Story Writing Hints
By
Gerald D. O’Nan
Author of the
Adventures of Andy Ant Books
(Note: I will try to give you hints and ideas about writing stories using the 8 books in The Adventures of Andy Ant as examples. Having a set of the Andy Ant books available will help you understand the context better, but it isn’t necessary if you have a good imagination.)
Story Conversation – Emotion, Action, and Excitement in Dialog
Dialog is the conversation that takes place in your story. Your reader gets to “hear” what the characters are saying. Dialog can make the story much more exciting. In addition to creating action with the dialog, you can build emotions and feelings by hearing what the characters are saying.
As a quick primer on creating dialog, remember that it is identified in the story by using quotation marks. Other punctuation marks – commas, question marks, exclamation points – all help the reader understand the intent of the conversation. Likewise, a descriptive reference other than the proverbial, “he said,” or “she said,” gives the reader even more direction.
For example:
“Andy, guess what!!” I shouted as I ran over to the sidewalk.
“What’s going on,” Andy said.
Finally, Dad asked, “Are you ready for another soda pop, Joey?”
“I don’t think so,” Andy began, “You know the trouble we’ve had when we didn’t obey our parents.”
Be careful to not overuse “said.” While using “said” easily identifies the speaker, it is very neutral and doesn’t offer any emotion or movement. Using “said” isn’t bad, just don’t overuse it and it can slow down the action in the story. However, sometimes you want to use “said” so the action is slowed a bit.
Mix up the dialog in your sentences. In other words, don’t always start your dialog at the same place in every sentence. In the example, above, the dialog started and ended at the beginning of the first two sentences (Jimmy and Steve). Chelsey’s dialog started at the end of the sentence and Raymond’s dialog was at the beginning and end of the sentence.
Make a “cheat sheet” of substitute words for “said.” Here are just a few examples of words that can reflect the feelings of your characters and some of the words that I kept on my cheat sheet when I was writing: yelled, screamed, shouted, muttered, cried, wept, sobbed, proclaimed, stammered, whispered, uttered… and your list can go on and on.
When you imagine how your character is speaking or feeling the words describing the tone of the voice or the emotion can often be expressed through the dialog. Think about how the person might sound in real life or think about how the person might feel in real life.
Copyright © 2023 by Gerald D. O’Nan All Rights Reserved. No part of this document may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the expressed written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
