I am creating online video training and in the script writing phase. I'm trying to make my dialogue more conversational. While that feedback is easy to deliver, it seems like everyone has their own idea about what "conversational" really is. There is research indicating that conversational dialogue is recommended, but there is hardly a consensus on this.

Any suggestions and/or research articles would be great.

Thanks!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Connector,

Check out resources on script writing and fiction writing at the local library. Some of the most readable are from Writers' Digest Press.

One thing all those books I've read say is that for dialog, you need to write what people think people say, not what they actually do. That is a paradox, but if you read a lot of fiction and watch movies, they often talk an a way few real people do; but we expect people in books an movies to talk that way. Strange, huh?

I agree that books about writing dialog for fiction would be helpful. Ones that show before-and-after rewrites could be most useful, because many of us start out by writing kind of stiff dialog and have trouble figuring out why it sounds stiff.

I've also got two blog posts about the topic:

Tips for making dialog sound realistic:
http://blog.cathy-moore.com/2008/04/dude-or-droid-what-makes-dialog-realistic/

Tips and research on conversational style in general:
http://blog.cathy-moore.com/2009/01/why-you-do-not-want-to-sound-like-a-robot/

Cathy

That was really helpful. Thank you Cathy!

Has anyone taken any classes on writingclasses.com ? They won an award by Forbes and seem pretty decent in their learning methodlogy too.

Tangent alert --Ok, I'm certainly interested in other resources on conversational resources. Anything specific to interactive video training?

quote:

it seems like everyone has their own idea about what "conversational" really is

This whole discussion is very interesting. Have you tried recording a short unscripted conversation about the topic and asking the others whether or not the dialog is "conversational"? It might give some useful insights. You could use an inexpensive camera, do it very informally and have the results very quickly.