Speaker 1: Grab your friends, because today we're going to talk about group dialogue, dialogue between three or more characters. By the way, my name is Brandon McNulty, I'm the author of Bad Parts, also the author of Entry Wounds, and welcome to my writing channel. One of my subscribers requested a video on the topic of group dialogue. He was struggling with how to balance out a conversation between more than two people, and also how to keep track of who's speaking, things like that. So we're going to cover that today, and I have five tips that will help you write better group conversations in your stories. I'm also going to take an example from a movie, as well as an example from a book, to illustrate these tips. But the first tip is to make sure that everyone has something to contribute to the conversation. Now, when I'm talking about contributing to the conversation, it can be verbally, meaning that every character speaks. It also can include things like characters taking action during a conversation, or characters having reactions during a conversation. The key thing to remember here, though, they have to contribute in some way. If your character is just sitting there while everybody else is talking, there's something wrong with it there. You need to rework that conversation, or just get that particular character, that character who's just sitting there, get that character out of the scene. There's no reason why a character should be in a conversation and not contributing to it. Tip number two is power dynamics. What I mean by this, who plays what role in the conversation? Typically, the common roles you'll see in a conversation are going to be leader, follower, and opponent. Now, when we're talking about leaders, we're talking about who is in command of the conversation. If someone is giving orders in a conversation, or they're giving instructions, or they're motivating the other characters to do something, that character is taking on the role of the leader. Now, if there's a leader, there has to be followers. If you have a leader giving out orders, then chances are there's going to be followers who are going to say, yes, I'll go and do those orders. Followers are going to agree with the leader, or they're going to help the leader improve their ideas. The third role is that of the opponent. An opponent is someone who, in a conversation, challenges the leader and tries to take control of the conversation. Keep in mind that roles may change over the course of a conversation. You might have a character opening up the conversation as the leader, and then over the course of that conversation, an opponent challenges them, and by the end of it, that opponent becomes the leader, and the followers are swayed from one way to another. In order to illustrate these first two tips, I'm going to take an example from the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. If you haven't seen this movie, it's a superhero movie. It's about a group of criminals who have to work together in order to save the galaxy. About midway through the movie, four of our main characters are stuck in prison, and they want to bust out of prison. These four characters include Star-Lord, who's the main character, as well as Gamora, and then Rocket the Raccoon, and then Groot. These four characters, they want to break out of prison, and in this scene I'm about to show you, they're planning their prison escape. While you're watching it, pay attention to how each character contributes to the conversation, and also pay attention to the power dynamics. The guards wear security bands to control their ins and outs.

Speaker 2: I need one. Leave it to me. That dude there, I need his prosthetic leg. Alright. And finally, on the wall back there is a black panel, blinky yellow light. You see it? Yeah. There's a Quarnix battery behind it, purplish box, green wires. To get into that watchtower, I definitely need...

Speaker 3: Look, it's 20 feet up in the air, and it's in the middle of the most heavily guarded part of the prison. It's impossible to get up there without being seen. I got one plan, and that plan requires a frickin' Quarnix battery, so figure it out.

