentence in quotes
Example: She finally demanded, “Give me my pen back, will you?”
Each speaker gets a new paragraph. Every time someone speaks, you
show this by creating a new paragraph.
Each paragraph is indented.
EXAMPLE: J R R TOLKIEN, THE HOBBIT 
  "What have I got in my pocket?" he said aloud. He was talking to
himself, but Gollum thought it was a riddle, and he was frightfully
upset. 
 
     "Not fair! not fair!" he hissed. "It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to
ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?"
 
     Bilbo seeing what had happened and having nothing better to ask
stuck to his question. "What have I got in my pocket?" he said louder.
"S-s-s-s-s," hissed Gollum. "It must give us three guesseses, my
precious, three guesseses."
ACTIVITY 1: A TENSE SITUATION
Write a scene between a protagonist and their love
interest. Show how the love interest complicates the
protagonist’s story goal in some way. 
Examples: a detective who needs to get to a murder
scene and his wife who wants to talk to him; a princess
who needs to save her kingdom and her love interest
who wants to go on a quest; a journalist wants to get to
an important interview and their love interest goes into
labour.
ACTIVITY 2: THREE OF US
Write a one-page scene with three characters in it.
Show how the three people all speak differently – the
words they use and their speech patterns should not be
the same. 
Examples: The banker, the politician, and the
mistress; The robot, the robot’s creator, and the
creator’s mother; The personal trainer, the actor, and
the actor’s agent.