Dialogue is the essential bones of any good story, and breaks up long passages of description so the reader doesn’t have a chance to get bored.
Some other advantages of using dialogue include:
- It reflects the speaker’s character;
- It moves the story forward;
- It provides crucial information to the story;
- It highlights the relationship between the characters;
- It provides the story with good drama, comedy, mood, and tension.
So it’s important to get it right! Here are my tips for writing good dialogue:
1. Start listening to how people talk
Develop an ‘ear’ for how people speak by listening in on their conversations and observing their speech patterns. Take notes in your writer’s journal if you wish.
Observe how people often don’t finish their own sentences and how often they interrupt each other. Notice any other peculiarities.
2. Make sure dialogue reflects character
No two people speak alike; everyone has their own unique verbal footprint.
Again, take time out to listen to various conversations and you’ll soon see how much people can differ in their voice and speech patterns.
Reflect your character’s uniqueness through their speech. Make your characters consistent and true to who they are.
Ensure you know your characters well so that their inner natures and attitudes shine through in their speech.
The reader should be able to tell who’s speaking from what they say.
WEIRD WORD OF THE DAY: CACOETHES. Meaning an irresistible urge to do something unwise (like sprinting across hot coals or cooking bacon without your shirt on).
3. Be aware of how different relationships affects speech
It’s common to speak differently with certain people. You wouldn’t talk to your boss like you speak to your best friend, for example.
4. Use interruptions
Interruptions are good; they’re natural. People interrupt each other in speech all the time (especially with long speeches).
They often get lost in their own thought processes and don’t fully engage with others.
5. Make it natural, but not too natural
It should sound natural, but not too natural. It shouldn’t be exactly like real life.
In real life, people ‘um’ and ‘ah’ and mumble and get distracted and don’t finish their sentences. They talk in stops and starts and frequently chatter on top of one another.
They engage in boring, meaningless, and repetitive talk. If you were to emulate real life, it would only bore and confuse the reader, so only include what’s important.
Leave out what doesn’t matter; things like ‘hellos’, ‘goodbyes’, and small talk. Dialogue should be clear, readable, and have a purpose.
6. Read the dialogue aloud
Ensure that it sounds natural, like a real person said it, by reading it aloud.
I love talking to people and hearing their stories. Everyone’s got their own story to tell, and when you sit down with someone and really talk to them, you can learn so much.
– Dan Wells
7. Don’t use it to info-dump
Dialogue can move the story forward, but be careful not to go over the top and give too much information away.
It tends to sound unnatural and awkward, like you’re feeding them facts instead of giving them a good story. Consider dispensing bits of information throughout the text.
8. Break up the dialogue by including action
Action grounds the character in the physical world and breaks up long pieces of dialogue. It could be as simple as mentioning them setting the table or walking to get something.
9. Keep it short
In general, try to keep each instance of dialogue to one sentence (or no more than three). This helps to make it sound more life-like.
If your character has multiple sentences, ask yourself, ‘is this necessary, or can it be spread out throughout the text? Can the information be put into one sentence instead?’
If it’s excessive or unnecessary, leave it out.
10. Write down the dialogue first, improve on it later
Get a rough draft of the dialogue down first – this can often give you ideas that you’d never have thought of before.
Don’t worry about the quality of your writing, just get it out of you. You can always improve on it later.
Like most things, the writing of dialogue can improve with practice. Get feedback from others, and re-write till you get it right.
11. Visualise the story in your head
Imagine the characters talking and moving around and engaging in conversations; it can really help to piece the story together.
Reading fiction regularly can also help you write good dialogue, as you get to observe what works and what doesn’t; what’s great, and what’s not so great.
YOU SHOULD READ BEFORE YOU DIE: Lady Chatterley’s lover by D.H. Lawrence. Lady Chatterley has an unsatisfying marriage with her wealthy intellectual husband, Sir Clifford, who was left with lower-body paralysis in the Great War. She enters a passionate love affair with his gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors. The publisher, Penguin Books, had to go through an obscenity trial in the United Kingdom to release an uncensored version of this book!
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