Lesson video

Hello there, welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Mr. Barnsley and it is fantastic to see you today.

We're continuing our work on creating malevolent characters, really thinking about how we can create believable, terrifying characters in our own narrative writing, and today we're focusing on how we can use dialogue, speech, to help develop our characters further.

Now, you're gonna need access to the additional materials for today's lesson, there is an extract from a text that we'll be looking at later in the lesson, so please do make sure you have that in front of you, and once you're ready to begin, then we can dive in, let's go.

So the outcome of today's lesson is that by the end of the lesson you will be able to carefully craft a character through the use of dialogue.

So, five keywords we're gonna look out for today.

They are dialogue, tone, verb, adverb, and reporting clause.

Now, the one I really want us to focus on is that word dialogue because it was in our title, it's in our outcome, and that means a conversation between two or more people, so we're gonna really work on the art of using conversation and dialogue in our writing.

All the other words we will tackle as they appear in the lesson.

So there are three learning cycles in today's lesson.

First, we're gonna go through the rules of dialogue, then we're gonna think about how dialogue can be used to craft character, and then it's gonna be over to you to do some crafting of dialogue of your own.

But let's first think of some of the rules of dialogue.

So when we write dialogue it's really important that we are clear on the rules 'cause we want to be able to present our dialogue really accurately and clearly.

But why do you think it's so important to be accurate and clear, especially when we are writing dialogue in our own descriptive or narrative writing? Over to you for this question.

If you've got a partner, you can think through this with them.

Otherwise, you can just think through this by yourself, but do make sure you pause the video to give yourself a little bit of thinking time and then press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back, I heard some fantastic ideas there.

Really, really well done.

I heard lots of you saying things like, look, when there's multiple speakers, when you've got more than one character speaking, it's really important that we're clear so we know who is speaking and when.

I heard lots of you talking about speech can really help maintain the flow of the writing, but that only works if we present it clearly and accurately, otherwise we can get really confused.

And I heard lots of you talking about how speech can be used to reveal information about a character's emotions or personality.

So we want to make sure it's really clear which character we're talking about, otherwise, again, going back to that word confusion, we're gonna end up with a very confused reader if it's not clear who or which character this dialogue is revealing information about.

So, loads of reasons why it's important that we present our dialogue accurately and clearly.

So, we're gonna keep the rules really simple for writing dialogue and crafting dialogue.

The first and most important one is we want to use speech marks.

These indicate when someone starts and when they finish speaking.

So in that example sentence, "'Are you ready?' she asked." The speech marks go around the "Are you ready?" because that is the part of the sentence that the character is saying out loud.

If I put the speech marks around "are" and "asked," then it would suggest that "she asked" is being said aloud by a character.

So, "'Are you ready?' she asked." Speech marks round the "Are you ready?" We also want to put punctuation marks related to the speech inside the speech marks but we want to finish the whole sentence with a full stop.

So, "'I'm ready,' he replied." So you notice we put a comma in that example like we put the question mark in the first example, but we put those inside the speech marks.

We still need a full stop, but that goes at the end of the sentence.

And we make sure we always start a new line for each speaker so it's really clear who is talking.

For example, "'Are you ready?' she asked.

'I'm ready,' he replied." You can see there are clearly different speakers.

They have different pronouns, he and she, but also, "Are you ready?" is a question, "I'm ready" is an answer.

This is clearly two people speaking to each other, therefore we need to start a new line.

Another rule is that we can use reporting clauses, and this was one of our keywords, it's in bold, so let's have a look and explore what reporting clauses can mean.

Well, reporting clauses are used to show the reader who is talking but also how they are speaking.

Okay, so it's not just what they're saying or who is saying, but how they are saying it.

And these can come before or after or split direct speech, so let's look at an example.

So we could start with the reporting clause before the speech.

So, "Sally asked grumpily, 'Do you know when we're going home?'" Notice speech marks around the bit that Sally is saying.

Question mark within, inside the speech mark.

"Sally asked grumpily" is the reporting clause so it goes before.

But we can also put this in the middle of the sentence.

"'Do you know,' Sally asked grumpily, 'when we're going home?'" Notice there that that is surrounded by commas like when we embed a subordinate clause in a main clause, we will put commas around it, we do so here.

