Cover Art

This is just a fun lesson for the last week of class.  You don't have any assignments.  But I thought you might like to learn a bit about how to design a book cover!  Just in case you want to play around with designing covers for something you write at some point.

First, here's a video that may help you a bit as you consider your cover art.  She's talking about book publishing toward the end, but most of her info is solid for anyone wanting to make a cover, even just for fun.

Next, I'll share what I've learned from working with my graphic designer on the covers for my own books, from taking an online class on good cover art design, and from discussing these sorts of things with other indie authors. 

+ Don't use more than two fonts on the cover.  Using different fonts for the title and the author/illustrator's names is fine, but don't use more than two.

+ Your fonts should reflect the book genre somehow.  My books are westerns, so they have a western-y font.  Fantasy gets swirly letters.  Rom-coms get whimsical or handwritten-looking letters.  Sci-fi gets pointy and angular letters.  And so on!

+ It's totally fine for the author name to be almost as big as the title.  You won't have to worry about this so much, since we're not selling your book, but in real life, your author name ought to be readable at thumbnail size on a phone or tablet so people can read it while searching through websites.  Same for your title.

+ Your cover should be separated roughly into thirds from top to bottom and from left to right.  Like this:

See how each of those nine sections has a focus?  And how one of the corner spots draws your eye more than anything else?  That creates interest and makes your eye sort of move over the cover in almost a spiral, taking in the moon, traveling down the tree to the author name, then going up to the girl and on way up to the title.  Here's another example:

The arch of the dog's body naturally makes you start at the bottom with the author name, swoop up along the dog with the title, and wind up at the big orange circle of a moon.

This one is much more side-to-side, with a big middle third going one way and a skinny middle third going another that keeps you focused on the title, but still makes you go around from it to the author name and back up to the door knocker.

Last one.  Notice how all of these put the most interesting thing on the cover in one of the corners.  Not in the center.  You've got a girl with a cape and wind-blown hair in this one, the door-knocker, the dog's head, and the pensive girl, each in a corner to hold onto your interest after you're done looking at the whole thing.  Not entirely sure why this works, but it DOES, and you'll start to notice this on covers a lot now, I expect.

Thanks for being such fun writing students this semester!  If you have any questions about the course, drop them in a comment here or on any of the other posts.  I'll be leaving this blog classroom up indefinitely. 

Revising Flash Fiction Story Two

Time to revise your final piece of writing for the semester!  Or... it will be as soon as I get you your revision notes.  I was gone for 4 days, so I am a smidgeon behind on life right now.  I will adjust your due dates according to when I get your notes back to you.

Flash Fiction -- Story Two

And now, it's time to write another flash fiction story!

Once again, include a teen protagonist and include a moment that changes everything.

This week, I've got some fun prompts for you, but if you don't like them, you can make something up on your own!

The prompts:

• A girl discovers she can talk to animals 
• A boy gets an elephant for a pet 
• Ducks start following a superhero everywhere 
• A mummy comes back to life inside a museum
• A guardian angel gets lost 
• A kid digs up a skeleton at the beach 
• A pizza delivery guy’s car gets stolen 
• Someone steals the hippo from the zoo  
• A pirate loses his wooden leg

This story is due Friday, May 8.  Once again, I will get you feedback over the weekend and then you will have the following week to revise your story.

Revising Flash Fiction Story One

This week, focus on revising and polishing your story using the notes I gave you :-)

Flash Fiction -- Story One

Have you ever written -- or read -- flash fiction?

And, what is “flash fiction” anyway? 

It’s a short story told in 1,000 words or fewer. A whole story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Character development, setting, problems, and a solution. In about two pages.  If you tend to write short (like me), that's not daunting.  If you tend to write long, it's a bigger challenge.

So, what do you need in order to write a flash fiction story? You need: 

1. A beginning that introduces a character that readers will care about, something that character wants or needs, and whatever problem is stopping that character from getting what they want/need. 
   
   
2. A middle where the problem gets worse. 
   
   
3. An ending where the character beats or solves the problem and gets (or gets closer to) their want/need… or where they fail and get farther away from what they want/need. 
   
