# Correcting...dialogue? (For any writers out there)



## Molotov (Jul 27, 2009)

Still debating whether this should go to the Bloc or stay here, but time will tell. 

Just as the title explains, did any random person, or a friend, whom you thought would help you out with peer editing, corrected the way your character(s) dialogue is written, instead of important subjects like capitalization, punctuation and the like? If so, what went through your mind when you have heard of this?


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## CryoScales (Jul 27, 2009)

Molotov said:


> Still debating whether this should go to the Bloc or stay here, but time will tell.
> 
> Just as the title explains, did any random person, or a friend, whom you thought would help you out with peer editing, corrected the way your character(s) dialogue is written, instead of important subjects like capitalization, punctuation and the like? If so, what went through your mind when you have heard of this?



Many times. I had to go through many a beta reader before I found a specific type that pays attention to what the author's needs are

Pretty much I felt betrayed and a little hurt. There is nothing worse then hearing something wrong about a character you poured your soul into


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## Mongoose Ink (Jul 27, 2009)

Pretty sure this ought to go in Writer's Bloc if you actually want some real responses.  All your'e liable to get here are snarky comments and insults.


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## Aurali (Jul 27, 2009)

This is definately bloc. It's not a rant or rave.
And No, most people thinks my dialogue matches the emotion I convey very well when I put in effort.


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## ShÃ nwÃ ng (Jul 27, 2009)

Depends on how terrible the dialogue is. If the characters' dialogue is too overbearing or just plain bad, I'd expect that they would rewrite the entire dialogue, yes, in attempts to suggest a broader change. Did you specify to your friend that they only should be proofreading your work for common errors and to ignore the form/syntax by which the characters communicate? 

Because PEER EDITING MEANS MORE THAN PROOFREADING.


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## Adelio Altomar (Jul 27, 2009)

This belongs in the *Writer's Bloc*. And personally, I'm welcome to _any_ help I could get, whether it's style, punctuation, or how I deliver, I'm quite fine with what I get. Heck, my sister would often read what I write and give me more critique than I had originally asked for.


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## Molotov (Jul 27, 2009)

Right, I'll contact one of the mods to move this to the Bloc, heh...or if they see this and move it, that works also.


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## Tiarhlu (Jul 27, 2009)

The dialogue is (generally) one of the most important things in the story, so I'd encourage criticism of it.


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## Tanzenlicht (Jul 28, 2009)

Well, maybe it was really, really bad.  I find that tends to be the problem a lot with writers on the internet.  Oddly this never seems to occur to anyone.

I popped by your FA page.  That does seem to be your problem.  I don't know for sure, I couldn't read very long before I had to stop (because it was so bad).

Instead of getting all hurt about it you should probably compare what they suggested to what you originally wrote and figure out how to improve in the future.  I mean it's important that you worked very hard on it and you love it, but that doesn't actually make it good.  And apparently you have a kind friend, who couldn't say this to you and just rewrote it for you instead.


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## Bladespark (Jul 28, 2009)

Molotov said:


> Still debating whether this should go to the Bloc or stay here, but time will tell.
> 
> Just as the title explains, did any random person, or a friend, whom you thought would help you out with peer editing, corrected the way your character(s) dialogue is written, *instead of important subjects like capitalization, punctuation and the like?* If so, what went through your mind when you have heard of this?



Er, having natural, clear dialogue is every single bit as important as capitalization, punctuation, etc.  Moreso, even.  Anybody who actually learned anything in high school English can fix your grammar, but it takes a lot more skill to write good dialogue.  

I'd love it if somebody gave me suggestions to improve my dialogue, I find that much, much, much more useful than an easy fix like punctuation.


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## AshleyAshes (Jul 28, 2009)

I think it'd depend on how he was editing. If he just didn't like it and was changing it, while that can be in the realm of an editor, consultation and discussion should happen.

I'm more wondering if he was applying grammatical rules to the dialogue when those rules are far more laxed.


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## ElizabethAlexandraMary (Jul 28, 2009)

Correcting capitalization and punctuation isn't very important compared to dialogue, I'd say. It's the kind of thing you are supposed to correct naturally as you write.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 28, 2009)

People don't usually correct my dialogue (though I've had one person say it was 'boring'), but I correct other peoples' all the time.  Well, not 'correct'.  More like give recommendations on how to reword it.  And I always try to give a reason why.
But yeah, peer editing is different than proofreading.  If you only wanted him to correct grammar, you probably should have said so.  Although really, it's a lot more helpful for a person to try correcting other, bigger issues, like dialogue or description or... hell, even plot.  Everything is fair game, really, unless you specify otherwise for some reason.
So don't be hurt if someone tells you something in the story is bad.  You should instead examine that thing your editor thought was bad and see if maybe there isn't something in it you should change.  If you don't find anything, great, but most of the time you will and you'll fix it.
Proofreading should always come dead last, once you think the rest of the story is as flawless as it's going to get.  Correct grammar is nice, of course, but the only reason you need it is so that everything comes across as clearly as possible, and so that the final piece looks professional.  But if the ideas in the piece are terrible and the writing itself is stilted and boring, no one's going to really care how good your grammar is.


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## TakeWalker (Jul 28, 2009)

Bladespark said:


> Er, having natural, clear dialogue is every single bit as important as capitalization, punctuation, etc.  Moreso, even.  Anybody who actually learned anything in high school English can fix your grammar, but it takes a lot more skill to write good dialogue.
> 
> I'd love it if somebody gave me suggestions to improve my dialogue, I find that much, much, much more useful than an easy fix like punctuation.