Or finally, "'Do you know when we're going home?' Sally asked grumpily." So the reporting clause gives us some information, it tells us who is talking, in this case Sally, and how they are speaking, in this case grumpily.

Alright, over to you to check how you are getting on so far in today's lesson.

Which line of dialogue is correctly punctuated? Is it A, "Have I seen you somewhere before, asked the man." Is it B, "'Have I seen you somewhere before,' asked the man." Is it C, "'Have I seen you somewhere before?' asked the man." Okay, so as you can see they all sound exactly the same but only one of them is punctuated correctly.

Pause the video, have a look, have a think, and press play when you think you've got the answer.

Really well done if you said C.

We know it can't be the first one, it can't possibly be the first one 'cause the first one doesn't use any speech marks and we know that the man is saying this, "Have I seen you somewhere before?" He's asking this question out loud.

So we then narrowed it down to B and C and the key there is this is a question, isn't it? That verb "asked" tells us that this is a question, so we need a question mark for a question, so C has to be the right one.

B would be punctuated correctly, is an example of something said if it wasn't a question.

So, "'I've seen you somewhere before,' said the man." If that wasn't a question, then that would be perfectly punctuated.

But because it's a question, we need the question mark in there.

Really well done if you've got C.

Okay, over to you then for our first task of today's lesson, and you are now gonna insert the correct punctuation into the paragraph below so the dialogue makes sense.

Let's read through it together.

"'Haven't I seen you somewhere before?' asked the shopkeeper.

'I told you we've never met,' snapped the stranger.

'Well, I have a photographic memory and I never forget a face.

' 'You are mistaken.

Now let me buy my lunch in peace.

'" Over to you, then.

I want you to write this out with the correct punctuation.

Alright, pause the video, give this a go, and press play when you think you are done.

Alright, welcome back.

You can now see the correctly punctuated version of this paragraph on the screen.

Did you remember to put the speech marks around each of the bits that were said out loud? Did you remember to put a full stop at the end of the sentences, so after shopkeeper, after stranger? Did you remember that question mark? "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" That is a question, it needs a question mark rather than a comma.

Now you may have used exclamation marks for the final line.

"Now let me buy my lunch in peace!" You may not have used an exclamation mark for "And I never forget a face." Okay, sometimes those punctuation choices are choices that you can make, okay? Sometimes there are more than one right answer, it could be a full stop, it could be an exclamation.

Those exclamation marks really are helping convey the feelings of a character and how strongly they are saying that sentence, but that is a choice that you can make as a writer.

But there are certain things like the question mark, the question mark just has to be used, the speech marks have to be used, the full stop at the end of the sentence, they have to be used.

Other things, that's up to you, you can be creative there.

So well done if you punctuated this correctly, great job.

Why don't you pause the video and double check your work and make any changes if you can see any corrections that you need to make, then press play when you're ready to continue.

Okay, welcome back, let's continue with today's lesson then, and now we're gonna focus on dialogue and thinking how we can use it to craft character.

So it is important to write dialogue accurately, but it's also really important to consider how we can use dialogue to help craft characters.

It really helps us as a reader understand more about these characters when we can hear and understand how they are communicating.

So one important thing to consider when writing dialogue is the tone that you want to convey.

Let's look at these examples then.

"'I can't wait to see you!' she exclaimed excitedly." "'I can't wait to see you,' she muttered reluctantly." "'I can't wait to see you,' she said." Over to you.

If you've got a partner, you can discuss with them.

For each example I want you to consider what tone is being conveyed and how do you know.

What's the mood, the emotion, the tone of each of those sentences, and how do you know? Alright, pause the video, have a think, have a discuss, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back, I wonder if you said that the first sentence felt really happy.

You know, there's the exclamation mark, they've got that verb, "exclaimed." You know, it sounds like someone who cannot wait to see someone.

You might have said the second one seems maybe quite unhappy, miserable, maybe even slightly sarcastic.

"'Oh, I can't wait to see you,' she muttered reluctantly." Whereas that third sentence feels really neutral.

But how did you know, how could you tell the difference? Well, you might have said that the adverbs really jumped out to you, so those adverbs, "excitedly" and "reluctantly," really helped us to understand the tone of how the dialogue should be read.

And it's the verbs, so those words, "exclaimed" and "muttered," which really help us understand the feelings of the character.

So our verb choices and our adverb choices can do a lot of heavy lifting here in helping craft a character.

