A little room to wonder

Dialogue & Speech

Dialogue is selected speech within a story. Clear attribution and purposeful exchanges let it reveal information or change an action without transcribing every word a conversation might contain.

What changes in a scene because a character speaks?

A 1902 cover of The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, showing a rabbit in a blue jacket.
A book cover can introduce a character without showing dialogue. The paper-puzzle exchange is original fiction, not a passage from The Tale of Peter Rabbit.Beatrix Potter, 1902; scan via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain. · Source · Public domain

Give an exchange a job

Dialogue can reveal a plan, raise a useful question or change what another character knows. A greeting may belong in a scene, but a long exchange that changes nothing can slow the action. Choose the part of a conversation the reader needs.

Direct speech represents a character’s exact invented words. Reported speech summarises them, such as “Mira asked for the square piece”. Both can be useful; neither is automatically more lively or effective.

Keep the speaker and action clear

A speech tag identifies the speaker: “Mira said”. An action sentence can also establish who is present, but the punctuation works differently. In Australian Government style, short direct speech normally uses single quotation marks; fiction publishers may follow another consistent house style.

Begin a new paragraph when the speaker changes. Avoid adding a new tag to every line if the exchange is already clear, but do not force a reader to count backwards to work out who asked the question.

Worked example: an original paper-puzzle exchange

An invented scene reads: ‘Does the triangle go here?’ Mira asked. ‘Turn it once,’ said Jo. Mira rotated the paper outline. ‘Now the long edges meet.’ The question identifies uncertainty; the response suggests a change; the final line reports the visible result.

A weaker version adds repeated greetings and several lines saying “I am doing the puzzle” before the same question. Removing those lines preserves the useful exchange. The revision changes pace, not the fictional puzzle’s rule or outcome.

A fictional line is not a real person’s testimony

Invented dialogue should stay clearly fictional. Do not attribute words to a real person or present a made-up conversation as evidence. No recording, interview or personal disclosure is required here.

Characters can speak differently without caricaturing a language, accent or community. Word choice, sentence length and what a character chooses to ask offer alternatives to exaggerated spelling.

Only if you feel like trying

Write a purposeful fictional exchange.

  1. Copy the supplied exchange using a new line for each change of speaker, or read it silently.
  2. Add one useful question that changes the next action rather than repeating known information.
  3. Rewrite the whole exchange as one sentence of reported speech and explain what detail is lost.

Optional. Use the supplied fictional example, pencil and paper, or explain your choices aloud. No personal story, account, purchase, public sharing or contact is needed.