“Dialogue” with Nick O’Connell of The Writer’s Workshop
Dialogue is one the quickest and most effective ways of characterizing someone. Good dialogue provides information as it illuminates character. This class will explain how to set up a dialogue, individuate the speakers, add gestures and body language.
Time & Location
Jan 10, 2026, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Zoom
About the event
CONVERSATIONS THAT REVEAL CHARACTER – HOW TO WRITE DIALOGUE - Dialogue is one the quickest and most effective ways of characterizing someone. Good dialogue provides information as it illuminates character. Many writers, however, find writing dialogue difficult. This class will explain how to set up a dialogue, individuate the speakers, add gestures and body language, and conclude it in such a way so that it advances the story, whether in fiction or nonfiction or poetry. Class includes lecture, discussion, in-class writing of dialogue scene.
Nicholas O’Connell, M.F.A, Ph.D., is the author of Crush: My Year as an Apprentice Winemaker, (Potomac Books, 2025), The Storms of Denali (University of Alaska and Chicago presses, 2012), On Sacred Ground: The Spirit of Place in Pacific Northwest Literature (U.W. Press, 2003), At the Field’s End: Interviews with 22 Pacific Northwest Writers (U.W. Press, 1998), Contemporary Ecofiction (Charles Scribner’s, 1996) and Beyond Risk: Conversations wit…