Writing Dialogue

Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference!
Review: I got this book in a set... These two books, Writing Dialogue and Creating Character Emotions can be sold as a set, or singly. It is well worth having both, so please, buy the set!

The first book: Writing Dialogue, by Tom Chiarella, discusses listening and the importance of jotting. There are excellent examples, and challenging exercises that really drive the point. During the first chapter, I had already begun to dog-ear my pages!

Writing Dialogue is nearly a writing course with a cover. It describes just how important the meaning is of each word in a dialogue situation, how important silence is, and what holds it all together. After reading this book and trying some of the exercises suggested, I realized exactly what Tom Chiarella was trying to teach. The first exercise alone was quite difficult, but very exciting to go back and review the out come of it. A+ book!

The second book in this set: Creating Character Emotions, by Ann Hood, is an amazing tutorial on how to make your readers FEEL what the character is feeling. This book is arranged so that nearly each chapter is a different emotion. Examples are displayed in a bad vs. good approach. I really like to see the bad example first because when you read the good example you can really tell the difference.

Some of the emotions covered in Creating Character Emotions are: anger, anxiety, confusion, gratitude, curiosity, fear, sadness, desire, grief, and there are so many more. If you have ever felt it...it is covered in this book. Another A+ book!

Rating:
Summary: This is good instruction on dialogue
Review: I have purchased and read perhaps two dozen of the books on writing linked through the Amazon and bookfinder searches. Mr. Chiarella's book on dialogue gave me more help in its niche that any of the others. It is clear, to the point, and worth buying and reading. There are other more comprehensive treatments such as Janet Burroway's or E.M. Forster's. I enjoyed David Lodge's , The Art of Fiction. Some may even read Greek and like to start with Aristotle's Poetics. But for good understanding of dialogue, Mr. Chiarella has given us a sound, brief treatment easily worth the price.

Rating:
Summary: teacher's pet
Review: I write and teach both fiction and creative non-fiction and find Tom Chiarella's book on Dialogue to be the best for my students and myself - simply miles ahead of the rest. Ignore the begrudgers - if you want to improve your understanding and use of dialogue, this book is for you. Unlike most writing books, it has something for advanced as well as beginner writers. A five-star winner on every page & I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Rating:
Summary: teacher's pet
Review: It's funny that a few disaffected, likely failed, writers would jump on a bandwagon and start bashing this book, which I've always used and have seen in dozens of classrooms. It's a witty book, that doesn't take itself too seriously, and one that offers lessons beyond the subject of dialogue. I think it's about the fifth best selling creative writing text today so you have to assume these other reviewers have some axe to grind.

One guy says he's not a real writer, but Chiarella publishes regularly in about a zillion magazines-- Esquire, the New Yorker, Sports Illustrated and he has two books, I don't know who that other guy you mentioned is, Orson Scott Case? But I'm sure he must be a real writer because he teaches at a community college somewhere and someone knows him from your book club. Check your facts, then spare me.

One guy says he's too much of an English Professor. But Chiarella has an MFA and is clearly not a literature professor. Besides, big crime there, studying writing. Sheesh.

Another guy talks about literary short stories like they were cancer. What other short stories are we talking about? The ones in the back of "Juggs"? These are the sorts of stories that most of us want to write, literary ones. Not all of us are threatened by ambition for our stories.

As for the recommendation to read books on screenplays, I thought I would just add that I graduated with an MFA from USC in Screenwriting. I took three stage writing classes. We used this book in two of them (as well as one of my screenwriting workshops). This is a GOOD book on documenting the rituals and rhythmns of language. Most books on writing drama are tedious and overly-driven by theory.

Rating:
Summary: Massaging Your Technique
Review: Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, award-winning author of This is the Place and Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered

Writing Dialogue has convinced me that even experienced writers should massage their technique by frequently reading a good book by an expert-preferably someone who teaches at a credible university like author Tom Chiarella. Like a good rubdown refreshes cranky old bones, such a habit will rejuvenate perspective and technique. For beginners it will work like essential balm, teach what even careful reading sometimes fails to disclose.

