Writing Dialogue (Paperback)

by Tom Chiarella (Author) "The world is crowded with voices..." (more)
Key Phrases: misdirected dialogue, modulated dialogue, dat pie, Norma Jean, Anna Sergeyevna, Christopher Columbus (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Characters need to speak to each other, but writers often have trouble crafting dialogue that sounds aut hentic and original. Whether it''s an argument or a love scen e, Chiarella demonstrates how to write exchanges that sound realistic. '

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Story Press (February 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884910327
• ISBN-13: 978-1884910326
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #50,070 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Valuable Resource, May 13, 2000

By	Deborah A. Woehr (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is great to have if you feel you need to improve the dialogue in your fiction. It is written with a conversational style throughout. Chiarella points out that real-time dialogue is not the same as fictional dialogue. By listening to other people talk (as well as myself), I find that he is quite correct. He teaches you how to push your story forward with dialogue, when to make your character talk (or shut up), and gives good examples of 'tennis court talking' or dialogue that goes nowhere. This book is a very good resource for my shelf.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Learn to Listen, June 19, 2001

By	Russell Diederich (Littleton, CO United States) - See all my reviews

Dialogue is the hardest thing to write. A story shines when it is done well. When the dialogue is bad, no one can wait to put the book down. Many of us never realize that dialogue happens all around us every day. The number one lesson that Tom Chiarella teaches in this book is learn to listen to this dialogue. Listen to how people talk. Write down what people say. Write down what you say. Listen.

This book was the best that I have read on dialogue yet. Chiarella writes with a simple style that feels like you're actually talking to him about dialogue while sitting over a cup of coffee. At the end of each chapter he provides a few exercises to practice the ideas that he talked about.

Pay particular attention to his first chapter on learning how to listen, and his "Nuts and Bolts" chapter. His chapter on "Writing for Radio, TV and Movies," provides some good ideas even if you are not writing for that medium. This is one of the better texts on writing, and I will hold on to this one for some time.

63 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Massaging Your Technique, March 19, 2004

By	Carolyn Howard-Johnson "Author 'This is the P... (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, award-winning author of This is the Place and Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered

Writing Dialogue has convinced me that even experienced writers should massage their technique by frequently reading a good book by an expert-preferably someone who teaches at a credible university like author Tom Chiarella. Like a good rubdown refreshes cranky old bones, such a habit will rejuvenate perspective and technique. For beginners it will work like essential balm, teach what even careful reading sometimes fails to disclose.

The reason that I am so sure of this is that I had occasion to spruce up an excerpt from my first novel This is the Place. Connie Gotsch, host of a literary program on KSJE, a radio station that caters to classical music lovers in the four corners area, asked me to read from both my books. It reminded me of the days when the whole world tuned into drama a la The Haunting Hour and Fibber McGee and Molly.I decided the chapter should be trimmed so it would entertain in the same way that these programs had in the Golden Age of Radio.

I had just read Writing Dialogue and was surprised at how many changes I made in my already published dialogue as I was trimming the except. Before reading it, I was convinced that it wouldn't teach me much. I've studied long and hard, done my homework. That turned out to be hubris. The changes I made were subtle to be sure, a kind of tweaking that would not have been possible without Chiarella's insight.

Chiarella covers everything from grammar and the punctuation of dialogue to listening. He is most valuable, however, when he dissects dialogue and paints pictures of whole new ways to hear it, then to write it. He even includes tips like having characters interrupt themselves, back up and repeat and suggests ways this can be used to better characterization.

Writers should not borrow this book from the library. It will be better read, dog tagged, underlined and sitting on their desks where they can reach for a kind of writing-massage on a moment's notice.

(Carolyn Howard-Johnson will teach at UCLA's Writers' Program in the fall of 2004. She is the author of two award winning books, THIS IS THE PLACE, and HARKENING. Her work in progress is THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T.)