Even a person far from the literary field does not hurt to know how to make a dialogue. Students, schoolchildren studying the Russian language course, beginning authors this skill is simply necessary. Another situation: your child asks for help with homework. Suppose he is entrusted with drawing up a dialogue, “A Book in Our Life,” or something similar. The semantic component of the task does not cause difficulties. But punctuation marks in the replicas of the heroes cause serious doubts, and the replicas themselves were somehow not built too consistently.
In such a case, you should know how to create a dialogue on the Russian language on a given topic. In the proposed small article, we will try to parse the concept of dialogue, the basic principles of its construction and the features of punctuation.
What is this form?
The concept of dialogue refers to the process of mutual communication. Replicas during it are interspersed with response phrases with a constant change of roles of the listener and the speaker. The communicative feature of the dialogue is the unity in the expression, perception of thoughts and reactions to them, reflected in its structure. That is, the composition of the dialogue is interconnected remarks of interlocutors.
Without knowing how to make a dialogue, a novice author is doomed to failure. After all, this literary form is one of the most commonly found in literary works.
When dialogue is appropriate
Each time it occurs in a specific situation, when each of the participants is alternately listening or speaking. Each of the replicas of the dialogue can be considered a speech act - an action implying a certain result.
Its main features are determined by purposefulness, moderation and compliance with certain rules. The purposefulness of the speech impact refers to the hidden or explicit goals of any of the participants in the dialogue. This may be a message, question, advice, order, command or apology.
To achieve their own goals, the interlocutors alternately realize certain intentions, the purpose of which is to induce the other side to specific actions of a speech nature. Encouraging information is expressed either directly in the form of a verb of an imperative mood, or indirectly by questions such as: "Could you?" etc.
How to make a dialogue. General rules
- Submission of messages goes in parts. First, the listener is prepared for the perception of information, then it is justified, and then directly served (in the form, for example, of advice or request). At the same time, compliance with the necessary etiquette is mandatory.
- The message subject should correspond to the main purpose of the conversation.
- The interlocutor's speech must be unambiguous, understandable and consistent.
In case of non-compliance with these rules, a violation of mutual understanding occurs. An example is the speech incomprehensible to another of one of the interlocutors (with a predominance of unknown terminology or fuzzy articulation).
How does the conversation begin
At the beginning of the dialogue, a greeting is implied and quite often the question is asked about the possibility of the conversation itself: "Can I talk to you?", "Let me distract you?" and so on. Next most often are questions about business, health and life in general (most often this refers to informal conversations). Use these rules if, for example, you need to make a dialogue of friends. After that, messages usually come about the immediate purpose of the conversation.
Further, the topic is to be developed. How to create a dialogue that will look logical and natural? Its structure implies the speaker's information supplied in portions, interspersed with replicas of the interlocutor with an expression of his reaction. At some point, the latter may seize the initiative in the conversation.
The end of the conversation consists of concluding phrases of a generalizing nature and, as a rule, is accompanied by so-called etiquette phrases, followed by farewell.
Ideally, each topic of dialogue should be developed before the transition to the next one is completed. If one of the interlocutors does not support the topic, this is a sign of a lack of interest in it or in an attempt to end the dialogue as a whole.
About the culture of speech
When building speech behavior, both interlocutors require understanding, a certain ability to penetrate the thoughts and mood of the other, to catch his motives. Without all this, successful communication is impossible. The dialogue technique involves various communication models with a variety of means for expressing ideas, feelings and thoughts, as well as mastering tactical communication skills.
According to the general rules, each question posed requires its own answer. An answer in the form of a word or action is expected to be prompted. Narration implies reciprocal communication in the form of a meeting remark or focused attention.
The last term refers to the absence of speech when the listener, using non-verbal signs (gestures, interjections, facial expressions), makes it clear that the speech is heard and understood.
We pass to writing
To draw up a dialogue on a letter, you need to know the basic rules of its competent construction. So, we will consider the basic rules by which you can make a dialogue of 4 replicas or more. Both the simplest and rather confusing with a complex plot.
