stories with too much dialogue

[LaughingCat]

When DD the older writes fiction stories (for school purposes ) they start out well -- and then devolve into pages and pages of poorly written dialogue.   "Really?" she said. "Yes, really" the old lady said.    I have tried telling her outright that there is too much dialogue and not enough story... with no effect.   I have tried telling her to keep the story to under 1 page and only include information important to the story... with no effect (well, this did have the effect of making the ending 2 lines that came out of the blue -"because you said to keep the story short" :banghead: ). 

 

Any suggestions?

[EKS]

If she enjoys writing stories, I'd stop assigning them for school and let her write as much terrible dialogue as she wants.  If she doesn't enjoy writing stories, I'd stop assigning them for school because it's not necessary for children to write stories for school.

 

Focus on academic writing instead.

[J&JMom]

I agree with not assigning story writing as school, but it is a great hobby.  Here are two suggested activities to break the dialogue habit.

1)  I recommend putting the story, as is, away for at least a week. Then, have a reader - not her - read the story aloud for a recording.  Finally, have her listen to the recording and ask if she would pay money to buy this book or watch this movie.  Do these with several of her writings and it should become apparent.

2) Another exercise is to watch several TV programs and ask her to transcribe the dialogue.  Have her make a chart noting how many times certain 'filler' phrases are said in an episode. Finally, ask her how much she would enjoy the episode if they read like her books?  Maybe extend this exercise to 'add' this filler dialogue to her favorite books (not ones she wrote, but published works). Type it out and read it out loud. Ask which one she likes better.

 

Just some ideas from a novelist (if one novel qualifies one as a novelist :)

[Junie]

My guess is that she is an auditory learner.  Dialogue is how she experiences the world.

 

 

[Tanikit]

The book: The Most Wonderful Writing Lessons Ever does address this issue and how to prevent it from happening (if you do want to teach it) in its chapter entitled Effective Dialogue. 

 

I have been using this book with my 2nd grader and it has definitely helped - I had no idea how to help her write better stories. Although it is fairly scripted it does lend itself to helping a child write their own stories without following too strict a formula and does also teach some of the exceptions in real novels/short stories and why this worked for that particular story. My child has fought writing lessons before, but with this one she does feel she has enough freedom to write what she wants to and still have her story sound good. I have only used half the book so far, so cannot review it in full.