Week 12 Lab: Writers Write website

For my story lab this week, I looked around the Writers Write website. I thought this website was fun and had some excellent writing advice. Although the whole website was interesting and helpful, the section I enjoyed the most was an article called "The 3 Best Tips For Writing Dialogue." Dialogue can be difficult to craft in a way that sounds realistic and is engaging. I've struggled at times to create quality dialogue in my stories.

The first tip on this article is simply to "read." This is an undervalued component of writing solid dialogue. Seeing both good and bad dialogue in stories can help you as a writer decide what types of dialgoue you want to include in your stories. Imitating good dialogue style is very doable!

The next tip was to "listen." Reading lines to yourself out loud can be a good way to catch lines that don't make sense or sound strange. Ear tests are helpful in determining how realistic dialogue sounds. This is a practical tip that applies to all sorts of dialogue.

The final tip in the article is to "watch." The author says to "Watch the scene play out in your head.
Make the actions of your characters follow their words. In this movie both of the actors are just sitting or standing, delivering these lines."
This advice is really interesting. Generating a movie scene in your mind allows you to visualize what would be happening and fix anything that would be out of place. This can also help you focus on the individual characters and their possible emotions in order to write lines that best reflect your conception (as a writer) of your own characters.

This writing website was great, I definitely have enjoyed the story lab for this week. Hopefully these tips about writing effective dialogue will help me craft compelling lines of dialogue in my stories during the rest of this course!

Ballpoint pen being used to write. 

From author Ildar Sagdejev. Source: Wikimedia