In any story, for children or adults, dialogue plays an important role. It keeps the story moving, brings characters to life and just makes the story more interesting for the reader. In children's books, dialogue can be engaging and make the story more understandable and realistic to children. Therefore it is very important that you focus on learning how to write dialogue correctly.
Speaking vs. Writing
Learning how to write dialogue starts with understanding that written dialogue is not the same as how we actually speak. Spoken dialogue is rather boring and there are a lot of unnecessary words and other things in our regular conversation that just doesn't do anything when written.
Your goal with any dialogue that you include in your story is to help the story. You don't need to include useless exchanges and random dialogue that doesn't serve a purpose within your story. You only need to say what you need to for the purpose of the story. This may mean leaving out greetings or other things that you might use in speech, but that would just be boring to read and add nothing to the story.
Remember your dialogue should do one of four things. It should tell about a character, describe something, move the story along or develop the storyline. If your dialogue doesn't do one of these four things then you need to rethink it. Chances are it is not serving its purpose and should be removed or revised.
Think of the Audience
When learning how to write dialogue for children's books you also must keep your audience in mind. You are writing for children and depending on the age, you have to consider their limited vocabulary.
You will have to be a master with words. You may need to come up with simple words that convey what you are trying to say.
This is very important because if a child does not understand the words that you use or what you are saying then they may lose interest in the story. Your goal is to engage them and make them want to read the book.
Show, Don't Tell
The whole point of learning how to write dialogue is basically learning how to tell your story instead of showing it. What is meant by that is that the dialogues tells a story while descriptive paragraphs show the story. Telling is always more interesting than showing. Children have short attention spans. As an author your book is competing with television and video games which are action and dialogue packed. Your book has to be just as interesting if you ever want to captivate a child.
Tips
There really are no set rules on learning how to write dialogue, but there are plenty of tips out there that can be very helpful. Here are some great tips that can help you in learning how to write dialogue for children's books:
- Dialogue should sound the way children speak. It can be easy to write from your own point of view, but that type of dialogue will be beyond a child. They will be more interested in reading something that sounds like something they would say themselves.
- Read writing by children. Doing this will give you some insight into how children see story telling. While they may not give dialogue specifically, it can still give you a point of view that can be helpful in your dialogue writing.
- Read what you write out loud. Your dialogue should flow and be easy to read. Depending on the age group that you are writing for, many children's books are read aloud. The dialogue needs to be easy and flowing and sound natural. You should also easily be able to get a sense of your characters through the dialogue.
Writing dialogue does not come easily. It can be difficult to learn how to get your point across while also keeping the dialogue entertaining. Keep in mind that when you are writing for children you have added obstacles like their vocabulary limitations and their limited attention spans.
For you to really master the art of writing dialogue, you just need to practice. Just like the old saying "practice makes perfect!". Learning how to write dialogue for children's book is something essential to being able to write a children's book that will be interesting and captivating to the reader.
Author Resource:
Writing is a wonderful way of sharing your experiences and tales with others, who better to share them with than children. Learning to write well can see you have great success as an author especially if you gain the right information and knowledge. Sign up to our free newsletter at http://www.learntowriteachildrensbook.com and start receiving regular writing tips and articles on writing for children.
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