Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A How can one write good dialogue in a story without sounding wooden?

Dialog in a story serves to advance the story or develop character. I’ve been taught that dialog isn’t conversation as much as its the ‘best of conversation.’ It condenses while it evoke emotions...

posted 5y ago by EDL‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:25:32Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46547
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar EDL‭ · 2019-12-08T12:25:32Z (almost 5 years ago)
Dialog in a story serves to advance the story or develop character.

I’ve been taught that dialog isn’t conversation as much as its the ‘best of conversation.’ It condenses while it evoke emotions. It informs while obfuscating falsehoods, making them seem true and vice versa.

If you are unsure about your characters dialog when you work your draft, you can either just go nutz and write it all out without trying to make it really good and pity, or you can just summarize your goal as a writer what you want to happen as a result of this dialog.

Later, you can rework it once you have a better perspective on the characters or events.

I find the more momentum I can maintain writing dialog the easier it is develop.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-07-10T19:51:13Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 5