When we look at example three, there's no obvious tone because there's no adverb.

It's very, you know, we can make, potentially, some inferences.

"I can't wait to see you." Well, we expect this to be something quite positive, but we have to do a lot of inferring there.

We have to kind of read between the lines from the actual dialogue.

Whereas if we use adverbs, we use verbs and really well-selected verbs, it can really help us give clues to our reader about the characters that we're trying to craft.

So our dialogue allows your reader to know what is being said, but verbs and adverbs allow your readers to know how it's being said.

And we can learn a lot about a character by how they speak as well as what they say.

So let's give this a go then, let's try this on for size.

In pairs, I want you to complete the sentences using the verbs below.

So I've got some dialogue.

"Tickets, please." "Why is this happening?" "The butler did it." And I want you to decide how it's said, okay? And you're gonna need to select a great verb to go in there, and you can see on the screen underneath the table I've got four boxes with some different types of kind of communicative verbs, so different ways of saying said, asked, replied, and shouted.

Then I've given you who's saying it, so the conductor, the stranger, and the detective.

And then I want you to choose your own adverb to think about how this is being said and what is it telling us about the person saying that sentence.

So try this on, try this on for size, give it a go, put different verbs there, add different adverbs, and have communications about what happens when you change the verbs and adverbs and how it changes the meaning of those sentences.

So over to you for a bit of experimenting here, play around with this.

Pause the video and press play when you've had a go and you're ready to continue with the lesson.

Hello, welcome back.

Really great experimentation going on there and I hope you realised just what an impact it has changing the verbs and adverbs and how we understand and interpret the characters.

Alright, let's pause for a moment and check to see how we're understanding, how we're getting on in today's lesson.

True or false, the tone of a piece of dialogue is always clear through what is said aloud by the characters.

Pause the video and decide whether this true and false and justify that, justify the answer that you chose.

Alright, pause the video, give it a go, and press play when you've got some answers.

Welcome back, I'm sure you would've said false there and you might have justified this by saying, yes, the content of the dialogue is important, but it's actually the verbs and the adverbs which come in the reporting clause which are crucial in helping to set the tone of the dialogue.

Alright, over to you then for a second task.

There is some example dialogue in your additional material, so you will need to have access to that.

As you read this, I want you to consider and discuss the following.

What are the characters saying to each other? What is the tone of the character's speech? And what are your first impressions of the characters from the dialogue that they are saying? Alright, you can do this in pairs if you've got a partner.

Otherwise, you can just think through these independently.

Alright, over to you.

Pause the video, give this task a go, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Alright, welcome back, some fantastic independent reading there and some really good discussions, some fantastic ideas.

I could hear lots of you saying that the characters were talking about Evelyn's work and that was really kind of clear, that kind of seemed very clear to us.

But it was the tone where the discussions start to get quite interesting.

Lots of you were saying that Evelyn seems quite wary and unsure of Mr. Blackwood's intentions.

And at the same time, Mr. Blackwood seemed very patronising, you said it felt quite sneaky.

But this was what was quite interesting, is both the characters were being very polite.

So if we just looked at it on the surface, we would say, well, this is a very polite conversation.

But we were able to kinda make some inferences on the characters through the tone of their speech.

And so your first impressions of the characters might have been something like Evelyn was a hard worker but was very protective of her work, whereas Mr. Blackwood seems like he had some form of malicious intentions, he didn't feel like a particularly likeable character.

There was something there that maybe made you feel a little bit cautious about him.

Alright, onto our final learning cycle in today's lesson and it's gonna be over to us to do some crafting of dialogue.

So it's really important that when we craft dialogue that we also include description about what the characters are doing or how they look.

This will make the text so much more engaging for our reader.

We don't want a page of just dialogue, okay? That's really almost like we're writing a script and that's not what we want to do.

In a narrative, in a description, we want to be painting this picture of what the characters are doing through more than just their dialogue.

So let's look at this example.

So, "'Mr. Blackwood,' Evelyn said, glancing up.

'I wasn't expecting you.

What brings you here today?' 'Oh, just a friendly visit, Evelyn,' Mr. Blackwood replied, his voice smooth and seemingly warm.

'" Well, let's have a look at what this might look like then if we add a little bit more description in.

So I'm not changing the dialogue, but in blue you can see where I've added further description.

