A Well-Told Story: Using Dialogue

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 Analyze 
Use the basic features.

Dialogue is a narrating strategy that helps writers dramatize a story. Quoting with descriptive speaker tags—

Speaker tag

—is an especially effective way of making readers feel as though they were there, overhearing what was said and how it was said. But all of the dialogue strategies—quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing—can help readers identify with or understand a writer’s point of view and give us an impression of the speakers. Desmond-Harris includes only a few lines of dialogue in “Tupac and My Non-thug Life,” but those she does include demonstrate how effective this sentence strategy can be.

ANALYZE & WRITE

To learn more about quoting with speaker tags, paraphrasing, and summarizing in autobiographical stories, see pp. 11–12; to learn more about using them in your own writing, see the Guide to Writing, pp. 35–36 and 38–39.

Write a paragraph analyzing how Desmond-Harris uses dialogue in “Tupac and My Non-thug Life”:

  1. Skim the story, highlighting the dialogue and underlining the speaker tags. Also note where Desmond-Harris summarizes or paraphrases a conversation.
  2. Consider each bit of dialogue, paraphrase, or summary to see what role it plays. Does it tell you something about the speaker or her relationship with another person? Does it convey feelings or attitudes? Does it advance the narrative or something else?

    Question