   
4. A reason why you wrote the story AND why your reader wants to read it. You want to leave your reader thinking, “Wow! That was awesome/scary/funny/shocking/uplifting. I’m so glad I read that.” 

Those are exactly the same things a longer story needs. And a novel. And a play. And a movie or a TV show episode. Anything fictional needs all those things. The tricky part of flash fiction is that you have very, very few words in which to work all that magic. 

But that’s also the fun part. When you don’t have room for lots of details, lots of worldbuilding, a complicated plot, or lots of character development, you have to narrow your focus a lot. Flash fiction is like a single photo instead of a whole movie.  Think of writing it as more like the process of writing poetry -- keep your focus small and tight.

If you haven't read much flash fiction before, and you want to wrap your head around how a story that small can be good, then I advise you to read the spring issue of Sparkler right here.

That's an especially good idea because you are going to be writing two flash fiction stories for this class, and I want you each to submit one of them to Sparkler.  Their summer issue is for teen writers only!  And I think submitting a story to a real magazine will be a good experience for you both, whether or not you get a story accepted.

The theme for that issue is "The Moment That Changed Everything" which is a pretty wide-open theme, since most really short stories will hinge on a moment where everything changes.  The stories also need to be YA fiction, so you need to write a teen protagonist.

This week, I'd like you to write a complete story about a teen in 1,000 words or less using one of these settings:

• The circus
• The mall
• Washington, DC
• A summer camp for teens whose parents are spies
• The library
• Walmart
• Yellowstone National Park

Choose one of those settings, come up with a teen main character, figure out what they want/need, make up the problem in their way, and focus on the moment everything will change... for the better or the worse.  

This first story is due this Friday, April 24.  I'll get you some feedback over the weekend, and you can revise it next week.

Then we'll repeat that process in May.  And then you'll have two revised and polished stories to choose from when submissions open for Sparkler on June 2!

Titles

Finding the right title for your story can be tricky sometimes.  Once in a while, you get lucky, and the perfect title just arrives in your brain.  Other times, you have to find them. 

One of the best ways to find a title is to brainstorm a lot of words and phrases related to your story, then try to combine them in different ways.  Today, we’ll look at how to do that. 

Assignment One: Pick some fictional story you have already written (it doesn't matter if you already have a title for it or not), and let’s do some brainstorming to help you learn to find titles.

• Who are the main characters?  Include not just names, but also titles, job descriptions, or other words that state who or what your main characters are.  (Not just ‘Anne Shirley,’ but ‘orphan’ and ‘girl’ and ‘redhead,’ for instance.)  List ten words/names.
  
  
• Where does it take place?  List not only the names of locations used in your story (such as towns, castles, cities, planets, countries), but also general words about its location (countryside, small town, mountain, forest, etc.) List ten words/names.
  
  
• What do people DO in the story?  (Put some action words here.) List ten words.
  
  
• What are some interesting words or phrases you used in your story?  Did you make up any words for it, such as place names or magical words? (This works best if you have a copy of your story on hand.) List ten words/phrases.
  
  
• Are there any special objects in your story?  Things that are important to the plot or that the characters are very attached to?  List ten words.
  
  
• If you wanted to sum up the theme or main point of your story in one or two words, what are some words you could use? List ten words/phrases.

Now you have seventy words/phrases to play with!  It’s time to try putting these together. 

For instance, you could take a character name and a place and make a title like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets or Anne of Green Gables.

You could combine a color and an important object and make a title like The Green Ember or The Blue Castle.

You could combine a couple of different important objects, like Bed-Knob and Broomstick or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

You could combine a character word and an object, like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire or The Indian in the Cupboard.

You could combine an important place and an important theme, like Gone-Away Lake or The Secret Garden.

You could combine a theme word and a character, like Carry On, Mr. Bowditch or Much Ado About Anne. 

Come up with at least thirty possible titles, combining different names, words, and phrases you listed.  Be silly, be wacky, find unusual combinations.  Share at least five of your favorites here in the comments.

Revision Time!

