A while back I took a class on dialogue. While the instructor did give feedback on the dialogue itself in our assignments, it seemed like the things we were really learning wasn’t how to write actual dialogue, but how to paragraph (which is apparently all science, no art) and incorporate everything that’s not dialogue into a conversation. Useful skills, yes, but not what I expected from a class about dialogue. Oddly enough, I kind of thought things would focus more on what goes inside the quotation marks.

I know a lot of people already consider dialogue one of their strengths. But even if it’s one of your best skills (as I consider it to be), we can always learn more (as I am even now).

We could look at the basics of creating realistic and readable dialogue, more intermediate things like skipping the boring parts, and advanced techniques like “indirect” dialogue. And naturally, since I know so many of you guys are good at dialogue, I’d love to have guest posts with your favorite lessons, tips and techniques.

What do you think? Would you like a series on dialogue? Maybe an “advanced” series?

Photo by Peter Patau