0 comments/ 6900 views/ 0 favorites Dialog By: OzRobert Come and suck on this. What, that puny thing. When you've got a decent sized hard-on, then I'll think about sucking it. I'm thinking about you sucking it and already its harder. Yeah, getting better. I can see your head poking out a bit from the foreskin, but it's still not enough to get me to wrap my lips around it. Could you just hold my nuts for a little. Just caress them. You don't have to touch my dick, just hold my balls. I could do that. There, that feel alright? Yeah, that's nice. Gentle squeezes. Man, they're hairy. Good weight. Full of spunk for me, I hope. And see what you've done to my cock. Big enough now? I'll give these balls of yours a little tug. Ahh. So good. Your cock reacts well to that. Good and straight now. Hold on while I slip off my top and bra. Your nipples are up already. Pinch them again. Your teeth are better than my fingers. Yes, right up into your mouth. Pull it hard. And the other one, your sensitive one. I can almost cum when you nip around that nipple and flick it with your tongue. So fast, like my vibe. I've wiggled off my panties. Can I go down? Yes. I want you between my legs. With your tongue running up and down my slit. And yes there on the clit, sucking, holding with your teeth. You're so wet. Your cunt is flooding with your juice. I love the taste of your sex. Put your tongue right in. Lick the inside of my cunt. OH! YES! Your cunt's fluttering against my lips. I kiss it gently. What a quick cum! And as you calm down, your lips take my nipples. Each time I give your nipples a bite, your cock springs up a little. You're arching your back. Trying to thrust your erection into something. I wrap my hand around it and your hips start to pump so I feel the thick head bump over my fingers. And now you lower your mouth and use your tongue, just to touch the very end. To take a drop of moisture from the slit. I hold myself in suspended animation as you grasp my cock and sit, open-mouthed in front of me. I wait for your softness. I savor the pulsing hardness of the straining organ. The head is taut and purple, clear liquor swelling up in its deep slit. The hard, veined shaft feels like warm iron. The heavy balls are still as he holds himself all in readiness for me. And then she moves forward and takes me into her mouth. I am surrounded by warmth and pressure. Only my cock exists and that is being pushed and pulled towards the deepest pleasure. I do not move, but feel her lips slide along me. I feel her tongue wash around the head and then the suction as she pulls my whole being into her. She pulls away and just rests her lips against my cock and then plunges down again so her teeth can grip, oh so gently, around the base of the shaft. (His cock fills my mouth. My jaws are stretched by its girth. I try to remember to suck and lick, when I want so much to just to use my mouth like a cunt and pound up and down on that lovely rod.) I start now to move a little, ( He's fucking me) She keeps sucking and now holds on to my balls so that when I sway to piston my shaft in her mouth, my balls are stretched with sensual pain.(He's fucking my mouth). I increase my speed and she uses her tongue to press against the underside of my tool. Her hands go around and clasp my arse (his bum is so rhythmic and muscular when he fucks me) I getting close (His shaft is so hard and the head is so swollen) I pound my hips into her (My mouth is being used. His cock doesn't care if it's in a cunt or a mouth) I'm going to explode.(He's ready. An extra suck and tongue caress) That's it, that's it, that's it (The taste of semen in my mouth. Why doesn't my cunt have taste buds to enjoy his sperm this way?)She holds me in her mouth while my cock softens. I draw out, leaving at first a filament of sperm between my drooping prick and her lips. We kiss We kiss and I give him the taste of his cum from my lips. He seems not to mind. I want my hole filled now, but his thing's too soft. A finger teases my clit , then two hold it and press it between them. A third finger now draws a channel between my wet lips and then eases inside. At last, something in my cunt. The finger probes and presses against the roof of my love hole. The other fingers are pinching my clit. I can't concentrate on the two assaults separately. My whole body is opening up to his attack. (Her eyes are shut) Now two fingers inside me, stretching my vaginal walls and opening. My clit is being pulled and squeezed. (Her hips are canted upwards, giving my hands free play over her genitals. So wet). My own hand takes my breast, works up to the nipple and pinches. My cock is hard again. I withdraw my hands. Where has he gone? I'm empty! In one thrust my cock is inside. My thighs are against hers Ah. I'm full. I make a couch for him. He lies between my legs and I feel him on my thighs and belly and right down on my mons, his groin presses up to me. I keep my full length inside her and just buck with my hips so that her