This week, work on revising your first short story by going through my notes.  If you haven't already!  I'll be getting you notes on your second story as soon as I am able.  Then you can work on revising it, too.

You have until Monday, April 13 to finish revising both short stories and turn in your new drafts.  You can turn them in any time before then, too -- if you're ready to have them off your plate again before that, send them my way whenever!

I plan to give you some line-editing feedback on them after that, but I'm not holding myself to a time frame for that.  Not sure what my April's going to look like.  Since you won't have to turn them in again, I'll just do my best to get any line-editing suggestions to you by the end of April.  Then you can have two really nice short stories to share with others, put in your portfolio for the year, print off and share with grandparents, whatever.

Short Story Two -- Week Two

Just a little reminder that your first draft of your second story is due this Friday, March 20!

Short Story Two -- Week One

Ready to do this again?

For your second story, you don't have to work off an idea you came up with previously for this class.  You can, if you really liked one of them!  But you don't have to.  You can take the conflict formula from this lesson and the character types from this lesson and the setting ideas from this lesson and put them together in some new way.

Up to you.

Your first draft is due Friday, March 20.  Once again, make it between 2,000 and 10,000 words.

Revising and Polishing

Wouldn’t it be nice if our stories and books came straight out of our heads onto the paper perfectly?  While there have been a few genius writers who never had to revise any of their writing, most of us are not geniuses.  Revising and polishing a story might seem boring, hard, or unimportant, but this is where a story really comes alive.

Here are some quotations from established authors to help you stay motivated while revising and polishing.  I like to keep these handy to encourage me whenever I’m reworking my own writing.

“Books aren’t written – they’re rewritten.  Including your own.  It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.”                                                                                                     – Michael Crichton

 

“I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I am simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.”                              – Shannon Hale

 

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”           – Terry Pratchett

 

“Good writing is essentially rewriting.  I am positive of this.”         – Roald Dahl

Do not feel badly that your stories need some revising and polishing!  Remind yourself that writing a story is a little like making soup – first, you gather your ingredients and put them in the soup pot.  That’s the first draft.  Then you get a spoon and taste your soup to see what it needs.  That’s like me reading your short stories and giving you some suggestions on what to change.  Then you open your spice cabinet and figure out what to add to the soup.  Salt?  Pepper?  Onion flakes?  Chili powder?  You add a little of this and a little of that – that’s revising.  Then you taste it again.  It’s still not quite right, so you toss in your favorite secret ingredient, whether that’s seasoning salt or garlic powder or oregano.  You taste the soup again, add something, taste again, and keep that up until it’s just right.  That’s your polishing phase.

When I shared the first version of my novella The Man on the Buckskin Horse with my writing mentor, she said it was boring and advised me to rewrite the whole thing.  I did.  I rewrote the whole 15,000-word novella from a different character’s perspective – I kept about five sentences from the original.  Then I polished up that new version (over and over) and submitted it to a story contest, and it won!  That was the beginning of my fairy tale retelling series.  If I had not rewritten that story, but submitted the original version, I’m quite sure I would have just received a “better luck next time” response. 

The good news is, I am probably not going to suggest you wholly rewrite your stories.  I’m just telling you that story so that, when you read my suggestions of what to fix or change, you can say, “At least I don’t have to rewrite the whole thing!” and breathe a sigh of relief.

There are three basic steps for revising and polishing any piece of writing, whether it’s an essay or a newspaper article or a short story or a novel.  They are:

1. Macro Revisions
2. Line Edits
3. Copy Edits

I'll explain each of those so that you can feel very confident about this process.

Macro Revisions

“Macro” means “big,” and this is the stage where you make the big changes.  This is where you fix plot holes, adjust character arcs, or even change what happens.

Start by having someone else read your whole story over and make some notes about things that don’t make sense, things that are not consistent or logical, and anything that seems unneeded.  (I’ll be doing this for you with the stories you turn in for this class.)  It’s really important to get someone else’s opinion on your work!  Your writing will make sense to you because you wrote it, so you will have a harder time noticing problems than another person will.

