So you might have done some of the dialogue prompts I suggested in my last prompt, but you might still be thinking 'why should I use dialogue?'.
So what does dialogue do?
It helps you to communicate the feelings of your character to the reader and quickly explain background to your piece.
An excellent example of this comes from this week's reading by Terry Bisson. He only uses dialogue, so all of our insights into the characters and the setting come from direct speech.
It helps break up the page and make your writing more reader-friendly.
No one wants to read a huge chunk of text. It's daunting, it's long, and it looks boring on the page. Some of the best pieces of writing utilise the blank space on a page, and one of the easiest ways to create it in a story is through dialogue.
It humanises your character and their interactions.
It is very rare that there is no noise or conversation happening around you at all. Dialogue can be used to help set the scene.
Maybe your character can hear shouting through the thin walls of their first apartment.
Maybe the t.v. or radio are on in the background.
Maybe the character is talking to themselves.
Think carefully about what you can hear around you in certain situations, whether it's your family talking downstairs, the announcements on a train or the incessant chatter of teenagers in a coffee shop. These will all help to ground your character's experiences in reality and create a more relatable sense of space.
Happy writing!
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