Friday, November 8, 2013

It's All In The Dialogue

I've been thinking about words a lot recently, since I watched Educating Yorkshire, a fly-on-the-wall documentary set in a High School. In the very last episode it featured a boy with a stammer who struggled to get a word out, yet was about to sit an English oral exam. This young man had great future aspirations, as he explained via computer. With the help of his teacher, who came up with the idea of him listening to music through headphones, he finally managed to read out his essay. When that same boy read a speech on their final day in school there were lots and lots of tears, from his peers, teachers and everyone watching. Me included.

We all take words for granted and often underestimate the power of them. They can make you smile, they can sting, and some words you never forget.

As a writer it reminded me of how lucky I am. I can create words and characters. The dialogue for characters can make you love or loathe them. The exciting thing about dialogue is that you can create a personality. Your hero or heroine can say things you never would. They can literally say anything - but it has to be in character. It has to come with some background to give an insight into why they would say that. I'm a huge fan of One Liner's. But if it doesn't come with a reason for it you can take your hero to zero in a second.

So what's your favourite one-liner? Who remembers "Nobody puts Baby in the corner"? My personal favourite of this week is the very drool worthy Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries. Damon's enemy is questioning his likeability. His response - "That's because you haven't had sex with me." The character Damon has the best one-liner's and he gets away it because we know his angsty past. It also helps that he has the most gorgeous eyes ever and often wears a towel ;-)

And on the subject of insights...The Beachwalk Press authors are busy chatting away on our Beachwalk Press Readers' Group on Facebook. Join us if you'd like to find out more about our authors and get a chance to win some giveaways. Hope to see you there.


Happy Friday everyone.
~ Tracey

2 comments:

  1. I 200% agree that dialogue makes the characters and for that matter the book/story too in my opinion. If I start a book and there isn't any character dialogue within the two pages, it's highly unlikely I'm going to finish the book. I've 'tried' to read books were entire Chapters were almost all within the character's head and I was bored to tears.

    My favorite one-liner(s). Bruce Willis' signature one liner in all the Die Hard movies. "Yippee ki-yay motherfucker."

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    1. That's a great one Will. A character who uses few words but makes them count!

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