Once you get someone’s feedback, read through all their suggestions and notes, and then don’t touch your story for at least the rest of that day.  Let yourself think about their ideas.  Get used to the fact that you’re going to be changing your story.  Remind yourself that it was not a perfect story yet, just “good enough to start with,” and that you’re only going to make it better.

Next, figure out what you need to do to fix your story.  Maybe you need to practice writing dialog.  Or maybe you need to make your plot stronger, fix some inconsistencies, or rework how a character grows and changes over the course of the story.  Whatever it is that you need to revise, making a plan of how you’re going to do that will make the actual revisions a lot easier.  You can even write down some notes on what you plan to do so you don’t forget.

Once you have a plan, save a new copy of your story on the computer.  If your file was named something like “The Hunt for Happy Hollow,” just save a copy called “The Hunt for Happy Hollow 2,” for example.  Anything that lets you know that this is the file you are revising.  Saving it as a whole new file gives you the confidence that you are not losing anything.  You can always go back to the original and change things to how they were before, if you need to. 

Be sure to do all of your editing in your new file, not the original one!!! 

Line Edits

Once you have your story just the way you want it to be, with the characters and plot all solid and tidy, it’s time to start polishing!  The best way to do this step is to print out your whole story.  Then grab a colored pen, something bright like pink or red or green that you will notice when you are making notes on your printed story.  Then, read your story out loud.

Yes, out loud.  I said it, and I meant it.

Reading your story out loud is the best way to find the small, pesky glitches that you need to polish away so that your story is shining and beautiful.  You will notice the words you’ve used too often.  You will feel whether or not the dialog sounds natural.  You will find all kinds of mistakes by reading your book out loud.  I promise, it’s kind of magical.

Is it also time-consuming?  Yes.  I do this with every book I write, and with a full book, it takes me days and days.  Happily, you aren't writing books for this class, only short stories, so they shouldn’t really take very long to read out loud.

While you read out loud, take notes on your printed copy of things you want to change.  Circle errors, maybe scribble notes in the margins about things you want to fix, however it works best for you.  This is why it’s important to use a colored pen so you can easily find your notes, circles, crossed-out words, and so on.

Once you have read the whole story out loud and made all your notes, save another new copy of your story on your computer, naming it something like “The Hunt for Happy Hollow 3” so you know which file is your newest one.  Go through all your notes and make your edits inside that document.  Don’t forget to save it!!!

Copy Edits

This is the last step of polishing, and it is the least fun.  This is where you read the whole story one more time, word by word, checking for misspelled words, missing or misused punctuation, and formatting problems like forgetting to start a new paragraph every time a new person says a line of dialog.

It's a good idea to get help from a parent or sibling or friend with this step!  It is always a good idea to have someone look over your manuscript with fresh eyes to find any small typos or misspellings you might have overlooked.

Once you have fixed all your glitches, mistakes, misspellings, punctuation errors, and anything else you can find, you are DONE!!!  Save your story, print out a copy, and share it with the world.

Your Turn!

Take the notes I send you with your story and use this lesson as a guide for how to deal with my notes, and then to go beyond them.  You should try to be done with Macro Revisions and Line Edits by the end of this coming weekend, so Sunday, March 8.  Then you will have head space to write your next short story.  You will turn in your revised version to me that day so I can make any final suggestions and give you a grade.  IMPORTANT CHANGE: You now have until the end of Easter Break to revise both this story AND the next one you write.  I realized that it was unrealistic to expect you to revise them in just a week.

Short Story One -- Week Two

Your draft is due this Friday, February 27!  Get working!

Sparkler Magazine

Introducing: Sparkler!

Sparkler is a new e-magazine that two author friends of mine are starting.  (Check out their website here.) Their aim is to provide clean YA flash fiction for teens who want to read good, uplifting, creative fiction.

They also want to provide a place for teens to showcase their own creativity, which means that some issues will be seeking flash fiction written by teens!  We'll be writing a bit of flash fiction at the very end of this course, with the aim that you could craft a story good enough to submit to Sparkler for possible publication.

