Vocabulary: Words and Meanings Related to Writing Conversation

Attribution is an indication of the speaker, the"he said/she said" part of the sentence.

Dialogue refers to the talking that goes on between the characters in a story.

Quotation Marks are used to set off the exact words of a speaker.

Single Quotes indicate a quotation within a quotation.

Direct quotes are the speaker's actual words;
indirect quotes tell us what had been said.

 

Guidelines for Developing Dialogue*
(Excerpted and used with permission
from TheWrite Source 2000)

*Use words which your characters would actually use if they were able to speak. (Remember that people express what they have to say in different ways.)

*Get rid of any dialogue that just kills time. (There should always be a purpose for the dialogue -- to reveal character, to setup a surprise, to intensify the action, or to lead toward a resolution.)

*Most of the dialogue should be about the speaker's beliefs or problems. (Generally one speaker's beliefs clash with another's. This adds drama to the story.)

Writing Dialogue
What are different purposes and ways that dialogue can be used in a story?

*Write the dialogue as speakers actually speak. (People often interrupt each other in conversation, and, at other times, talk past or ignore each other.)

*Stop the conversation at the right spot. (The characters don't have to say everything. Leave some things to the reader's imagination.)

*Write and punctuate the dialogue so it is easy to read. (Indent every time someone new speaks and identify the speaker if it isn't clear who is talking.)

 

*Write Source 2000: A Guide to Writing, Thinking,&Learning.
Copyright © 1990 by Great Source Education Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

Instead of "he said/she said"...

Keep your writing interesting by varying placement of the attribution, adding description to these tags, or occasionally leaving out or replacing the word "said." Caution! Replacing "said" with unnecessarily descriptive words can also become a distraction so use them with care!


thesaurus.com

admit, advise, agree, announce, answer, argue, ask ...
bar, beg, bellow, blab, bluster ...
call, challenge, command, comment, communicate, complain, cry, curse ...
debate, declare, demand, discuss, dispute, divulge ...
exclaim, explain, express ...
giggle, growl, grumble, gurgle ...
hint, hoot ...
indicate, inquire, interrogate ...
laugh, lecture ...
mention, mouth, mumble, murmur, muse, mutter ...
nagged, narrate ...
order ...
persuade, proclaim, pronounce, propose, protest ...
query, question, quote ...
read, recite, recommend, refer, remark, repeat, reply, report, request, respond, retort, reveal, roared ...
scream, screech, shout, shriek, sign, snort, speak, spit, squawk, squeak, state, suggest ...
tell, thought aloud ...
urge, utter ...
verbalize, vocalize, voice ...
whimper, whine, whisper, wish, wonder ...
yap, yell ...

 

Return to Miss Mitschelen's page

or

Page last updated September 2008.
Please e-mail any questions or suggestions.