Developing a Story Using Dialogue

"UGH I'm never going to win this contest and meet Sunny! Of course the one weekend Ernie is out of town I NEED his help!" It looks like Jane needs help improving her story! Let's help her by learning about... Developing a Story Using Dialogue. When writing a story, it's important to develop the plot, mood, and characters to improve the reader's enjoyment. Jane needs help developing Sunny, the main character in her story, so she can meet the REAL Sunny the hedgehog. One way she can do this is by adding dialogue, or conversation between characters, to her story. Authors include dialogue in their works to give their characters depth and to make the story feel real. Dialogue also helps the plot move forward, and adds to the conflict, or problem, of a story. Jane's story says, 'Sunny is hot on the crumb trail to see if she can find who stole the apple pie. She stops at her brother's door and thinks. Then, she opens it and sees that he's eaten the entire pie! He promises to make it up to her.' Right now Jane's story doesn't have any dialogue, so we need to add some. There are a few options, but we will replace the sentence, 'She stops at her brother's door and thinks,' with dialogue. What could Sunny think to herself to make it more interesting? (...) While there are many possibilities, we will add the dialogue, "Huh, Parker told me he didn't want to help because he doesn't like apples," Sunny thought to herself as she opened the door. This dialogue gives us more information about Sunny's brother. It tells us his name and that she asked him to help make the pie earlier, but he said no because he doesn't like apples. It also tells us that Sunny is confused. Now Sunny enters his room. What dialogue could we add to show Sunny's reaction to discovering that her brother ate the entire pie? (...) While there are many possibilities, we will add the dialogue, "PARKER! I was looking forward to that pie as my bedtime snack!" This dialogue tells us that Sunny is feeling upset and was looking forward enjoying the pie she baked. Now, think about one more line of dialogue that shows how Parker will respond. What do you imagine Parker saying to Sunny after being caught with the pie? (...) Write your ideas in the comments below! Remember to put your dialogue in quotation marks! Before we see how Jane's story did in the contest, let's summarize. Remember, (...) when writing a story, it's important to develop the plot, mood, and characters to improve the reader's experience. Authors put dialogue in their writing to add depth to the characters and to help the story feel real. Dialogue also helps the plot move forward, and adds to the conflict of a story. Oh! It looks like Jane brought her a pie!