Sparkler will release quarterly.  Its first issue will drop this spring, but it will have only adult authors featured.  (I may or may not be one of them.)  They do have two introductory stories available right now, so readers (and authors) can get a feel for how good flash fiction works.  You can read those here.  The summer issue will be open for fiction submissions by teens in a few months.

The editors also plan to include reviews of clean YA books in every issue of the magazine, along with the new flash fiction stories.  And they want those reviews to be written by teens.  

Want to have your review(s) of a clean YA book (or books) you love featured in this magazine?  Check out this page to figure out how to do that.

You might also want to sign up for their newsletter.  Basically every page I linked to above has a spot where you can do exactly that.

Short Story One -- Week One

Well, we've spent six weeks learning what a story needs, how a story is built, and how to find ideas for stories.

Time to put that into practice.

You know those two fairy tale retellings you came up with last week?  Pick one of them and flesh it out into a full story.

This is a two-week project, so your finished first draft is due Friday, February 27.  And then you'll give them to me, and I'll read them and save them for later.  We won't actually work on revising them until mid-March, after a lesson on tips and tricks for revising and polishing your work.  I'll give you feedback on them by March 2 and again after you have revised them.

(Yeah, I changed up our schedule a bit again.)

How long should these short stories be?  How about between 2,000 and 10,000 words?  If they're longer than that, I won't have time to read them and give you feedback.

Since I am asking for a first draft, often called a rough draft, please be aware that these do NOT have to be beautiful.  They need a beginning, a middle, and an end.  They should make basic sense.  Don't worry about how pretty your writing is, or how electrifying your dialog is, or how fascinating your characters are.

My favorite piece of writing advice, of all time, is about first drafts.  Keep this in mind:

(I'm writing a first draft of a novel right now myself, and it's definitely just a box filled with sand so far.)

Gathering Ideas

Where do you get your ideas?

Every writer (and artist) gets that question once in a while, usually from someone who wants to learn to be a writer (or artist) themselves.

I don’t know about other writers (or artists), but my answer is:

Everywhere!

I get ideas for characters, plots, and settings when I am reading books, watching movies, looking at art, baking, cooking, sewing, folding laundry, or washing dishes.  I get ideas when I’m learning about history, learning about places far away, or learning more about the place I live in.

Many writers (and artists, I expect) keep an “idea journal” of some kind.  It’s a notebook or journal where they write down anything they think they might want to use for a future project.  Names, cool words, ideas for titles, facts, pictures, anything!  

You don't neeeeeeeeeeeeeeed to keep an idea journal, but you might want to try it.

Story Ideas on Demand

If you’re suddenly confronted with a school assignment where you’re supposed to write a story with little or no prep time, that does take some practice.  But if you remember that a story needs a protagonist with a want/need, an antagonist with a want/need, a setting, and a plot arc, that gets a little easier.  Grab a couple of character types, give them each a want/need that somehow are opposed to each other, plop them in a setting, and figure out how they go from the beginning through the middle to the end.

You might think I'm joking when I say that's all you really need.  I'm literally not.  When I got asked to write a book for a multi-author series two and a half years ago, I sat down and figured out which of the suggested fairy tales I could pop into a western setting, what kind of protagonist I could have and what she would want, what sort of antagonist would oppose her and her needs, and how the basic plot could go.  And that was all I needed to know in order to commit to retelling "The Ugly Duckling," which eventually became the novella A Noble Companion.

If you have an ideas notebook already, then you can draw from that for names of characters, plot ideas, settings, and so on.  It really helps you write better stories more quickly because you’re not starting with no ideas and nothing to work with.


Your Turn!

Assignment One: Imagine you're in my shoes from a couple years ago!  Figure out a protagonist with a want/need, an antagonist with a want/need, a setting, and a basic plot arc (beginning, climax, ending) for a retelling of your choice of TWO of the following fairy tales.  Put each one in a separate comment.

Cinderella
Beauty and the Beast
Rumplestiltskin
The Elves and the Shoemaker
Little Red Riding Hood
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves

Plot

Any story has three main parts: the Beginning, the Middle, and the End.

That may seem simplistic, but it’s true.  Think about some famous and wonderful stories for a minute, and break them into those pieces.

