Writing Dialogue - The Essential Guide

by Jean Saunders

Without dialogue a novel is no more than an endless essay. Only through their speech can the characters really come to life. We all talk to one another all the time, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get our realistic dialogue into the mouths of our fictional characters. Yet for some writers it is an impossible task. This practical guide by prolific author Jean Saunders shows how it is done. Jean has defined all the necessary ingredients for creating realistic dialogue in fiction. Pointers include the actual layout of dialogue, basic principles of punctuation, avoiding trivia, and making your characters more believable through their speech. Many examples are given to demonstrate this vital part of successful fiction. Jean explains the primary purposes of dialogue; how to create an atmosphere; effective adverbs; how to use the listening ear; how to avoid the slush pile and so much more.

134 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

About the author

Jean Innes was born on 8 February 1932 in London, England, but she have lived in the West Country almost all her life. She married with Geoff Saunders, her childhood sweetheart, and they have three grown up children. She lived in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, where she wrote full time. She passed away on 3 August 2011, after contracting an illness, after being rushed to Weston General Hospital.

Jean began her career as a magazine writer and had published around 600 short stories. She start to published gothic romance novels under her married name Jean Saunders and her maiden name Jean Innes in the 1970s. In 1980s, she created, to wrote historical romances, two pseudonyms, her most popular, Rowena Summers and Sally Blake. In 1991 her novel, "The Bannister Girls," was shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of Year award. In 2004, she began to used the penname Rachel Moore.

She was an active member and enthusiast of Swanwick, the Writers' Summer School, which takes place in Derbyshire, England, every August, she was a committee member several times, and also Vice-Chairman. She was elected the seventeenth Chairman (1993-1995) of the Romantic Novelists' Association. As a member of the Romance Writers of America she had given talks at conferences in various venues of the USA. She was a member of the Crime Writers' Association. She also was a member and past committee member of the West Country Writers' Association.

Reviews

[Georgia Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great craft book. Although it is dated in the styles of dialogue it outlines, it does have some great suggestions for how to improve character voice.