How To Make Characters Talk

Teaching horny people good grammar!

"Great lesson in grammar," she said.

Thanks :D

Thanks so much for the lesson! I want to write better and this helped me remember the english lessons I thought I would never need to know! Funny how that comes 360. I actually enjoy writting now :D

Laura

Wish I had this class in high school!

Thanks for the review.. I wish I had had these sentences to correct in high school, maybe I would have gotten a higher score!!!!!

class dismissed....I hope :)

"Thank you so much! You've taken the mystery out of dialogue," she gushed with awe. ;)
(god I hope I got that right! LOL)

Why didn't I go through this before?!

"Well," I sighed. "It's odd that I had to learn about writing dialogues from an erotica site."

"My English teacher would have a heart attack," I continued, "if I told him where I learned to write. I could give him the link. It'd definitely improve his skills, and who knows, I might even get to fuck him!"

Did I get it right, Miss?

Sexy but Effective

You must be an excellent English teacher. Your explanations are efficient and effective. How you manage to make the essay erotic ("I always swallow cum") is a tribute to your ability to cross stereotype. I professionally write as an attorney, but not dialogue. This was extremely useful. Thanks.

Awesome

Rita sighed as she wrote back,"Guess I should have payed more attention in class."

Punctuation

I have always been good at English. But, never really good at punctuation. This has helped me tremendously. Hopefully, Literotica will enjoy my next story; with all the information that you taught me.

Thanks for clarity and humor!

This dialogue instruction was extremely helpful. (And this is the first grammar lesson that made me laugh out loud.)

Good job!

Thank's so much! I needed alot of help in this area and hopefully I can remeber some it. I think the biggest lesson I learned with my grammar is to rely on my first instinct. I always change were I put comma's and quotation marks because I think i'm doing it wrong. But what I learned is that I usually get it right the first time. I write it. And even when I don't my first corrections are usually the right corrections.

Thanks!

I wish I could have found these lessons back in my high school days. Very effective and fun :)
In particular, the "Paragraphing Dialogue" part is something I managed to escape university without understanding.

Those are secrets worth shouting.

Well done.

Very informative.

Kudos!

Simple and to the point.

Very well done. Taught like a true teacher!

I have a further question: How would one handle "thoughts" in script? What if the person were thinking something rather than speaking it? Ex: He thought, "I should wite a note." (Is that correct?)

Thanks again for your teaching. I'm glad I read it. I needed the review.

Back in School!

Thank you so much for your essay! It was exactly what I needed polish off my story.

I appreciate your work.

I appreciate the time it took you to write this, it must have been grueling to do so, as a new writer, and not very good with my grammer, this is going to come in handy for my writings, I hope you don't mind but I printed it out for myself to make reference to later. Thanks sincerely yours the character of Michael CoVido.

Thank you

Thank you Whispersecret. I had a story rejected because of poor punctuation and use of quotation marks and was recommended to read this piece by you. I has been of immense help and I will now endeavour to re-do it. It all makes sense.I did know all of this a long time ago but has slipped away from me over the years. Hopefully Neighbors Ch.1 will be published and hopefully you will be able to read it and see what you have done for me.

Thanks!

I had some long-standing punctuation queries cleared up with this. It was a good article, and well written.

Thanks so much Whispersecret!!

I had a story that was rejected due to misplaced quotation marks etc. Your story was suggested. I read it twice, and am now ready to make the changes that are neccesary to get my story published. Thanks so much for the information, you did a fabulous job!

Lots of help!

Great submission. Punctuation is my weakest point and this her has helped clear up a few "bad habits" that I have. Or is it "bad habits," lol.

About indirect statement

After the first example you write: “It is not dialogue; it is poor writing.”, with all respect I have to disagree, to use indirect statement can’t possible mean its bad writing, Noble prize winners in literature use indirect statements. Ok, no big deal, I just thought it was a stupid sentence, especially since its in a section called “Writer's Resources”.

Thank you!

Thanks Whispersecret . . . I've just had my first submission rejected due to my use of punctuation, and while correcting it I had this open on another screen, and I'm hoping that my corrected submission will be published! I had no idea there were so many rules to punctuation, I always thought I was quite good in that respect but obviously not! thanks again!

Thanks a bunch

Thank you for putting this together. I had my first submission rejected due to how I had the dialog written. They refered me to this article and I was not disappointed in the least.

Thanks

I was advised to read this upon my first submission...sure glad I finally did

Excellent Advice for All Would-be Authors

Probably not unlike most first-time authors, when I began writing erotica many years ago, I barely used any dialogue at all. I wish I had seen this article then. Even now, I probably do not use dialogue as much as I could/should.

Thank you.

This is a great help. This article is a "Blessing in disguise" for wanna be writers. I would definitely follow this when I'll write my next story. Thank you for sharing.

Big Help

I had a story rejected too. I re-subimitted it a few times because I though the filter they used must be wrong, then I sent them an Email lol
Turns out I'd made tons of mistakes, thanks a lot! This was a big help! (perfect "!" use) lol

Still things to learn!