At the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke Skywalker lives on a farm on Tatooine.  In the middle, he leaves the farm and joins the Rebellion.  At the end, he destroys the Death Star and returns a hero.

At the beginning of The Adventures of Robin Hood, Robin Hood is a happy-go-lucky forester.  In the middle, he rebels against Prince John and his corrupt henchmen and becomes an outlaw.  At the end, he helps restore King Richard to the throne and is pardoned.

At the beginning of Peter Pan, Wendy and John and Michael live at home.  In the middle, they leave home and fly to Never-Neverland with Peter Pan.  At the end, they defeat Captain Hook and return home.

At the beginning of Cinderella, Ella lives happily with her parents.  In the middle, she lives unhappily with her step-mother and step-sisters.  At the end, she marries the prince.

Usually, the beginning and the end are shorter than the middle.  The beginning and most of the middle build up toward the climax, or high point of the story.  Luke attacking the Death Star; Robin Hood helping King Richard confront and defeat Prince John; Peter Pan arriving to rescue Wendy and her brothers from the pirates; and Ella dancing with the prince – those are the climaxes of their stories.  After the climax, the rest of the story is just about wrapping up what happens to everyone because of what happened during the climax.  We call that the “denouement” or “falling action”

 

Some stories are simple and build steadily toward the climax like a straight line.  Only one big thing happens during the story, like Cinderella finally getting to go to the ball.

Some stories are not so simple.  There might be lots of small things that are more like stair steps leading up to the climax.  Robin Hood stops some bad guys from beating a poor man, confronts Prince John and his henchmen and escapes, falls in love and sneaks into the castle to see Maid Marian, captures some bad guys, wins an archery tournament, gets captured, is rescued, and rescues King Richard.  In between each big and exciting thing that happens, things get a little calmer again, but the action is always steadily climbing up and up toward the climax. 

We call each of those steps “rising action.”

These are obviously simplified diagrams, but they give you the general idea of how a plot works, at least.

Now, what drives a plot?  Problems and conflicts.  Remember what we talked about a few weeks ago, about a protagonist and an antagonist wanting or needing different things, and that creates conflict?  Conflict creates a plot.

Anne Shirley wants to be accepted and loved for who she is, but Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert want to adopt a boy.  Anne Shirley wants to forget her hair is red, but Gilbert Blythe teases her about her red hair to get her attention.  Anne Shirley wants to be best friends with Diana Barry, but Mrs. Barry thinks Anne got Diana drunk and forbids them to be friends. 

Problems can also create plots.  In the movie Mary Poppins, Jane and Michael Banks are so naughty that no nanny will take care of them for more than a few weeks before leaving.  Their parents have a problem: they need a new nanny for their children.  When Mary Poppins answers the advertisement for a new nanny, her ways of caring for children cause some new problems… but ultimately help solve the family’s real problem, which is that the parents don’t spend enough time with their own children.

Your Turn!

Assignment One:  Can you figure out the plot structure of these stories?  Put your answers in separate comments, one for each story.

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
"Jack and the Beanstalk"
"Beauty and the Beast"

Be sure to include the beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and ending.

Assignment Two: Take a look at the sets of protagonists and antagonists you created back during the first week of class, during the Conflict lesson.  Pick three pairs and come up with three different problems for each pair based on their conflicting wants and needs.  Make them the kinds of problems that it might be interesting to write a story about.  No need to share these here yet, but hang onto them -- we'll be working with them more in the future.

Dialog

Dialog is people talking to each other.  When you write dialog, a character’s words need to go inside quotation marks.  Everything else you write about how they talk, who is talking, and what they’re doing while they talk – those go outside the quotation marks.  For example:

“I love chocolate,” Emily said.  She took a bite of her Hershey’s bar and added, “Especially milk chocolate.” 

You can use dialog in a lot of ways, particularly:

·       to develop your characters,
·       to move your plot along, and
·       to explore your setting

Character Development

A character’s background and personality should make their dialog distinctive.  For example, these three sentences are basically the same, but each have a different flavor that can tell readers things about those characters:

“Nah, I didn’t hear anything last night except the same old crickets we always got around here.”

