SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18TH 10:00-10:45 a.m. Penny Warner www.codebustersclub.com – – CHILLAX, BAE, IDEK: Creating Authentic Kid’s Dialogue Purpose of dialogue - To move story along - To increase pace and create drama - To reveal characters and make them come alive - To identify location and set mood -To add reality - To show, instead of telling Listen to kids talk, be a kid when writing dialogue. Read contemporary children’s books to see how other authors do it. Each character should have his or her own style of language ie. – special words, phrases specific to speaker. Be careful of slang most words will be out of date by the time the – book is published. Safe words so far: Consider cool, awesome, dude. making up your own slang. Read the dialogue aloud to hear how it sounds. Avoid dialect, only suggest it. Avoid stereotyping with language. Attribution Don’t use when not necessary. Use action instead of attribution. Use instead of other similar words. Keep it simple. “said” Monologue/internal speech - Use quotes if spoken out loud, italics or thought” if not. “she SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18TH 2:00-2:45 p.m. Penny Warner – –www.pennywarner.com ONCE UPON A CRIME: Making Mayhem Pay Through the Prose Create unforgettable characters: know Nancy.” All agreed she possessed “You ~ Clue in the Diary an appealing quality, which people never forgot.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18TH 10:00-10:45 a.m. – Penny Warner – www.codebustersclub.com CHILLAX, BAE, IDEK: Creating Authentic Kid’s Dialogue Purpose of dialogue - To move story along - To increase pace and create drama - To reveal characters and make them come alive - To identify location and set mood -To add reality - To show, instead of telling Listen to kids talk, be a kid when writing dialogue. Read contemporary children’s books to see how other authors do it. Each character should have his or her own style of language – ie. special words, phrases specific to speaker. Be careful of slang – most words will be out of date by the time the book is published. Safe words so far: cool, awesome, dude. Consider making up your own slang. Read the dialogue aloud to hear how it sounds. Avoid dialect, only suggest it. Avoid stereotyping with language. Attribution Don’t use when not necessary. Use action instead of attribution. Use “said” instead of other similar words. Keep it simple. Monologue/internal speech - Use quotes if spoken out loud, italics or “she thought” if not. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18TH 2:00-2:45 p.m. – Penny Warner –www.pennywarner.com ONCE UPON A CRIME: Making Mayhem Pay Through the Prose Create unforgettable characters: “You know Nancy.” All agreed she possessed an appealing quality, which people never forgot. ~ Clue in the Diary
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