Non-threaded

Forums » Writing Workshop » Read Thread

Find proofreaders here, useful resources, and share opinions and advice on story crafting.

Does my dialogue makes any sense?

5 years ago

This is the first time ever that I'm writing. It's been a lot of fun! But I still have to improve some things.
My main concern is the fact that I'm not a native speaker, so I'm wondering if my dialogue feels off. Can you guys give your opinions?

Ps: I choose this page because it focuses a lot on dialogue. This is a middle scene in the first act of the story, so the characters and the setting are already well presented to the reader at this point.

Hope you guys can make sense of it... Infodump: Hakon is the king, Barion is the religious leader, Greogo is the general. They are in a shrine where the "funeral" of Hakons's brother (the former King killed in the battlefield) happened. His body is still there. Greogo and Hakon were talking before Barion gets in.

 

The door opened, the light invaded the whole building. Greogo and Hakon looked at the weird silhouette and knew it was Barion. Two boys closed the door behind him.

 

"My dear Hakon, I'm praying for the gods in your favor but it seems I was too late. People are already demanding your head."

"What?!--' 

"What makes you so surprised, my dear?"

''Uh...What--"

"Why lose thousands of lives if you can end everything with only one death?"

"What the hell are you talking about, Barion?" Greogo asks, impatient. "Spill it already!"

"With Hakon's death, there won't be a war, hundreds of lives will be saved. It's a great deal, don't you think?"

"A great deal?! Are you--"

"I see you're not beaming with this idea either, Hakon. Great, we can now start planning how in the world we will make these people believe you're worth thousands of lives."

"You don't think I am?" Hakon asks, already expecting his answer.

"No man is worth a thousand lives. Not even you... with all respect, my king. Now tell me, any ideas Greogo?"

"We can kill these rats." Greogo suggests "I bet it will shut their dirty little mouths."

"I was thinking more about turning Hakon into a God." Barion said, with a smirk. The same one Greogo hated.

"Oh, you think you're so clever. Why even ask me then? What is your master plan now?"

"Well, you have a point. Killing people would make the rest think twice about such things... But tell me, you think they would fear more a king with point sticks around him or a God?"

Isn't it a sin? Hakon pounders. If Barion is suggesting it, probably not.

"I don't think they will buy it." Hakon says.

"People believe many things, my boy. Especially in times like this. Last night there were men flying over the walls."

"You really think they will now just accept that I'm suddenly a God?"

"The smart ones will. Greogo can deal with the rest."

"As always" Greogo mumbles. "Why not just let me teach them a lesson on how to respect a king then? Like we've always done?!"

"Your brother died last night, Hakon. Do you want to have a chance to survive these rebels? Then you'll have to make history. Only a god can survive what you are going through right now."

The three of them stared at the cold body while Hakon decided which plan to follow.

 

Does my dialogue makes any sense?

5 years ago
My first thought is that it's just a little too much of a solid wall of back and forth dialogue. When real people converse, especially about something that makes them emotional, there's a lot of body language, facial expressions, and other actions involved. It might help to break up scenes like this and keep the reader envisioning it all to describe some of that as it happens.

Your grammar seems fine, but there's a few issues with punctuation. Punctuation in dialogue tags always gives people trouble at first. There's a couple of links in my profile to sites with the rules on all that (look under the sections on quotation marks). Or just open up a normal book, made of paper, to find a section with people talking to find examples. It's one of those things that becomes easier to notice once you know to look for it.

Does my dialogue makes any sense?

5 years ago

I read somewhere that the fewer tags you have the more "professional" you look. But I think I'm going too extreme. Thank you! 

Does my dialogue makes any sense?

5 years ago
True it's best not to go overboard with tags, and you rarely need anything more elaborate than 'he said'. But what I mean is you can intersperse the dialogue with more actual descriptive sentences, I'm not really referring to tags.

Hakon gave Barrion a shocked look, then his face twisted in anger. "A great deal?! Are you--"

And so on.

As for punctuation, when you have something like:

"I don't think anyone will buy it." Hakon says.

That should be: "I don't think anyone will buy it," Hakon says.

Or: "I don't think anyone will buy it," he says. (If you weren't using the name.)

The thing to remember is 'Hakon says.' or 'He says.' is not a sentence in it's own right, it's attached to the dialogue they're saying, so you use the comma. (Unless the dialogue is a question or exclamation, then you use whichever mark, but the tag is still lowercased if it's 'he', 'she, 'you', etc.

Never quite sure if I'm explaining it clearly, for me it was one of those things where just looking at examples in a book for different situations was the solution, once I knew to pay attention to them.

Does my dialogue makes any sense?

5 years ago

I actually thought Word was broken. It kept telling me to use a coma... Now I see haha.

And I'll definitely use more descriptive sentences. The example you gave makes it way better!