Five Essential Dialogue Tricks to Help Clarify Your Storyline for Your Readers

S2_E41: Five Dialogue Tricks For a Clear Storyline

EPISODE DESCRIPTION - Last week, we discussed the importance of getting to your main action and character quickly. This week I give you 5 dialogue tricks to avoid ‘the kiss of death’ in your story, confusion. If you confuse your audience, you automatically take them out of the story, which is the opposite of what you want to do. The rule of thumb in story is to always keep your audience invested.
 
TRICK #1: You always want to prefer clarity over cleverness, always choose clarity of the words over clever or flowery written  passages.

TRICK #2: Provide visual cues for your audience to interpret what is going on. 

TRICK #3: Provide dialogue. Remember, when it comes to dialogue, don’t rush, slow down, and let the scene unfold naturally. You also have to ask yourself, "How will my audience know this?”

TRICK #4: Create a device that allows dialogue to be a part of what is happening in that world. An effective instance of this would be Wilson (the volleyball), in the film Castaway. 

TRICK #5: Bring in a new character that wouldn’t know what was going on inside that world. This allows the protagonist to justifiably relay information out loud, that the audience needs to know. 

The key takeaway to remember is to give your dialogue a purpose! We must justify the dialogue for our audience to enjoy it, regardless of how it is created. 

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UP NEXT - Next week, we discuss the importance and necessity of understanding our own sin nature when creating effective characters and storylines.

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