Speaker 1: A story needs a character with a conflict. A story needs a solution or resolution. But a story does not need dialogue. In fact, including large chunks of poorly written dialogue can take an otherwise great plot and weaken it. Tip number four, when teaching dialogue in narrative writing, define four important guidelines for students to follow. Number one, mute the characters initially. Since the foundation of a narrative is its plot, it's okay to keep characters muted until after the story's problem and solution have been established. In other words, don't let students include any dialogue within the first draft. This ensures that any character speech added won't slow down the plot or, worse, derail it. With the story now outlined, teach students when, where, and how to insert dialogue. Guideline number two, keep the chatter brief. Effective dialogue is not filler. It's not chit-chat. It doesn't require lengthy exchanges. In fact, dialogue that goes on for too long can be exhausting for the reader. Also, teach students that the best dialogue is purposeful and brief. Rather than transcribing an entire conversation from beginning to end, teach students how to use the narrator to describe characters entering a scene, greeting each other, and getting to the point of the meeting. Then, quote only the most powerful, pivotal, and emotional sentences spoken by the characters in that moment. After those key lines are spoken, let the narrator wrap up the conversation, describing how the characters say goodbye and leave the scene. After clarifying when characters speak, reveal what they will say. The key is to position character conversation so that it advances the story's plot. That's guideline number three. Just like every sentence stated by the narrator keeps the story moving, every sentence spoken by a character should also advance the reader on the story arc. Specifically, look to insert dialogue where the problem is identified, where the problem gets worse, and where the problem climaxes. Model how to re-read those three portions of the first draft with an eye for inserting dialogue that reveals a character's reaction to the conflict he's facing. That reveals a character's response to what's happening to him and around him. That reveals a character's interaction with other characters in that scene. Once students know where they want to insert dialogue and exactly what they want the character to say, now it's time to teach them how to present it in the writing. Guideline number four. Get the punctuation right. Quotation marks alert the reader to what is being spoken by a character versus everything else that is described by the narrator. This is an unspoken agreement between the writer and his readers. But when students don't punctuate dialogue correctly, the audience struggles to comprehend. The two most basic conventions of dialogue are, one, only the words that come out of the character's mouth go inside quotation marks. And two, punctuation marks that go with that speech also go inside the quotation marks. To illustrate this for students, project a memorable line of dialogue from a recently read text. Point to the beginning and end quotation marks, telling students that these marks represent a pair of lips. The left one indicates when the character's mouth opens, and the right set shows when he's done speaking with the closing of his mouth. Consequently, all adjacent words that indicate who said it and or how it was said are always outside of the lips, outside the quotation marks. Teaching dialogue during a narrative writing unit is typical. However, without much guidance, students' initial attempts include continuous, confusing, and clunky conversations between characters. Therefore, outline the four principles of including dialogue before students start to write in order to maximize the impact of this powerful narrative writing technique.