Many authors use it in their works of art. The dialogue differs from direct speech by the absence of quotation marks and a new paragraph for each remark. If the replica is supplied in quotation marks, then most often it is assumed that this is the hero’s thought. All this is written according to fairly strict rules, which are described below.
How to create a dialogue on the Russian language in compliance with the laws of punctuation
When making a dialogue, it is very important to use punctuation correctly. But first, a little bit of terminology:
A replica is a phrase spoken by the characters aloud or to themselves.
Under the author’s words - a phrase that contains an attributive verb (asked, answered, said, etc.) or a phrase designed to replace it in meaning.
Sometimes the author’s words can be dispensed with - usually when a conversation consists of replicas of only two people (for example, you have a task to make a dialogue with a friend). In this case, a dash is placed before each replica, followed by a space. At the end of the phrase is a period, ellipsis, exclamation point or question mark.
When each remark is accompanied by the words of the author, the situation is a little more complicated: the point should be replaced by a comma (the remaining signs remain in their places), then a space, a dash and a space again are put. After that, the author’s words are given (only with a small letter).
More complicated options
Sometimes the author’s words can be placed in front of the remark. If at the very beginning of the dialogue they are not highlighted in a separate paragraph, a colon is placed after them, and the replica starts on a new line. In the same way, it is supposed to start the next (response) replica from a new line.
Creating a dialogue in Russian is not an easy task. The most difficult case is when the author’s words are placed inside a replica. This grammatical construction is most often accompanied by errors, especially among novice authors. This is due to a large number of options, the main of which are two: the sentence is torn apart by the words of the author or these very words are placed between adjacent sentences.
In either case, the beginning of the replica is exactly the same as in the example with the author’s words after it (dash, space, replica itself, space again, dash, space again and author’s words written with a small letter). The further part is already different. If the author’s words are intended to be placed inside one whole sentence, a comma is required after these words and the further remark continues with a small letter after the dash. If it is decided to place the author’s words between two separate sentences, the first of them should end with a period. And after an indispensable dash, the next replica is written with a capital letter.
Other cases
Sometimes there is an option (rather rarely) when there are two attributive verbs in the author’s words. In the same way, they can be placed before or after the replica, and all together is a single structure written in a separate line. In this case, the second part of direct speech begins with a colon and a dash.
In works of literature one can sometimes find constructions even more difficult, but we will not delve into them now.
Having mastered the basic rules of construction, you can in a similar way, for example, compose a dialogue in English , etc.
A bit about the content
Let's move from punctuation directly to the content of the dialogs. The advice of experienced writers is to minimize both the cues and the words of the author. You should remove all unnecessary descriptions and phrases that do not carry any useful information, as well as unnecessary decorations (this applies not only to the dialogue). Of course, the final choice is up to the author. It is important that at the same time he does not betray a sense of proportion.
Too long continuous dialogs are highly discouraged. This unnecessarily drags on the narrative. After all, it is understood that the characters are talking in real time, and the plot of the work as a whole is obliged to develop much faster. If necessary, a long dialogue should be diluted with a description of the emotions of the characters and any related actions.
Phrases that do not carry information useful for the development of the plot can clog any dialogue. By sound, it should be as natural as possible. It is highly discouraged to use complex sentences or expressions that are never found in colloquial speech (of course, unless the author’s intent suggests otherwise).
How to check yourself
The easiest way to control the naturalness of compiled replicas is by reading the dialogue out loud. All the extra long pieces along with pretentious words will inevitably cut the ear. At the same time, it is much more difficult to check their presence with eyes. This rule applies exactly the same to any text, not only to the dialogue.
Another common mistake is the excess of attributive words or the monotony of their use. Whenever possible, you should remove the maximum of author's comments of the type: he said, she answered, etc. Unambiguously, this should be done in cases where it is already clear which of the characters belongs to the replica.
Attributive verbs should not be repeated, their sameness cuts the ear. Sometimes you can replace them with phrases that describe the actions of the characters with a subsequent replica. The Russian language has a huge number of synonyms of the verb said, painted in a variety of emotional shades.
Do not mix attribution with body text. In the absence of an attributive (or substitute) word, the dialogue turns into plain text and is made out separately from the replica.
Adhering to the rules set forth by us, you can easily make up any dialogue.