Speaker 1: So this scene is a great example of group dialogue because all four characters contribute. Rocket, Star-Lord, and Gamora, they have a verbal conversation with one another, and Groot, although he doesn't say anything, he takes action in the background. He contributes to the conversation through action. This is also a great example of power dynamics. Right at the start, we see that Rocket is the leader. He's the guy giving orders. He has the plan. He needs other people to help him. And then Star-Lord and Gamora, they're offering to help. They're willing to go get the things he needs, but then a little later on in the conversation, they challenge him as opponents. They go against his plan. They suggest that it could be better or that there could be other options here. And then, of course, you have Groot who puts an end to the argument by going and getting the battery that Rocket needs. All right, now let's move along to tip number three, and tip number three is to establish the location of each character who is involved in the conversation. It helps if you can establish who is sitting where, who is standing where. Maybe they're performing some action on some other side of the room or wherever it is, but it's very important to establish location, and location can often tell us something about how the conversation is going. Remember that if there's a power struggle, maybe somebody who sides with one character might sit next to that character, but somebody who is against that character might sit further away from them. So always remember location and positioning when you're coming up with a group conversation. Tip number four is to distinguish your character's voices, and I'm not going to get too deep into this because I already did a video on it a little while ago. If you're interested in learning more, I'll link it up here as well as in the description below. But when it comes to distinguishing character voices, this is a great way to make your scene more interesting and to also make it easier to follow who is speaking. And I'm not saying you have to go all out and come up with some kind of crazy dialect or some kind of off-the-wall accent for all of your characters, but think about things like word choice, think about sentence structure, think about energy, all the different types of things that can potentially distinguish one character's speaking style from another. And tip number five is to use dialogue tags for clarity. This is very important in written stories like novels, short stories, things like that. You're not going to see them in movies or TV shows, but when we are writing a written story, you have to include dialogue tags like he said, she said, Bob said, Sarah said, things like that. Very important because they add clarity to your story, the reader understands who is speaking, and whenever there's a back and forth between two characters, you can tag speaker number one, then when speaker number two starts talking, you can tag them, and then you can go back and forth. You don't have to worry about tagging again until you add a third character to the mix. Then you have to tag that third character, and then when you're going back to maybe the first or the second, you have to tag them again. It needs to be clear who is speaking at all times. If there's ever any doubt, don't be afraid to add a tag in there. It just makes things a lot easier for the readers. You don't want confusion to screw up your story. Now let's take a look at an example from a novel. It's called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I'm not sure if any of you have heard of this one before, but it's about a boy. He finds out that he's a wizard, he has to go to wizard school, and on his 11th birthday, he's staying with his aunt and uncle and their son, and he gets a visit from this giant wizard named Hagrid. And I'm going to read a scene for you right now where Hagrid busts into this house where Harry Potter is staying at. Pay attention to how each character contributes. Pay attention to the power dynamics, the character locations, the different voices, and the dialogue tags. The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Call me Hagrid, he said. Everyone does. Like I told you, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts. You'll know all about Hogwarts, of course. Er, no, said Harry. Hagrid looked shocked. Sorry, Harry said quickly. Sorry, barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. It's them who should be sorry. I knew you weren't getting your letters, but I never thought you wouldn't even know about Hogwarts for crying out loud. Did you never wonder where your parents learned it all? All what? asked Harry. All what? Hagrid thundered. Now wait just one second. He had leapt to his feet. In his anger, he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall. Do you mean to tell me, he growled at the Dursleys, that this boy, this boy knows nothing about, about anything? Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad. I know some things, he said. I can, you know, do math and stuff. But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Your parents' world. What world? Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode. Dursley. He boomed. Dursley, who had grown very pale, whispered something that sounded like mimble-wimble. Hagrid stared wildly at Harry. But you must know about your mom and dad, he said. I mean, they're famous. You're famous. What? My, my mom and dad weren't famous, were they? You don't know. You don't know. Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare. You don't know what you are, he said finally. Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice. Stop, he commanded. Stop right there, sir. I forbid you to tell the boy anything. A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him. When Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage. You never told him. Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left for him. I was there. I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley. And you kept it from him all these years. Kept what from me, said Harry eagerly? Stop, I forbid you, yelled Uncle Vernon in panic. Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror. Ah, go boil your heads, both of you, said Hagrid. Harry, you're a wizard. So this example hits on all five things I talked about today. We have the characters contributing in different ways. Hagrid is trying to convey information to Harry, Harry is trying to make sense of this information, the Dursleys are trying to protect themselves and also trying to keep Harry from learning the truth. And then when it comes to power dynamics, we see that Hagrid is the leader here, he's the one who is taking command of this conversation, he's the one trying to pass information on. And then we have Harry following, or at least trying to follow what Hagrid is saying, he's trying to make sense of what's being said to him. And then Mr. Dursley is the opponent here, he's trying to stop Hagrid from telling Harry that he's a wizard. And as far as character location, that much is established before the example I gave you, but there is that line there about the Dursleys backing away into the shadows, we get a sense that they're falling off from this conversation and that Harry and Hagrid are taking center stage. And as for distinguished voices, obviously Hagrid has a very distinct voice from the other characters in this story. We also have Harry speaking like an 11-year-old boy, while Uncle Vernon is speaking like an angry man. And then finally we have the dialogue tags, which establish who is speaking, for the most part it's Hagrid and Harry, but Mr. Dursley chimes in toward the end of this example. So I hope this helps. Question of the day, what is your favorite group conversation from a story? Let us know in the comments section below. Thank you guys for watching. If you want to support the channel, please pick up a copy of either one of my books. Bad Parts is great if you like small town horror. It's about people trading away their sick and injured body parts in order to get healthy again. And then Entry Wounds is great if you like thrillers. It's about a guy who picks up a haunted gun and he can't put it down until he kills six people with it. Also, be sure to check out my other videos, hit the like and subscribe buttons for me, share this video with a friend, and as always, remember to keep on writing.