So in one of my stories, dragons are really important. The main character has a baby dragon and his trainer/love interest has an adult dragon. I think I should have the adult dragon train the baby for the upcoming war, but they communicate telepathically and I'm writing in first person, so how would I go about doing that?
If it advances your narrative to see them training together, then write a scene where the main character is watching them interact and have the trainer/love interest add a small amount of commentary to explain the telepathic relationship. It doesn't have to be a big scene and you can use it to advance the relationship between the MC and the trainer if you do it properly.
Holy... Moely, is that a Soul Reaver avatar icon? I love you. At first eeeasse your readers into the telepathy with carefully choice words and descriptions. Use concrete terms to describe the telepathy before getting poetic, so your readers know the telepathy is a REAL thing, and not an artistic description or flourish.
And can your first person narrator hear it when the old dragon talks to the young dragon? If so, I'd just put the telepathic thoughts in italics or something to set them off from the rest of the dialogue.
First: nice thread title. I had to come and have a nosey. Assuming the MC can't read the thoughts between the trainer and the dragons, I like @Spencer1990's suggestion, partly for the reason he gives about building the MC/love interest relationship but also because I feel like having the telepathic communication written out in words would be a bit odd: is telepathy 'words'? Do dragons think in English?
There can be alot of creativity with this. Does the dragon roar, as an outward appearence to the bystanders, but to the dragons, there is a knowing of what is said. Or is it more of a silent glance? How complex is the communication? At glance, and in their heart there is a flood of images, sensations, depicting what is to be done, or is it more heady, similar to spoke language, very linear, one word before another. Is it more of a collective conscious thing, where all the dragons are 'plugged' into the thought structure of their species, or is it personal? Dragons can only telepathically communicate with strong intention or will, face to face, or whatever limitations to help move the plot along. I think putting the dialog in quotations would be confusing though, if there would be alot of dialog though having a flood of italics would equally be irritating. If there would be a long discourse on a training method, demarcating the transition of communication as telepathic, then continuing onwards as normal would probably help in this regards. Then utilizing italics for short telepathic interjects might work.
If the dragons' communications with each other is a crucial part of the story, you can have a point-of-view (POV) switch between the main character and his dragon, preferably by chapter (when the POV switches, start a new chapter). POV switches can be tricky, especially in first person, but when introduced at the beginning of the book and scattered throughout, it's something the reader learns to expect and gets used to. Just don't be in a the middle of a climax and switch POV to a calm scene--that'll drive your reader crazy!
Even though your Dragons are telepaths, this doesn't change the fact that a conversation is being held. You can include it within the dialog of your narative, so long as you explain their means of comunication beforehand.