“No, indeed, I heard nothing last night besides the usual crickets that are indigenous to this area.”

“Nope, all I heard last night were crickets, same as always.”

Don’t each of those give you an idea of what the person saying the words would be like?  You can tell something about their age, their education, and so on.  A cowboy from 1875 will use different words and phrases than a doctor in 1950 or a child in 2022.  The setting of your story will determine some of the language your characters use, which will also help you make your characters interesting.

When you’re writing dialog for your characters, especially in a short story, it’s a good idea to try to have each character sound unique in some way.  That will help keep your readers interested and help them get to know your characters faster.  It will also keep readers from getting confused about who is talking in a long conversation. 

Plot Development

Do your protagonist and your antagonist meet face to face?  What they talk about can move your plot forward.

          “You’ve robbed your last bank, Joker,” Batman growled.
          “That’s what you think!” cackled the Joker.
          “What’s that supposed to mean?”
          “Why don’t you call Commissioner Gordon and ask him how the Second Bank of Gotham is doing today?”
          Batman protested, “But you can’t have robbed that bank too – I’ve been following you all day!”
          “Maybe that’s true, and maybe it isn’t.”  The Joker grinned smugly.

Are your protagonist and a sidekick working together to solve a problem?  Their dialog can tell readers what they’re doing, rather than you just describing it.

        Frank said, “Hey, Joe, can you hand me that wrench?  I think I found a loose bolt.”
        “Think that’s what was causing the leak?”  Joe gave him the wrench.
        “Could be.  Yup, I think that’s stopped it, all right.”    

        “Finally!  Maybe we can take a break and get lunch now.”
        Frank wiped his hands on an old rag.  “Is it lunch time already?  Wow.”

        “I know,” Joe agreed.  “Can’t believe we spent all morning on this.”

Is your protagonist trying to learn something?  Have them ask questions of another character that might have answers for them!

There are lots and lots of ways to use dialog to move your plot forward.  These are only a few ideas.

Setting Development

If you have a really unique or unusual setting, you could use dialog to help explain or describe it.  “What in the world is that swirly blue pattern in the sky?” is more interesting than simply writing out A swirly blue pattern appeared in the sky.  If you have a character who is new to a world or setting, you can have them ask questions of other characters to help explain what their surroundings are like without having to describe everything in detail.

            “Wait, is that a centaur?” asked Maria.
            “I think so,” her friend Louise agreed.
            “I’ve never seen a centaur before.  Look how gracefully he runs!”
            “I think he heard us!  Quick, let’s hide behind this tree.  He looks kind of mean.”

That conversation is a lot more interesting than stating: Maria and Louise saw a centaur running gracefully through the forest.  The centaur looked mean, and the girls were afraid of him.

A Warning:

Be careful to avoid what are sometimes called “As you know, Bob” conversations.  Don’t have characters tell each other things about the world they’re in or the things they’re doing that they should already know, just so you can explain things to the audience.  For example:

        “As you know, Bob,” said Phil, “we’re really famous singers, so the audience will be excited to see us come out and sing our songs.”  He checked his straw hat to make sure the blue ribbon around it was straight. 
        “Yes,” Bob agreed as he finished tying his shoes.  “And don’t forget that our most popular song is ‘Blue Skies,’ so we’ll be sure to sing that first.”

Bob and Phil already know those things about themselves and their audience.  Having them discuss those things sounds very fake and silly because readers can easily tell that the author is just trying to use dialog to tell them things.  You can put that kind of information into dialog, but you have to be a little more creative.


        “Boy, that audience sure sounds excited,” Phil said as he checked over his straw hat to make sure the blue ribbon around it was straight.  “They’re laughing and gabbing so much, I can hear them backstage.”
        “Yeah, I heard them too.”  Bob finished tying his shoes.  “I’m getting sick of singing ‘Blue Skies’ every night, though.  If I’d known how popular it was going to get, I would have never agreed to record it with you.”

See?  That sounds like an actual conversation two people might have, and it still conveyed a lot of the same information.

