Wednesday Writing Prompt

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Dialogue is my favorite part of a story, whether I’m reading a story or writing one. I think that dialogue offers such an opportunity to get to the heart of a character. We all speak differently because of our personalities, our backgrounds, and the things that have influenced us along the way. Writing really good dialogue is a way of honoring your characters and their differences.

For this week’s writing prompt, focus in on dialogue. Develop a distinct (and distinctly different) voice for each of the characters in your story. It’s easy to let the dialogue we write become uniform or to let it be simply a reflection of our dialogue. Force yourself not to do that this week.

Now, you are free to use narration and prose in your story. But I challenge you to try to tell your whole story (or as much of it as you can) only through dialogue. This will force you to step up and polish those dialogue chops. For inspiration, I suggest reading Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” a short story that communicates a poignant message, engaging plot, and spot-on characterization, almost exclusively through dialogue.

Happy writing, friends!

– Annie

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