I was about to sympathize with the OP until I saw this post. Capitalization and punctuation are FINAL DRAFT ISSUES, they are not important until you're ready to start shopping around to publishers! :[

Of course, if it was the case that you, say, like to write in vernacular and your beta reader is trying to standardize it, then they would be a dickwad. But, judging by other posts in this thread, that is not the case at all.


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## Molotov (Jul 28, 2009)

Well, it's not much that I was hurt by what I saw, but rather thrown off. I could pick a hundred characters randomly and come up with different dialogue for each of them...well a few at tops.

If the character has trouble with a language, I'll write up dialogue hinting at his/her trouble of understanding the language.

If the character can speak the language fluently, without the use of slang and/or contradictions (however they are called), then I'll have the person speak the language clearly and professionally.

Point is this: how the character(s) is raised, how the character(s) is taught to speak a language or two, and how the person's personality is as they mature (or not; could still be a kid), that's how I intend to have them speak. 

Having every one of my characters speak in perfect English is going to be boring.

Having every one of my characters speak entirely in slang is going to be boring.

...Hmm, guess this is the only kind of critique I was caught off-guard with. I was already used to being corrected in sentence structure and grammar, but seeing as how two people (I'm including your honest comments, Tanzenlicht, as the second) were the first to say this to me, hell, I would appreciate in how to write better dialogue for my characters.

If I messed up with grammar, fine.
Capitalization, fine.
Punctuation, fine.

But if how the story is told through the narrating and through the characters seems off, let me know, yeah? I would hate that someone just read my work and could not finish it because it is poorly written than to be given the honest truth about it.

Besides, how else will I learn how to better myself? Certainly not all on my own, of course, heh.


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## Bladespark (Jul 29, 2009)

Molotov said:


> Besides, how else will I learn how to better myself? Certainly not all on my own, of course, heh.



I'm a bit confused by this.  You seem to be saying that you can learn to better yourself if people correct your grammar, but not if they correct any other aspect of your story.  And yet other aspects of your story may possibly need improvement just as badly as the grammar does.


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## Molotov (Jul 29, 2009)

Bladespark said:


> I'm a bit confused by this.  You seem to be saying that you can learn to better yourself if people correct your grammar, but not if they correct any other aspect of your story.  And yet other aspects of your story may possibly need improvement just as badly as the grammar does.



...I never said that, nor give the hint of saying that. I'm saying, help me in general in other areas, not just one. I wonder what gave you that idea, heh?


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## Tanzenlicht (Jul 29, 2009)

Molotov said:


> If the character has trouble with a language, I'll write up dialogue hinting at his/her trouble of understanding the language.
> 
> If the character can speak the language fluently, without the use of slang and/or contradictions (however they are called), then I'll have the person speak the language clearly and professionally.



Contractions.  They're called contractions.  I suspect all of your characters have dialogue hinting that they have trouble with this language, because you have trouble with this language.

So what I recommend is that you read.  Read a lot.  Read lots of things that people who do know this language have written.  Read it carefully and learn to read it critically with an eye to what you like about how someone writes and what you dislike.  Then write.  Then read what you wrote critically with an eye to what you like and dislike.

Once you've done that it is time to run it past someone else to see if they like or dislike it and get suggestions on what needs improvement.  Not your grammar (although a grammar book or two might go onto your reading list as long as you're reading) or punctuation or any of that.  You should be able to catch that yourself for the most part.

If you can't be bothered to do all this work, and it's work, it's very hard work, then you shouldn't be surprised when people find your writing to be substandard.  Asking someone to proofread it at this stage is roughly equivalent to asking them to rewrite it for you, because it needs it.


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## Murphy Z (Jul 31, 2009)

Dialogue is really tricky. You usually want it to sound natural, but writing adds artificiality to it - just compare "written" phone conversations ("Hello, is John there, it's me, Brian") to real ones ("Hi!")



Molotov said:


> Well, it's not much that I was hurt by what I saw, but rather thrown off. I could pick a hundred characters randomly and come up with different dialogue for each of them...well a few at tops.



This is just a guess and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but did you find the dialogue correction strange because, well in your mind, that's what the character "actually" said, so why would someone correct that?

I'm assuming it's your characters and not a fan fiction character where you could argue "Sonic wouldn't say that!" because of canon. Nobody knows more about your character than you and I'm assuming you didn't make any "mistakes" (like the character saying "I like ice cream" at one part and "I hate ice cream" another).

So it's really not a matter of right or wrong, but more of enjoyability to the reader. I could make a story with characters who only say things like "sinemc ivgmg pafidm" to each other. Since they're my characters, you can't say "they wouldn't say that," but hardly anyone would enjoy it.

But anyways, you have some choices 1) stick to your guns and not change anything, you might sacrifice "enjoyability" of other readers 2) Change the character's dialogue, you might get more "enjoyability," but might have to "change" your character some 3) make new character(s) and put them in while taking the old ones out or change the whole story.


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## Bladespark (Jul 31, 2009)

Molotov said:


> ...I never said that, nor give the hint of saying that. I'm saying, help me in general in other areas, not just one. I wonder what gave you that idea, heh?



The fact that you were on here whining about having been helped?  I DID say it was confusing, I WAS asking for clarification, but you chose to give me a sarcastic response instead, so I guess I'm done talking here.  Good luck getting anybody at all to help you if you're going to whine and complain about the help they do give, and snark at people who are trying to understand what you actually want.


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