cunt and lips are massaged by my shaft. His body is so warm. The pressure at my thighs is exquisite. I pull out a little and then push back in. I start a rhythm along the length of my cock. He fills me and then vacates, he fills and vacates. It stretches my lips and my clit. My breasts bounce as he pushes into me. Her hips start to rock with mine. Her nipples are hard again as I make her tits rock. Keep it going. Keep that cock ramming into me. Keep that hardness in me. Her legs are wide. Her hands again find her own nipples and pull on them. My cock is being pounded by her cunt. And fast, and hard, and fast, and hard, and pull and pinch and , and , and... Her cunt spasms around my rod. I hold still for a little and then with two strokes release the last of my spunk. That last shake of his prick. That last swelling of the head. The last of his cream. I kiss her mouth and breast. I kiss his mouth and neck. I hold my hand over her flushed lips and cunt. I hold his balls and shrinking cock. Dialogue: The Eternal Problem Thanks are due to '3113', who, despite a heavy workload, offered thoughtful, intelligent advice and comments. Bless you, thirteen, whoever you really are. * Literotica specializes in erotic stories. OK, we all know that. So obviously, sexual union and communication is high on the theme list, and one of the things people often do when they communicate sexually is communicate verbally as well. But a whole lot of the dialogue on Literotica pages is profoundly unreal, whether the characters are merely talking, exchanging plot information, preparing for sex or love, in the throes of lust or passion, or chilling out afterwards. Why should this be? (Yeah, I know, there are plenty of honorable exceptions, but that's not the point here... yet). Well, some of it's down to style and subject matter. Slut wives, talking vegetables, zombies, basic stroke stories, the purer adventures in fantasyland, don't demand realistic protagonists and don't usually need to develop characters into credible human beings. These stories aren't aiming for realism. But to take a theme like 'romance', or 'incest', or 'mature', or 'group sex', and to create believable people with motives and needs and reactions that will persuade the reader to suspend belief and think of them as real, if only for a moment : that takes a little more work. When you've got the time, try this little experiment. Rig up a recorder with a decent mike, invite a couple of friends over, and start talking. As the awareness of being recorded fades you'll begin to talk more naturally. (Better still, don't tell them). Record enough to get a whole chunk of how you and your friends sound when you're talking casually. Doesn't matter what it's about: baseball, cooking, work... (If you're really brave, tape your lover and yourself when you're preparing for / doing / relaxing after sex/love). When you play that sucker back, listen carefully. Let me make a few predictions about what you'll notice. • People don't talk in sentences. • People contract words, often whole phrases. • Words get mangled and slide together • People do not use each other's names very much. • People don't all speak the same way. Let's expand these findings, and see what we can do with them: • People don't talk in sentences. They think they do, but no fucking way. Grammar-free clauses, hesitations, corrections, repetition, meaningless interjections, sudden changes of subject... everything but clear, concise, grammatically correct pronouncements. Bummer. One of the things we could do here is just transcribe what people say. But unless you're a genius, transcription isn't the answer. You're writing a story, and your readers are going to need some help. Not too much though, or the dialogue will sound like a shopping list. Try this: transcribe part of what you've recorded and see the patterns, the rhythms, where the stress falls. Now write down what the person actually meant. There's a middle road here, and if you can identify it, so that the marks on the page echo the words in your head, you're on the way. In the following short example, stressed words are indicated in CAPITALIZED ITALICS. Real person as recorded: "So, um, I went to her HOUSE...ah...the NEW one...um, it's got this YARD? Have you SEEN it? Well it's kinda...REMEMBER her OLD place? Well...it's like... I mean, the OLD place had all these...um, BUSHES AN' SHIT... an' THIS one..." (No-one's going to want to read more than ten lines of this, and who can blame them? But, you've done two things. You've found the information words that are stressed in natural conversation, and therefore you've got the rhythm that this speaker uses. Now you can tidy it up without losing either). Character's statement as written dialogue: "So, I went to her HOUSE, the NEW one, and before, in her OLD place she had a YARD that was just FULL OF BUSHES and stuff, and THIS one...." (Of course, you're not going to put the capitals in, but the speech has the same rhythm and patterns as the spoken transcript, and it reads more naturally than): "I went to her new house and unlike her old one, which had a yard that was full of shrubs, the new property..." • People contract words, often whole phrases, a usage which is called, technically, 'ellipsis'. There isn't a single native English speaker in the world who says 'I will', or 'He is', or 'They are not'. It's 'I'll', 'He's', 'They aren't', unless they are emphasizing or contradicting a point, or the phrase is inverted as a question, or it comes at the end of a sentence ('I'm cold, are you?' ... 