The reason that I am so sure of this is that I had occasion to spruce up an excerpt from my first novel This is the Place. Connie Gotsch, host of a literary program on KSJE, a radio station that caters to classical music lovers in the four corners area, asked me to read from both my books. It reminded me of the days when the whole world tuned into drama a la The Haunting Hour and Fibber McGee and Molly.I decided the chapter should be trimmed so it would entertain in the same way that these programs had in the Golden Age of Radio.

I had just read Writing Dialogue and was surprised at how many changes I made in my already published dialogue as I was trimming the except. Before reading it, I was convinced that it wouldn't teach me much. I've studied long and hard, done my homework. That turned out to be hubris. The changes I made were subtle to be sure, a kind of tweaking that would not have been possible without Chiarella's insight.

Chiarella covers everything from grammar and the punctuation of dialogue to listening. He is most valuable, however, when he dissects dialogue and paints pictures of whole new ways to hear it, then to write it. He even includes tips like having characters interrupt themselves, back up and repeat and suggests ways this can be used to better characterization.

Writers should not borrow this book from the library. It will be better read, dog tagged, underlined and sitting on their desks where they can reach for a kind of writing-massage on a moment's notice.

(Carolyn Howard-Johnson will teach at UCLA's Writers' Program in the fall of 2004. She is the author of two award winning books, THIS IS THE PLACE, and HARKENING. Her work in progress is THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T.)

Rating:
Summary: Not what one would've hoped
Review: The entire first chapter exhorts eavesdropping and making notes. He also extensively documents his own dialogue. At the end of the chapter, the exercises encourage you to gather much, much more of this type of thing because "we will use it extensively..." In fact, you only revisit this extensive note-taking one time later in the book.

At the heart of this book, the author's premise is basically that conversation = dialogue, counter to what you'll find most anywhere else. This kind of amateurish technique only serves to promote flabby dialogue and verbal 'noise' that can bring a story to a grinding (and confusing) halt.

If dialogue is really a problem, I'd suggest a screenwriting or playwriting book, since dialogue is the essence of those forms.

Rating:
Summary: Useful but not outstanding
Review: There were some good tips in this book, but overall there weren't as many as I would have expected from a book focusing solely on dialogue. A number of the tips I'd already read in more general books on writing, so that tempered the amount of useful information I was able to get out of the book. The commentary and anecdotal stories in this book make it more interesting to read, but also leave less room for the actual mechanics of writing dialogue.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect advice for authors who write for their own eyes only
Review: Would you try to learn auto mechanics from someone whose only `hands-on' experience was in the construction of antique bicycles? Tom Chiarella apparently writes only literary short stories. My conclusion- after forcing myself to continue through this meandering and almost offensive book- is that it is bound to be nearly useless to anyone who seeks to write good popular genre fiction. You may find some useful nuggets of information, but they will almost certainly NOT be in what the author was intending to convey.

Not only is the author not a disciplined writer- even in non-fiction- his whole attitude is completely at odds with writing stories people would want to read. After I got to the part where he suggests it is okay to write dialogue in a confusing muddle (my rephrasing) and leave it to the reader to figure out the meaning, he completely lost my attention. The book went downhill from there. This is a classic example showing how a professor of literature may be handicapped by his theoretical knowledge.

Frankly, I bought this book because I wanted something concentrated on dialogue and the only other offering I found sounded even worse. Hopefully book publishers will take note and publish something from a real writer on the subject rather than another English professor. In the meantime, give this one a pass and try `Characters & Viewpoint' from someone who IS a real writer (Orson Scott Card).

Rating:
Summary: The struggle of writing dialog.
Review: Writing is my passion. Dialog is my pain. This book does not contain a secret magical formula for writing good dialog. It does provide exposure to writing techniques regarding dialog, and the ideas and techniques presented are invaluable. If you, like me, struggle with dialog, I highly reccomend reading and then studying this short book. For me, this book opened new doors into my creative process and my writing has benefited significantly.