It turns out that writing dialogue can be tricky. A writer has to accomplish a lot through the way in which a character speaks, and how that speech is described. How do people talk to one another? Do they orate? Do they exchange fast and witty quips? Do they lecture one another to impart tons of needed exposition material? Does what they say and how they say it tell us anything about who they are?

In this class we will experiment with different ways to write dialogue and incorporate it into a story. We'll explore how details of character diction can change how a reader understands the text of what a character says. We'll do exercises designed to practice achieving particular goals Finally, students will apply what we're working on to their own writing and will receive feedback using our Collaborative Feedback method.

We're going to do a fair bit of writing, some in class, more outside of class as (optional) homework. By the end of the class a student should expect to be able to decide how a character should sound and then write dialogue that meets that goal.