'Yes, I am.'). How much ellipsis you use depends on your style, the story, the characters and the context, but it happens everywhere. Try spending a half hour not using these common contractions. First, you'll find it almost impossible, and second, your friends will wonder what the hell's wrong with you. If your characters' dialogue doesn't reflect this then you're kidding yourself and shortchanging your readers. • Words get mangled and slide together. Writing this is harder. I use, e.g., 'wanna' and 'gonna', etc., when I'm writing about American characters, but I try to take care not to overdo it, or it looks like a bad attempt at dialect. Once again: style, story, characters, and context. • People do not use each other's names very much when talking to each other, unless the conversation is very heavy or formal. We use eye contact to tell someone we're addressing them. In large groups, names are used to attract someone's attention, but not nearly as much as you might think. On the other hand it's a useful tool for the author if the speaker might otherwise be difficult to identify and you don't want to use 'he said / she said' the whole time. Local call. • People don't all speak the same way. If you've got two characters conversing, and one is an old guy, grumpy, no college, been a mechanic all his life, and the other is a highly educated investment banker who's got an appointment at three and wants her car fixed now, they aren't going to sound the same. Different rhythms, different pitch, different vocabulary. Take your own voice away. Write the scene in a grossly exaggerated way, then pare it down until the essence of the characters is there in the way they speak. It's always harder to cut stuff out than to add it, but it's always the better way to attack the problem, and it nearly always leaves you with something cleaner and stronger than the unfocused page you started with. Do this right, and the characters will resonate in your readers' heads for a while. People talking to each other in real life get round the grammar problem by punctuating their speech with pauses and tone changes. These are hell to transcribe. (Try to forget those little green lines that your spellchecker keeps inserting. It's designed for text, not speech, and it's dumber than my dick anyway). Written punctuation marks, used carefully, can go a long way towards telling your readers what the character's tone of voice, pitch, etc. is up to. When you're offering someone a drink in an intimate or casual situation, you probably say 'Coffee?', or 'You wanna coffee?', and not 'Would you like some coffee?'. It's not grammatically correct, but it's how people speak. On the other hand, if it's Great Aunt Eliza who's gasping for a drink, you're probably a lot more formal, especially if she's rich. Now then, as we said, this is Literotica, and our characters spend a fair amount of time bopping each other's socks off, and rarely in total silence. What you and your lover say in bed is usually private, often silly, and sometimes weird. But here are some things I really don't say: maybe I've lived an unadventurous life... "You are so hot", "That is so nasty", "Beg for it you fucking slut", "I'm gonna fuck your tight pussy." And here are some of the things that have never been said to me: "I love the taste of your cum", "Make me your slut", "Fuck my dirty shit-hole". I guess I've just never met the right people. But if I find stuff like that masquerading as dialogue in a sex scene I sigh and look for something else. Like I said earlier, if you're writing a simple stroke story, or an out-and-out (in-and-out!) fantasy, you can have your characters say what you like. But if you want them to have that third dimension, think carefully. Talking dirty does happen, and very nice too, but a little goes a hell of a long way. 