There are many components to writing a story—plot, conflict, climax, characters, setting, resolution, theme—and the list can go on. Some say there are only five parts that need to be put together for a story, but there are many elements that a writer needs to look at. One of them is my hardest element to implement: Dialogue.
Dialogue is something that I have always struggled with for three specific reasons.
One, the tone. I mostly write sci-fi and fantasy stories/novels, so to bring a new way of speaking into the mix, it is hard to get into the habit of not adding the normal slang or informal speech into your writing that you use every day in conversation.
Example: In my 2013 NaNoWriMo novel, I have stopped myself from writing partial or complete phrases like “this kind of stuff”, but others have made their way in like “give it a try”.
It’s hard to write dialogue to sound as if someone else is talking one way when you yourself speak another. This is obviously a piece about writing that I am still learning about, and it should get easier, but it can definitely cause a rift in the flow of...