- Introduction
- Protagonists and Antagonists
- Timeline of Events
Using Dialogue- Task
Using Dialogue
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Most children's short stories include dialogue, or conversations between characters. Good dialogue makes a story more interesting and advances the action between characters. Dialogue gives the reader the feeling that they are there listening to the characters as they speak. There are a few simple rules to follow when including dialogue in a story: |
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First, make sure you use quotation marks. Quotation marks will make it very clear that the words are being spoken by a character in your story. Look at the sentence below to see how the quotation marks help identify the sentence:
Second, make sure you identify the character who is doing the talking or your readers will get confused. Notice how this helps the quote below:
Third, make sure you begin a new paragraph whenever the speaker changes in a section of dialogue. This will make the dialogue easier to follow and will make your short story grammatically correct. Notice how beginning a new paragraph helps the reader follow the dialogue as if they were standing right in the middle of the action: Kelsey looked at him with a cold, mean stare and said, "I can't believe you could do such a thing!" Pay close attention to the paragraph above. Notice how the dialogue is punctuated and notice that a newly indented paragraph begins each time the speaker changes. |
You are encouraged to use dialogue in your children's short story, but you must punctuate it properly.
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