'I am going to cum in your hot slut mouth you cocksucking wet cunt bitch.' isn't dialogue. It's one-handed keystroking. Here is a piece of bedroom dialogue I found that sucks. I've omitted names, for obvious reasons, but otherwise it's just cut and paste, as it appeared: "So what do I do first for you? What would you like me to do for you to please you? You are the teacher today OK?" I smiled and told him: "Are you sure? You wouldn't want me to suck you off or sit on your cock and ride it until you cum? I know you like both of those!" He smiled and said: "Well they both sound great, but is that what you want me to do for you? Would you rather have me eat and suck your pussy, or slowly work on your body and make it cum hard and long before we fuck? Your choice, just give me directions!" (If you heard that in a movie, you'd rupture yourself laughing. Read it aloud to yourself and then say: 'Hey, these characters are really credible. They sound filled with lust for each other.' Now go wash your mouth out with soap for telling naughty lies). One of the problems with dialogue in bed is that just dialogue isn't usually enough. Unless there is some descriptive text as well the characters have to say far too much, far too explicitly, and far too often. People don't usually describe what they're doing (or are going to do) to their lover... at least I don't think they do. If I were writing this scene, and if I wanted to keep to the narrative thread, I might produce something like this: "You're the boss, sweetheart." His voice was thick with desire, but still soft and reassuring, and he smiled. "What's your pleasure?" I shivered internally but decided to play his game. "You sure about that? Suppose I check out how this tastes, or how it fills me up when I'm riding you? Wouldn't that be better?" I caressed his cock and felt it throb against my thigh: he smiled again. "Hell of a choice. Or we could turn it round." His hand drifted from my breast to my mound. "A little exploration here, maybe some attention elsewhere, and we'd still have all the rest waiting." He was stroking me lightly as he spoke and I felt my pussy dampening under his touch. OK, it's not perfect, but you might (just) imagine a couple saying something like that during foreplay, and it reads better than the original version by a long country mile. You could chop it down more if you wanted: "Show me." His voice was thick with desire and I shivered. "You sure? I could see how you taste, how you fill me?" His cock throbbed "Hell of a choice." He stroked my mound with knowing fingers. "Here? Or maybe here? We'd still have all the rest waiting." I felt my pussy dampening. That's probably pruned a little too much, but that's not the point. Style, story, character, context. Above all, read your dialogue out loud: or at least, read it out loud to yourself, though in my opinion genuinely out loud is better. This can be depressing at first. There's nothing more disheartening than slaving over a section of dialogue, editing, rewriting, sweating blood, and then saying it aloud and realizing that it sounds like a High School graduation speech read by a near moron. Imagine how the conversation sounds in your head, and look at the screen carefully. Is the choice of words believable? If not, change them. Is that a rising note? Put in a question mark. Is that a pause? Put in an extra comma, or suspension marks or something to show your reader what this person is doing with their voice, what their words mean, what their character actually sounds like, how they feel and think and behave. Ten words of good dialogue can tell you more about a character than a hundred words of descriptive text. Read the good ones and learn. Literotica is great for that. Check out '3113', assorted 'kittens', (Selyna, Danielle, Flame), 'Dinsmore', 'Alex de Kok', 'Colleen Thomas', 'Stella Omega': of course there are more, plenty more, and I'm not omitting anyone deliberately, but those are the first ones that spring to my mind, mainly because they're the ones I've been reading recently. They're not infallible, no-one is, but we're not looking for Nobel Prize winners here, and if you want to see how characters are built without the author's voice intruding too much....'nuff said. Now three personal hates: • Exclamation marks suck, unless there's a truly excellent reason for them. People don't talk like that. Exclamation marks are for advertisements and the funnies. Two or more consecutive exclamation marks, and you're reading a no-brainer. • Long lines of capital letters describing the noises people make at the point of orgasm are laughable. Also, lazy and unrealistic. Here, a short line of descriptive text is nearly always better. Compare: "AAAAAAAAAARRGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!" I / she screamed. with "A wordless cry of ecstasy was forced out of me / her." Which of them gets your imagination going? • Tired clichés: 'gallons of cum', 'my white-hot jizz', 'jackhammered into her', (I truly hate that one), 'love-tube', 'man-meat', 'man-pussy', (yes, I actually read that on this site. I think it means 'rectum'), fuck-tunnel', 'fuck-muscle'... come on, people: a child of three could be more original. If I catch one of these early on, it's the back button for me. I've been advised by a proof-reader / editor type person that this piece needs some links to other 'How To' submissions where some of the general points I've been trying to make are expanded, or which cover genres that I haven't touched on. The areas suggested in the first instance are • Historical settings / period pieces: