by Lucy E. Zahnle

Created on: October 16, 2009

Many writers struggle with dialogue in their stories and articles. On the one hand, dialogue should sound natural like a conversation. On the other hand, real conversations tend to wander off the point, to be filled with "ers" and "uums," or to take a long time to reach that all-important revelation. In order to keep the readers' interest, dialogue in a story must move faster than real speech, revealing that important plot point or character trait before the readers give up in boredom or frustration and toss the story aside.

As hard as it is to write concise, but natural sounding dialogue, it can be even harder to write dialogue where the speaker discusses one topic, pauses, then switches to another topic or dialogue where the speaker is mellow and laid back one minute, then devastated or excited the next. One way to create this effect in a story is to use attributes and descriptions. Attributes are those phrases that identify a speaker. For instance, "he said," "she shouted," and "George insisted," are all attributes.

Descriptive passages can also be used as attributes. Descriptive passages are the parts of a story that describe a scene or a character's clothes, movements, or expressions. Instead of placing a "he said" or "she said" attribute before or after a character's quote, place a description of an action the character performs before or after the quote. Here are some examples:

"I don't want your money!" His eyes flashing, Alex flung the coins in Stephie's face.

Sarah waved them away with a long-suffering sigh. "Go, if you must! I will stay here and do all the work alone."

Placing attributes and descriptions in particular places in the dialogue can change the pace of the characters' conversation. If a child is excited about the arrival of a relative, then the relative's car passes the child's house without stopping, then returns, the dialogue for the child character might be excited, then disappointed, then excited again. Placing attributes and descriptions between each of the mood changes can indicate to the readers that the pace of the dialogue is shifting. Here is an example:

Marta hopped down the stairs, two at a time, her face glowing, her smile stretching from ear to ear. "Grandpa's coming today! Grandpa's coming!" she sang to her mother as she ran to the living room window. She pressed her face against the cold glass for a moment before pulling away from it. "We're gonna play games and go fishing and buy ice cream! It's gonna be ever so fun! I

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