Speak, I say!
Let's Write the Night AwayTalk To Me
okokokokok I know I said I was going to write about plotting, but I'm not quite in the mood to research and I don't even how know to word how to english and how to life. so I'm here to talk about dialogues. I know, it may seem simple like 'oh all I need are quotation marks, right?' yeah. but you just HAVE to butcher it somehow don't you. I'm just kidding, I personally feel dialogues can be alot more difficult than you think.
A little ironic, considering how we use diaogues all day erryday. Anyway, shall we move on?
Basic Grammar
Generally speaking, when writing a narrative and you want to show the readers that your charater(s) are speaking, you would put quotation marks, which for those of you who do not know, they look like this: " " (More like this, if you would like a better look)
Simple, right?
However, if there is a conversation going on between two (2) or more people, people seem to forget that you always need to start a new paragraph everytime someone new speaks.
So, instead of:
"Hyung, did you take out the trash," Seungri said. "Yeah," Gdragon replied. "No you didn't, you liar," Taeyang turned to glare at the leader."I did it for you," "Hyung! How could you!" Seungri gasped
It's suppose to be:
"Hyung, did you take out the trash?" Seungri said.
"Yeah," Jiyong replies
"No you didn't, you liar," Taeyang turned to glare at the leader. "I did it for you,"
"Hyung! How could you!" Seungri gasped
It's an overly simplistic example, some people don't even bother putting names after every dialogue. Which really isn't necessary-- we'll get to that later. But can you see how crowded and confusing it'll get if you kept it all in one paragraph? Remember what we said in Easy on the Eyes. We have to space things out because appearence matters.
However, I understand why some people would decide to cluster it all into one paragraph because I had the same problem as well, back in grade school whenever I had a writing assignment.
The reason why I personally did it was because atfirst, I really didn't know. I don't know why it just didn't make sense to me. The second reason after I was informed was because my narratives lacked hugely in detail. Seriously. I would show you if I wasn't so embaressed let's never talk about this again ok.
We'll go into more detail about details in the next chapter. However, all I can simply say now is that you shouldn't wear words out and change up what the words should be instead 'said' or 'replied', so on and so forth.
Have some helpful links!: More words other than ask(Complete with examples, too), Words other than whispered, other than said, Even more
Go on, google is your good friend.
Replies
Alright, I know this may be dumb as well, but you have no idea how many peeves I have about this. It's like an all new level of bumdling things up. They're not exactly breaking any rules of grammar but they just manage to make things sound horrible awkward. I don't know if the writers ever really realize this but it sort of really gives me goosebumps in a bad way. A really bad way.
Here's my peeve: when the first character asks two questions at once and the second character answers them as two seperate things. LIKE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN THIS THANK THE LOARD FOR EXAMPLES
"Minzy! Are you finished with your choreography for today? Wait, how did your math homework go? Did you finish it? Do you need any help, I know I graduated a few years ago, but don't worry. Everything's still in my head."
"Yes, Chaerin, I finished my math homework. Don't worry about it. Oh, and yeah. I'm done with choreo for today, it went really well,"
I just---
know that although none of you leave me comments and everything I still love you all and I would like to help some people improve, but I just can't muster up a proper example but they're something along the lines of this and I'm not willing to find one anywhere.
Like, it just sounds really awkward to bring up the first question after the second question just took everything over. I don't remember what I was reading, but it sort of drove me to pull up a word doc and type up a lesson. Half of one, anyway.
I actually see alot of people do this, and they're ususually the ones that lack detail. If I've done this or not, I really don't remember but I couldn't find one in my old stories.
This should always just be avoided because I personally find that it ruins the flow of the story and it's just flat our awks. LIKE. You just shoved. two. completely. unrelated things. into one. why. It would be alot more easing, if 'oh and' or 'and also' wasn't used as a conjuction and would make more sense if it was used to explain something. Like:
"Can you recommend me to a good restaurant?"
"Oh, there's one down the street," Pie said, pointing to her left. "If you just turn right. It's an Italian style restaurant, personally, I love it. There's another good restaurant downtown, it's called insert title here. Oh, and there's a whole street of restaurants. And also, I am a talking pie,"
Like, that sounds less awkward than using those words to answer two different questions.
Though sometimes, people just do it anyway because it makes sense to ask two questions. So, the solution that I personally found to it is just to add detail and probably just anwer them in chronological order like:
"Minzy," Chaerin's eyes brightened seeing the other. She opened her arms for a hug. Minzy raised a slight brow, knowing that it has only been an hour or a two since she had last saw the older but she didn't complain as she walked straight into the blonde's arms. "How did the chereography go? Done for the day? Did you manage to finsh your homework as well?"
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