Good point. Even fifty years ago slang was different; constructions were often more complex, things that people talked about were not always what we chat about today. The occasional "Gadzooks" or "Forsooth" or "Man, that is so groovy" isn't going to hack it. • Sci-Fi /Future worlds: You can have so much fun here, though I have to say it's not an area that engages me much. I suppose that style, story, character, context still holds good, but beyond that... I guess there's a 'how to' piece there waiting for someone to write it. • Writing dialect: a subject in itself, as it covers vocabulary, rhythm, word order, types of contraction... too much for this piece. There have to be other mentions that are necessary, so I'm throwing this open to you: I don't have the time or the patience to plow through all the submissions in this section looking for the gems: if there's anything that you've found helpful or which has lit up that cartoon light bulb above your head, put it in the comment section with a link. Please. One last point: none of these rules are golden. If you overdo punctuation, or contraction, or ellipsis, or anything, it won't work. You'll have gone too far the other way, and when you read it aloud you'll blush with shame (again). But use these hints judiciously, striving for the balance between clarity and realism, and you'll feel so good when you've done it... your work will be better... and your readers (and characters) will appreciate it too. Dialogue This Dialogue This: Making Your Characters Talk Y'know, people often say to me: "Firebrain, how come you write such good dialogue?" My stock response (whilst smiling smugly) is that I watched a lot of Buffy. Now that's actually quite relevant - Joss Whedon is the king of quippy dialogue and gorgeously grey characters - but that doesn't help you, on the other side of the screen. This might. You're going to look at this article and think, fuck me - this looks complicated! It is complicated. The thing is, you're probably doing half of it already - now it's time to consider the rest and watch how it inflates your reams of flat dialogue into something seriously juicy. We're going to cover: First Things First - basic grammar and punctuation for dialogue. The Ellipsis and the Dash - you think you can use these bitches - apparently, you can't. Dialect and Slang - because the poshest BBC accent is a dialect and even robots say fuck. Utterances - learn to balance your erms and arghs. Formal vs. Natural speech - because you're writing Joe Average, not Stephen Hawking (and if you are writing Stephen Hawking, I'm backing away right now). Dialogue Tags - who says what and how do they say it? Dialogue During Sex - should actually be shexy, and not in the Anchorman way. First Things First If you're a little more experienced, you probably know all of this; it's still worth checking. Here's how we punctuate and shape a line of speech correctly: i said what the fuck are you talking about alice cried justin 1) First, we're going to put the bit that is speech in speech marks (or quotation marks): "i said what the fuck are you talking about alice" cried justin Speech - that is, what is said aloud - always goes inside these marks. The bit on the end - cried Justin - is called a dialogue tag because it tells us who is talking. 2) Now, we're going to capitalise where appropriate: "I said what the fuck are you talking about Alice" cried Justin We've capitalised I because it's the beginning of a sentence; we capitalised the names because they are proper nouns. Notice, though, that we didn't capitalise the beginning of the dialogue tag - cried. This is because it's technically part of the same sentence as the dialogue that precedes it - there's a comma at the end of the phrase inside the speech marks, not a full stop. 3) Now we're going to throw in the rest of the punctuation that's required: "I said, what the fuck are you talking about, Alice?" cried Justin. We've got a comma after said because when reading aloud, we'd naturally pause here. We've also changed subjects from I to you. We've got a comma before Alice because we have another pause and again, we're switching subjects - from you to Alice. We have a question mark -? - after Alice because Justin's asking a question. We have a full stop after Justin because we're closing the sentence (and we'd naturally pause here, too). Punctuating your dialogue is really important because we're not just telling the reader what the character is saying; we're telling them how it sounds. That's why we need to think about where we'd pause when saying this aloud. 4) We're going to add some emphasis by using italics: "I said, what the fuck are you talking about, Alice?" cried Justin. When you want to put some serious whack behind a word, you italicise. This lets the reader know that the word sounds strong and it is important. You don't need to italicise in every line of dialogue - in fact it's best when used sparingly - but do consider it, especially for emotional scenes. 