"'Mr. Blackwood,' Evelyn said, glancing up with a mixture of surprise and caution.

'I wasn't expecting you.

What brings you here today?' Her fingers hovered over her desk, the pen poised in midair before she set it down deliberately.

'Oh, just a friendly visit, Evelyn,' Mr. Blackwood replied, his voice smooth and seemingly warm.

Despite his calm tone, there was a glint in his eye that suggested a deeper interest.

He let his gaze wander over her work." True or false, then.

When crafting dialogue, you should focus more on what's being said instead of what surrounds the dialogue.

Is that true or false? Make your choice and be prepared to justify your answer.

Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Really well done if you said false, and you might have justified that by saying, look, what is said in the dialogue is important, but the use of effective verbs and adverbs in the reporting clause and the description that accompanies it, all of this together will ensure that our dialogue is really engaging and we get a really clear image of the characters that we are trying to craft and create.

Well done if you said something similar.

So we are gonna be using the following prompt for our final task of the lesson.

You're gonna be asked to write a dialogue between two characters where one is revealing a secret to the other, but I want one of your characters to be quite malevolent in their actions towards the other.

So you can use the dialogue below as a starting point.

So character A is saying, "I've been hiding something from you." And B is saying, "Tell me right now." So we can use that as a prompt to get us started.

And remember the keys, we're gonna be using verbs and adverbs to convey their emotions.

But before we get onto the writing, let's take a moment to have a little bit of a think about what we could do here.

So, in pairs or just independently if you want to, if you're working by yourself, how might you develop this dialogue? What's the secret? What verbs and adverbs might you use? What kind of descriptions will you include? Why don't you pause the video and give yourself time to do some thinking before we do the writing.

Alright, pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to move on to the task.

Okay, welcome back.

I hope you found that thinking time really useful.

It's now over to you for our final task in today's lesson.

So you are gonna write a dialogue between two characters where one is revealing a secret to the other, one character is malevolent towards the other, use strong verbs and adverbs to convey their emotions.

Things to consider, your verb and adverb choices.

Think about how they're gonna impact tone.

Think about what is being said.

Is one of your characters clearly being really malevolent or are you gonna do that more subtly through your verb and adverb choices? And think about your accurate punctuation and your layout for the dialogue.

Alright, over to you, I know you can do this.

Pause the video and give it your best shot and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back, some fantastic work that you should be really, really pleased with yourself.

I was really impressed with everyone who was double-checking their punctuation before they put their pen down 'cause there's a lot of punctuation needed when we're writing dialogue.

Okay, so you may have written something like this, let's look at an example answer and then let's think about how we can use this to self-assess our own.

So, "'What do you want from me?' Lily asked, her voice quivering as she struggled to keep her composure.

Her hands trembled slightly as she searched the dimly-lit room for an escape route.

'I've been hiding something from you,' John revealed, his tone eerily calm.

He leaned forward slightly, his dark eyes glinting in the low light.

'Something that might ruin you if it ever got out.

' 'What is it?' Lily asked desperately.

She clutched her coat tightly, trying to steady her breathing as anxiety etched deeper into her features.

'I know about the money you took from the charity,' John declared, his voice growing colder.

He took a deliberate step closer.

'I saw you slip it into your bag.

' The secret was out." Right, let's check that you, like this example, included a range of verbs and adverbs to show how both characters are speaking, that you've created dialogue which sees one malevolent character reveal a secret to another, and that you've accurately punctuated and laid out your dialogue so it's clear who is speaking.

Reread your work, give yourself a what went well and an even better if using the bullet points on screen.

Alright, pause video, give this a go, and press play when you're done.

Okay, that's it, we've reached the end of today's lesson.

What a fantastic job you have done today.

On the screen is a summary of everything that we covered, let's quickly go through this together so you can feel really confident before you move on to your next lesson.

So we've learned that dialogue should be punctuated and laid out clearly and accurately to make it clear who is speaking.

We've learned that the reporting clause is helpful when crafting character.

We've learned that strong verbs and adverbs are crucial for creating engaging dialogue that conveys character's emotions.

We've learned that it's important to include description when writing dialogue.

And we've learned that the tone conveyed when crafting dialogue tells the reader a lot about characters involved.

Fantastic work today, everybody.

Thank you so much for joining me and I hope to see you in one of our lessons again in the future.

Have a great day and see you all soon, bye-bye.