Writing Dialogue

by Tom Chiarella

This is a book on writing dialogue as the title suggests. It talks of the idea generation process of dialogue, creating distinct voices to you characters, how to infuse emotions within dialogue (tension, nonchalance, anger, joy, etc), and when to or not to use dialogue.

I read the first 2 chapters and read parts of the other chapters. I did not find this book useful. The intention is there, but I felt it is more of how the author would go about doing such things but my processes for creating dialogue ( be it good or bad) are quite difficult. And some parts of them are instances of what can be done. I guess it is very limited to the perspective of the author (of how dialogue should be structured) which are not as widely applicable than what I would have hope for.

My dialogue at the moment is not perhaps as good as it can be, but I did not see how this book helped in making it better. Even Stephen King's On Writing book was more insightful than this. Overall, I think this book would be helpful for people who would like to see another perspective on dialogue writing but this book did not appeal to my idea generation process and writing sensibility.