5) When the next person speaks, it always goes on a new line: "I said, what the fuck are you talking about, Alice?" cried Justin. "The restaurant." She rolled her eyes. "I saw you with her!" You don't have to double space between lines of dialogue, as above, but I urge you to do it because it makes it much easier to read. Thoughts on the Ellipsis and the Dash Ahh, the old ellipsis (...); it coveys a trailing off or a dramatic pause. It injects suspense, tension, an elongated last word... ...it's also mistakenly used in place of a dash (-) way too often. Here is how we correctly use the ellipsis: "I wanted to tell you. I tried to tell you. What I mean to say is..." Jon winced at the effort of his words, "I love you." Jon paused: he needed a moment to think. He needed an ellipsis. Here's how we use a dash correctly: "I wanted to tell you. I tried - " "I don't care what you tried, Jon!" Lucy sighed. Lucy interrupted Jon and he got cut off. He needed a dash. Thoughts on Dialect and Slang 1) A character's location (and the time in which your story is set) will affect their accent and their colloquialisms (the regional slang that they use). You can refer to accent in dialogue. Here is an example of a modern London "Cockney" accent written phonetically: "Yer on. Sunday, ahhtiside the pab - I'm gonna kill yer!" That's going to get exhausting to read pretty quickly, no? This is why I don't recommend writing an accent in completely. What you can do is use it sparingly, and use slang and description to imply it: "You're on, you fucking weasel. Sunday, outside the pub - I'm gonna kill yer!" Bill's Cockney accent was grating and coarse. You only need to describe Bill's accent once in your piece; throw in the odd bit of slang and the reader will remember how he speaks. Not all of your characters, if any, which have such stylised dialogue - it will depend on your own style of writing. It is a worthwhile skill to have, though. 2) Your characters are going to use slang in some form whether it's a curse, a regional name for a cup of tea or a less than flattering reference to the enemy's mother. Use slang when you write dialogue; it personalises your character and it tells us lots of important things about them. Why spend three lines describing where they are from and how they are feeling when you can convey it in a single phrase? Slang is varied by setting and regional dialect, as we have already seen. Slang is also varied by the social group that your character belongs to, whether it's working class northerner, New York yuppie, heavy metal stoner or Cuban pirate. Slang curses might include: "Fuck!" "Drat." "Oh Christ." / "Oh man." "Golly, miss Molly!" "Sweet mother of Abraham Lincoln!" "Buggery fucksticks." Remember that curses don't always need exclamation marks; if your character has a dry sense of humour or a quiet disposition then you might want to exclude the mark to convey a flatter tone. These little considerations are what really make a character. Here's how slang and dialect can transform dialogue and the character speaking: "I've got an exam on Friday," Zack said. "I'm seriously worried." To "I got this exam on Friday," Zack said. "I'm shitting bricks!" Dialogue doesn't just have to convey information - it can imply things about a character's personality too. Zack is evidently the kind of guy who says things like shitting bricks - not all your characters will be so vulgar, but that's what makes him a unique and believable individual. It also makes him fun to read. Thoughts on Utterances So yeah...um...this bit is about, er, utterances. These are the guttural sounds we make when no word is quite appropriate: "Erm..." "Oh." "Aaaargh!" When might you use an utterance? 1) When our character is nervous or confused: "Oh God. Um. How did you find out?" "What's the capital of Russia? I know this. Bear with me. Erm..." 2) When our character is surprised, pleased, shocked: "Argh! That fucking hurts!" "Ow...do that again." 3) When the character is being dubious or sarcastic: "Did you think I'd never find out?" Sarah seethed. Kevin bit his lip. "Erm." "Don't you bloody erm me!" Use utterances in your dialogue but use them sparingly. Let them make an impact; don't let them weigh the sentence down. Thoughts on Formal vs. Natural Your characters are talking to each other - not just talking at the reader. Acknowledge the other character sometimes in their speech: "You know what I'm talking about." To "You know what I'm talking about, right?" or "Do you know what I'm on about, Sarah?" They're also talking rather than writing - they won't observe all the formal rules of English. There are little touches you can add which imply this: "Do you want to come for breakfast on Friday?" To "Hey, Simon! You coming for breakfast on Friday?" or "Simon, mate. How'd you fancy brekkie on Friday?" Utterances, slang and setting play a big part in making dialogue sound natural - the last two sections really inform this one (read 'em now if you just skipped