Thread by @GCSE_Macbeth

Creative Writing and Teaching Students How To Write Dialogue.

I have some thoughts.

1/

First of all, embrace SAID.

My Year 7s today reported that Primary teachers had banned the word "said" to describe speech. They had encouraged students to "uplevel" SAID to ASKED, ENQUIRED, EXCLAIMED, SHOUTED, CRIED, EXPOSTULATED etc.

This is really silly advice.

2/

Pick up the nearest novel by a real life writer and you'll see SAID is used as the verb for speech 9 times out of 10.

Uplevelling every SAID to a more colourful verb is like changing every adjective for a metaphor. It soon gets annoying.

3/

Two things to note:

1. It should be obvious from the situation, the description and the words what the speaker's tone of voice is.
AND
2. Often you don't need a verb after the speech at all.

4/

I was encouraging students today to preface their speech with interest description of their characters. They will naturally default to beginning with speech.

5/

BAD WRITING:

"Go away!" shouted Telemachos.
"How will I get all these suitors out of my house?" asked Penelope.
"I don't know, mum. I wish Dad would get back to Ithaca," replied Telemachos.

6/

GOOD WRITING:

Telemachos stood in the doorway, his anger rising at the crowd of suitors until he couldn't hold it in. "Go away!" he shouted.
Penelope laid a hand on his shoulder, but her voice was weary. "How will I get these suitors out of my house?"
"I don't know, mum."

7/

See how it was better to front-load each line with character action? And I only needed one speech verb.

"Asked" is often redundant if it's a question.
"Replied" is often redundant if it's obvious they're replying.
"Said" is often redundant full stop.

8/

Starting with the verb and the attribution always seems to suck mightily, either with a comma:

Telemachos said, "I wish Dad would get back to Ithaca."

or a colon:

Telemachos screamed: "Get out of my house!"

They both always seem terrible. Avoid.

9/

And use adverbs VERY sparingly. Here's the thing:

I shouldn't have to wait until AFTER I've read the speech to know how it was suppoed to be said.

"Why are all these suitors here?" asked Telemachos, angrily.

I should already KNOW that he's angry before I read his speech.

10/

And finally, explicitly teach participle verbs, which give that crucial bit of extra info:

"How will I get all these suitors out of my house?" sighed Penelope, ARRANGING her face into a mask of determination.

(since I elaborated on it, I decided "sighed" was allowable)

11/

Anyway, that's just a few ideas about writing dialogue, a high-level skill which few students do well.

Goodnight!

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