Dialogue in writing
literary element; a verbal exchange between two or more characters
Dialogue, in literature, is conversation between two or more characters. If there is only one character talking, it is a monologue. Dialogue plays a role in making characters in literature more believable to the reader, by allowing them to voice their internal thoughts.
Usage
In their book Writing Fiction, Janet Burroway, Elizabeth Stuckey-French and Ned Stuckey-French say dialogue is a direct basic method of character presentation, which plays an essential role in bringing characters to life by voicing their internal thoughts. When significant or dramatic events are happening, dialogue can be written in direct quotation. Otherwise, speech can either be summarized as part of the narrative or written as indirect speech which is useful to get to the core of a scene.
In The Craft of Writing (1979), American writer of fantasy and science fiction William Sloane wrote:
There is a tentative rule that pertains to all fiction dialogue. It must do more than one thing at a time or it is too inert for the purposes of fiction.
In The Craft of Fiction (1921), British essayist Percy Lubbock (1879–1965) wrote:
The novelist may give the very words that were spoken by his characters, the dialogue, but of course he must interpose on his own account to let us know how the people appeared, and where they were, and what they were doing. If he offers nothing but the bare dialogue, he is writing a kind of play; just as a dramatist, amplifying his play with 'stage-directions' and putting it forth to be read in a book, has really written a kind of novel.
The public source identifies “Dialogue in writing” as literary element; a verbal exchange between two or more characters. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dialogue, writing and literary.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dialogue in writing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.