through). Listen to yourself talking to your family and friends; you sound like a human being, not an essay! Thoughts on Dialogue Tags There are four very common mistakes that are made regarding dialogue tags: 1) "Said" is such a boring dialogue tag. I ought to whack out the old thesaurus, and I should weld on a zillion adverbs too! As we say in England: I don't fucking think so. Dialogue tags are not about winning the Nobel prize for literature. They are fuctional: they are there to tell us who said what and how they said it. I want you to think about this very closely: how much of that work has my dialogue already done for me? Has my exclamation mark implied a shout? Has the ranty slang implied my character's distaste? Your tags and adverbs should not distract from your dialogue. Sometimes, said doesn't cut it. Sometimes your character really does need to gasp, rant, cry, sigh, whisper, mutter or grumble. Sometimes they might need to say the line quickly, softly or scathingly. Use tags and adverbs sparingly, though - rare use lends a line far more impact and adverbs often disturb the rhythm of a sentence. Be wary of tags and adverbs combined - you don't need both 90% of the time. Be especially wary of combinations that mean the same thing: shouted loudly, whispered quietly. 2) Dialogue tags always go at the end of the line of speech. If you follow the same pattern every time then your prose gets flat and lifeless. If every line ends in "she said," or "he sighed," then you've got that problem - it's hard to inject any energy when it is read aloud because you're always adding on that low little "he said/she said/Tom cried." Furthermore, not every chunk of dialogue is said in the same fashion: the character might smile half way through for impact, or break to sob. For example: "I remember Grace, yeah. The girl with all that bouncy blond hair?" Emilia smiled fondly. "She was so funny when she had to do that phone interview with Simon Cowell..." 3) Every line of dialogue needs a tag, right? No! And thrice no. I don't care if they're debating the Russian economy or masturbating to the dulcet tones of Celine Dion; do not tag every line of speech! Here's an example: Annie thrust a menu on to Luke's lap. "What do you want for dinner, hon?" "Ooh. Let's have a looksy." He pushed his glasses back into place with a nail bitten finger. "Something with hot sauce, I think." "Oh yeah. Anything for the sauce," she giggled. "Are you able to say anything without innuendo?" We already know that Annie is speaking because we described her action first. For the remainder of the conversation, we also know that the only two people speaking are Annie and Luke. That means that we don't need to be reminded every time that we speak. Did you even notice the lack of tagging there? 4) It's not enough to use a tag - I need to say what my character is doing, too. "Did you see the big game last night?" Rex called, striding towards my desk. "It was awesome! Now look at: "Did you see the big game last night?" Rex strode towards my desk. "It was awesome!" Did we need to know that Rex was calling as well as striding? No: he was striding towards the desk and was therefore some distance away to begin with. His voice would have been loud enough to carry. We don't always consciously think about these things when we write but we do often see mistakes like this in a story. When you re-read your work, ask yourself: do I need the tag and the action? Would the action act sufficiently as a tag too? Thoughts on Dialogue During Sex Oh baby. Oh God, baby. Fucking stick that dialogue to me, stick it in my pisshole! When it's good, erotic dialogue is knicker stickin' sexy. When it's bad, it's...yeah. I cringe so hard that my face aches. Erotica is written as fantasy; realism isn't always that important if the story is written well because we aren't reading for a real-life scene (e.g. the couple can have sex without a condom and we may not question the worry of her getting pregnant). However - don't confuse realism with plausibility: that is to say, don't confuse writing a fantasy scene with writing something ridiculous. A nine inch cock? Yeah, that'd wash; fourteen inches? I don't think so. Here are a few guidelines for writing sexy speech: 1) Less is more. Not everyone is particularly vocal during sex and sometimes, a single line is ten times more sexy than fourteen coarse demands. If you are writing about a very vocal character, think on these things: What is the cue for this line of dialogue? Is it a hand stroke, a partner revealing a voluptuous breast, an orgasm? Have the dialogue refer to this: it makes for interesting variety between "fuck me!" and "oh, just fucking fuck me!" Have I already used this phrase? We often get incoherent and repeat ourselves during sex, but at least stretch your vocabulary a little (and if this is the third sex scene in your story, the same goes for the previous few scenes - don't write the same fuck three times!). 