Your Turn!

The best way to get good at writing dialog, like anything else, is to practice.  Pay attention to the way people around you talk.  Listen to actors and actresses in movies and TV shows, and see how they use their words to move the plot along, to explain the setting, or to develop their characters. 

Assignment One: Read a scene with a lot of dialog in three of your favorite books and notice if the authors write dialog that sounds the way real people talk.

Assignment Two: Write a conversation!  Pick two of these character types and write some dialog in which they are discussing what to make for breakfast.  Put your conversation in a comment here.

A Hero           A Heroine       A Trickster     A Guardian    A Mentor        A Mother

A Damsel       An Outlaw      A Sidekick      A Villain         A Ruler           A Rebel

See if you can use your dialog to create a little plot (what problem do they need to solve?), work in a bit of the setting if you can, and see if you can give us a good sense of who these characters are.  Don’t forget to start a new paragraph every time you switch speakers!  (You don't have to indent them in a comment here -- that will be very clunky.  Instead, leave one full blank line between each paragraph.)

The Mechanics of Dialog

This is just some handy reference material for you, in case you need a refresher.  There are no assignments in this post!  It's just here for you to refer to if you need it.

The Mechanics of Dialog

1.     Use quotation marks to enclose the exact words of someone who is speaking. This is a direct quotation.

“Your friend Mandi is on the phone,” Emily’s mom said.

 

2.     Do not use quotation marks if you are not writing out the exact words someone spoke.

Emily’s mom said her friend Mandi called.

 

3.     Capitalize the first word of a line of dialog. 

Mandi asked, “How are you today, Emily?”

If the dialog is interrupted by other words, the second part should not begin with a capital letter unless the second part is the beginning of a new sentence or is a word that would be capitalized anyway.

“Oh,” said Emily, “not so great.”

“That’s too bad,” Mandi said.  “What’s going on?”

“Well, the truth is,” Emily answered, “I ate too much Halloween candy.”

 

4.     The exact words of the person speaking should be set off from the rest of the sentence by using a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point between the dialog and the rest of the sentence.

“How much candy did you eat?” Mandi asked.

“Only seventeen pieces,” Emily answered.

“Oh my goodness!” Mandi exclaimed.

 

5.     Punctuation at the end of a line of dialog ALWAYS goes INSIDE the closing quotation marks.

“I think you will feel better if you go for a walk,” Mandi suggested.

Emily asked, “Will you come on a walk with me, then?”

“Sure!” Mandi agreed.  “That sounds fun.”

 

6.     When you write a conversation, begin a new paragraph EVERY TIME the speaker changes

      “I really like taking walks in the fall,” Emily said.  She and Mandi walked side-by-side down the sidewalk. 
      “Me too.”  Mandi shuffled through an especially crunchy patch of leaves.  “It’s the best time to go on a walk.   
      Emily said, “We should do this more often!”

 

7.     A dialog tag is the part of the sentence that tells you who is speaking, and how they are speaking.  The tag can go before the dialog, after the dialog, or in the middle of the dialog.

          “I have an idea,” Peter said.
          James asked, “What kind of an idea?”
          “Well,” Peter explained, “what if we built a huge pile of leaves, hid inside it, and jumped out and scared people walking down the sidewalk?”

  

8.     You don’t always have to use dialog tags!  If you’re writing a conversation between two people, just use dialog tags often enough so people know who is saying what.

“I think that’s a great idea!” James agreed.
            “Cool! Let’s do it,” Peter said.  “I’ll go get a rake.”
            “I’ll get one too!”
            “Meet you back here in five minutes?”
            “Sounds good!”

 

9.     If the sentences around your dialog are NOT dialog tags (they don’t inform the reader of who is speaking and how they are speaking), then you use a period, question mark, or exclamation point at the end of the sentences, not a comma.

          “This is hard work!” Peter dropped his rake.
         James dropped his too.  “But it was worth it! Look at our huge mountain of leaves!”
          “Quick, let’s burrow into it.  I think I see some girls coming.”  Peter dropped to his knees behind the leaf pile.