Scribble VS Chatterbox

Just use Scribble. Your method is highly inefficient using an object for each character, and Scribble will handle everything you need and a lot more very efficiently.

I believe Scribble has solutions for this sort of thing.

You may also look into /u/JujuAdam's Scribble if you plan on doing lots of text rendering.

Use Scribble

I recommand the plugin Scribble by JujuAdams. It’s way, way better for writing text than the vanilla way.

I wrote two specific libraries for this: https://github.com/JujuAdams/chatterbox for branching dialogue and https://github.com/JujuAdams/scribble for text rendering. The former is being used in Schrodinger's Catgirl, the latter is being used in Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon, Poinpy, Skies Of Chaos, and a bunch of other commercial games.

If you'd like a practical, working example then you can read the source code for Scribble.

Don't try to re-write GameMaker's built-in systems (with the exception of this)

Yup so there has been quite a few releases since that video. If you want to follow along the version you want is the same as I downloaded 7.0.3 (https://github.com/JujuAdams/Scribble/releases/tag/7.0.3)

JujuAdams/Chatterbox which PowerPlaidPlays mentioned in his comment may appear in your search results. friendlycosmonaut/Dialogue-System is at the top of my search results. I could see a few others - nothing wrong with more references, right? Just pick your favorite implementation, design pattern, or coding style.

use the free system already provided by the great and generous jujuadams: https://github.com/JujuAdams/Chatterbox

if your game is dialog heavy i'd recommend looking at this: https://github.com/JujuAdams/Chatterbox

Here's a link to a better branching narrative solution: https://github.com/JujuAdams/chatterbox

Note: Found where the error might be. Although I disagree with how he is approaching branching dialogue systems, I understand you are still learning. When you feel more comfortable with GameMaker, I recommend checking out JuJu Adams free extension called Chatterbox

I'd also recommend Chatterbox. First of all there are some really good editors for YARN Files out there (with visual representation of the dialog s, like this one) and it's easy to add functions to the yarn script (for example if you reach a certain point of a dialog you can change a flag or add an item to the inventory).

I haven't used it personally, but Jujuadams made Chatterbox which should effectively do exactly what you're looking for.