Dialogue and Description: How to Make Them Work Together to Bring Your Book to Life
Discover how dialogue and description can work together in your writing to bring your characters, plot, and world, to life.
Key Takeaways
Avoid info dumping
Info dumping is a common mistake that can put readers off your story. We'll look at how you can avoid it—and what to do instead.
Flesh out your world
World building is important in any genre, but it can be boring to read. We'll look at ways to add it to your book—without boring readers.
Different types of description
Discover how the right description—at the right time—adds more intrigue and depth to your characters.
Develop your characters' voices
Learn techniques to develop your character's voice, whether you're writing in first person, or just including their voice in dialogue.
Balance description and dialogue
It's a combination of description and dialogue that will bring your book to life for your reader. We'll look at how to balance the two, and why doing this is so important.
Emotional writing techniques
Discover how to really get into your readers' heads by writing more emotive inner monologues and dialogue.
Dialogue and description: working together since....forever
Many of us love writing dialogue…or description. Some genres are heavy on one or the other.
But what if it didn’t need to be an either/or thing? What if we could use the relationship between the two to add more depth to our characters, plot, and world?
In this one-hour Zoom workshop (don't worry—cameras and mics will be off!), we're going to use examples and activities to help you understand how you can use dialogue and description in your work in progress.
Whether you're writing or editing, you'll come away knowing how the two work together, and how they can add depth to your story.
This workshop is for you if you want to:
- Add more emotional depth to your writing
- Avoid info dumping
- Create clear, crisp dialogue
- Stop worrying about using too much dialogue/too little description (or vice versa) as you write
- Improve your self-editing skills
- Make your readers laugh, cry, or throw your book at a wall
Testimonials from previous courses
Wonderful insight for a beginner writer
I really enjoyed this course. I am new to writing, and it gave me a deep perspective of how important it is to know who my character is, and gave a clear path on how to figure it out.
I really enjoyed this course. I am new to writing, and it gave me a deep perspective of how important it is to know who my character is, and gave a clear path on how to figure it out.#
About character creation crash course
— Lindsey Dierlam
Immediately applicable to my work in progress
A really helpful breakdown of character arcs in their different types, with examples and formulas which not only made things very clear, but made the lessons learned immediately applicable to my work in progress. I'd recommend this to anyone looking to add depth to their characters and weave their different arcs into a cohesive and coherent plot. People always say that genre novels are heavy on plot, whereas literary novels are heavy on character. You know what? Get them right and you can have both a riveting plot and wonderfully realised characters. This course will help you achieve that.
About How to Write Character Arc—Whatever Your Genre
— G. M. White
Thank you so much!
I am just at the beginning of my writing journey, and this course has given me so much information to help writing realistic well-rounded characters in my stories.
About Character Creation Crash Course
— Michelle Nieves
Meet your guide
Kristina Adams is the bestselling author of 15 books, including 3 books for writers. She has an MA and a BA in Creative Writing. During her studies, her dialogue was always complimented for its strength and voice. But, without the description around it, this dialogue would still be flatter than an English pancake. Her witty, fast-paced dialogue is one of the keys to her books' success, and now, she's sharing her storytelling secrets with you.
Testimonials
Wonderfully encompassing
As a person who loves characterisation and considers it very important, I found Kristina’s advice to be wonderfully encompassing of the main points of what a character arc is, why it’s important, and how to make improvements. Her way of explaining things is very clear and engaging. If you have trouble with characters and don’t understand how to help a character grow across the arc of your story, this course is a perfect fit for you.
About How to Write Character Arcs - Whatever Your Genre
— Cassie Kelly
It revealed my characters' true feelings
It revealed my characters' true feelings without being direct. Great exercise. It helped me see my other main character is actually jealous of the protagonist. I found the dialogue between the two characters changes over the course of the story, as their level of self-confidence changes.
About How to Write Realistic Characters
— Di Scotte
A caring and passionate approach
Kristina has a caring a passionate approach to what she does. She has helped me to control my need to add every possible idea into my story and to write a coherent and compelling plot as well create realistic characters. She instils confidence into you and helps you wade through the all the negativity that writers put themselves through, helping you find the positives. I highly recommend Kristina as she has a vast publishing history to back up her credentials.
About Kristina's author coaching