Thanks for all that! I now know had badly I've been punctuating my dialogue! I will try to avoid these problems with future submissions. I do vaguely remember some of this from school, but that is a long time ago! I'll keep this for teaching my 4 year old daughter (but might change the content LOL)

Hi, Thanx

Hello Whispersecret,
Well, I think its gonna take abit of time to get a story published with LIT.BUT I have been reading your essay and understanding it, So maybe it is dialogue, reading up on all the writers resources and going to keep trying.
Shoeslayer will NEVER give up, cuz if I do, THEY WIN.
Just' can't have that happen.
Thanx, gr8tly,
Shoeslayer

Hi, Thanx

Hello Whispersecret,
Well, I think its gonna take abit of time to get a story published with LIT.BUT I have been reading your essay and understanding it, So maybe it is dialogue, reading up on all the writers resources and going to keep trying.
Shoeslayer will NEVER give up, cuz if I do, THEY WIN.
Just' can't have that happen.
Thanx, gr8tly,
Shoeslayer

Wow - Thanks SOOOOO much

I think I may have a small handle on it now.

"This is incredibly helpful!" Cella said with a grin.

4 out of 8

I got a fifty percent. Damn exclamation points did me in.

Very useful indeed

I wish I'd found this months ago. I feel a big edit check coming on now. There were a couple of points that until now I wasn't so sure about.

Thank you!

Having just read the other comments...

...I would love to know how to write thoughts also.

And why do so many submissions get through with dialogue but - instead of " "? I've read a few recently.

I wont shy away from dialogue from now on as in my early stories.

Thanks!

This was very helpful. I was able to get a good crash course in to freshen up on dialogue again.

Apologies to my editor.

I really should have read this article before sending my editor my poorly punctuated story.

C- for me.
Must try harder! x

"Thanks for the paragraphing advice," she said gratefully.

"I already knew about quotation marks and punctuation," Jezebel continued smugly. "But the paragraph thing has always had me stumped." She smiled and said, "Thank you so much!"

"By the way," she added, "I got 100%, except that I chose an exclamation point in one place where you had a period."

great article and since you are so wise...

Do you have any guidance on how to write dialog that occurs with characters text messaging, using IM, and email?

Good job

Thanks! I hate long blocks of text so very, very much. Thanks for the quotation advice as well.

I thought it was clear and straightforward. If only my school lessons had included such examples!

How helpful!

"Well," I thought to myself while reading this page, "this is one of the more useful 'how-to's' I've read in a while.

"At least for me!"

Thank you.

Thanks!

Very helpful!

I still have one doubt left, how do you add the sounds the characters make, you know, like moans and groans of pleasure.

Very Nice Guide!

But if you ever feel like bringing this up to date for the new decade, can I request one addition? That you include tips on how to handle small bits of prose/narrative. between lines of dialogue. So for example, should it be:

"Would you ever try anal?" Amy thought about this for a moment.

"Maybe one day, but it would have to be with a guy I really trusted."


Or should it be:

"Would you ever try anal?"

Amy thought about this for a moment. "Maybe one day, but it would have to be with a guy I really trusted."

Great advice from great writer

Thanks for the great lesson

thank you

I had some questions on dialogue. Thank you for this lesson.

Thanks for a great guide!

Very useful, thanks!

Couple of comments though. This example:

>Which of the following is correct?
>
>A. "Your cock can't possibly be nine inches long," the doctor said.
>B. "Your cock can't possibly be nine inches long" the doctor said.
>C. "Your cock can't possibly be nine inches long, the doctor said."

I think you need:

D. "Your cock can't possibly be nine inches long", the doctor said.

I was tempted to use that, until I slapped myself. Oh yes, and read some of the other threads about dialogue.

Also, thoughts. If you think something, is it still quoted? I am guessing 'yes' but am not totally confident.

'I wish he would fuck me right now,' Alice thought.

Or maybe:

I wish he would fuck me right now, Alice thought.

Or, fuck it:

Alice wished he would fuck her right now.

But that doesn't let you quote her exact inner thoughts.

And finally: single and double quotes. I started a thread on this, and got the feeling that in the UK people tend to use single quotes, and in the USA, double quotes.

Compare:

"If you don't fuck me, I'll go insane!" she screeched.

to:

'If you don't fuck me, I'll go insane!' she screeched.

Thank You very much...

Dear Whispersecret,

i found Your knowledge of successful writing skills, to be most helpful. Thank You for being so kind, as to share this with U/us.

Sincerely,
d

Expansion

Without a doubt, 'How To' has become my favourite section on Lit tonight! Thank you for this!

If you ever wanted to expand this piece then questions 5 and 6 demonstrated the use of the comma in ways that you did not discuss.

So Helpful!

Thank you for sharing this information with us. I have had so much trouble writing in third person because of what you just taught right here. Not only will this help me with my adult stories, it will help me with my mainstream ones as well. Thanks again, and I am always open to anything more you'd like to teach us.

"Thank you," she said, "this was very helpful."

My very first story, was rejected for the reasons you explained above.
Now all that is left, is to improve my english to avoid my second rejection lol.

This was something that often gives me trouble. I tend to either go too simple or too complicated with dialogue, however I think I'm learning it's more about presentation than about content (if I'm getting that right). I know a bit about grammar rules too, but it mostly applied to essay or formal writing. Dialoguing is not something you get, even if college, unless you take a specific course. Outside of film studies, dialoguing isn't usually addressed,which often annoyed me. Thanks for giving me a refresher, especially about the long paragraph quotes,something I had mostly forgotten. I'm sure you make a great teacher in real life.