2) You don't have to cuss. "Oh fuck! Oh shit! I want your cock!" Cusses have impact and power - when used sparingly - and some characters cuss more than others. Consider, though, the power of lines without a cuss: "I want you inside me right now." "Do you have any idea how big you feel?" or "You're a wet little tease." "Please!" Not every man or woman turns into a foul-mouthed vagrant when they become aroused; ask yourself, is it plausible that the demure schoolgirl starts pouring fuck and shit from every orifice because you've just got her knickers off? Even if she did - which she might, depending on your fantasy - wouldn't she build up to it with some non-cussing lines first? 3) Call a spade a spade. Pork sword. Man meat. Swamp cunt. Virgin flower. Greased beef express. Yeah, can you say those with a straight face? No, neither can I. Don't be afraid to just call a cock, a cock; a pussy, a pussy. Of course you can get more imaginative but remember that you're trying to be sexy, not gross people out. A scene doesn't have to include seven different words for vagina - in fact it doesn't even have to include one, depending on your style; you're writing a story, not a thesaurus. Unless it is in keeping with a very particular style, avoid the more abstract euphemisms - cock to cattle prod, pussy to weeping chasm - the reader might pause to decipher and it can detract from the impact of your prose. 4) Utterance vs. Action "Aaaaaaargh!" "Oooooh baby! Yes, uuuuuunnngh!" Using utterances in sex scenes is a matter of personal taste. Some prefer to use a phonetic spelling, as above, and some prefer to describe the action instead: Dashiel groaned as he painted Nathan's cheeks with cream. I prefer the latter; I just find it easier to take seriously. If you're going to use utterances, the same rule applies as for non-erotic dialogue: use them sparingly. Sprinkle them into the description rather than allowing them to dominate the scene. 5) Where's the personality? Your characters might have known each other for ten years; they might have just met. The point is, they have their own way of talking - their dialect, their slang, their cute little nicknames for each other and their weird sense of humour - and it informs their speech during sex as much as it does elsewhere. All of this builds intimacy. If you want readers to invest in your characters, they need to read the sex scene and think, wow, that's exactly what Taylor would do. I've been waiting to see that! instead of this could be anybody. The reader can still imagine themselves in Taylor's place - in fact little details that they identify with make this extra special. Consider any of these ideas for adding personality to your sex scene: Taylor could refer back to an old memory or previous episode of fucking: "You know...that's amazing," Taylor murmured, "but it'd be even better if you did that thing..." Robin grinned. "What thing?" "Remember the log cabin?" "Oh yeah." He looked at Taylor's round arse cheeks and thought of how they'd marbled to red and pink. "I remember." Taylor could have a special name just for Robin. It doesn't have to be a sickly pet name but if she calls everybody honey, it's not intimate. If she reserves honey just for him (or just the men she fucks) then it implies a special level of intimacy. "That's it, honey...please..." Taylor could use her slang during a sex scene. This kind of touch adds humour and realism; it's something you would add if that's what you're after. It's also more useful for characters with little background history: "No!" she screeched. "Stop tickling me, you evil hussy!" Lucy collapsed into giggles beside her. Her fingers crept up Taylor's thigh and hooked her white thong aside. "Frigid bitch," Lucy breathed. "Oh yeah. Frigid...that's me...oh." Shy, well-spoken Taylor could get so hot, she gets a little out of character. This works best in longer pieces than stroke stories, but it all depends on the strength and style of your writing - if you can establish Taylor's personality well before the sex, you're good to go: "Is that good?" Lucy ran her nails over Taylor's calf. "Well?" "Oh yeah, it's..." Taylor broke off to pant as Lucy reached her inner thigh, "it's good." "How good?" Taylor closed her eyes as Lucy reached her pussy; she needed to hide in the dark, away from the growing shame. "How good?" she moaned. "Oh...oh fuck." The sex must be frickin' amazing to make this good girl swear, huh? Taylor's little lapse in character lends a whopping impact to that single fuck. Dialogue This So here we are; the final countdown, the closing credits, the end of the road. The post-orgasmic collapse. It's been an emotional journey and I feel like we've really grown together, you know? Sob, sigh...I'm so proud of you! Now that I've finished patronising you: I hope this has been of use. I'd love to hear thoughts, ideas and even corrections on this little piece. Just don't send me pictures of your mushroom cock, ok? I get like three of those a week and always when I'm eating a sausage.