There's Something Sickly Sweet About Oblivion

“Thank you for this incredibly stressful 30 minutes that I have had to re-structure my entire day around and which will give me anxiety poos for the next 24 hours.”

“What do you like?” “Music. Numbers. Equations. They’re not like words. They … they don’t get mixed up.”

“If only you could talk to girls in equations.” There was a long silence, and then, eyes trained on the notch they’d created in the link, Wylan said, “Just girls?”

Post was suggested by @silverinkgoldenquill.

Writing dialogue seems to be one of those things that you either love or hate to write. It can be tricky to find the right balance between dialogue that could realistically come out of a person’s mouth and yet still making it readable. That’s one of the first key things to remember when it comes to dialogue: normal people don’t speak in a way that is very appropriate for reading, but you don’t want to make them sound like pretentious robots. Skip the like, uh, um, stuttering, and other parts of casual speech unless it’s appropriate to the character and the situation. Which brings me to the main part of this post.

How do you make dialogue unique for each character?

Listen to other people talk. Maybe you weren’t expecting this tip and maybe it sounds odd, but a writer is a people watcher. When you’re talking to your family or friends (or standing in line at the grocery store with a bunch of strangers) try to listen to some of the unique markers of their speech. Do they use a lot of idioms or common phrases? Do they speak quickly and to the point, or do they speak with a lot of detail? Do they stutter? Ramble? Swear? Again, you probably won’t write the dialogue exactly like it sounds out loud but you can pick up some ways that you can make it more realistic and unique.

Use dialogue to match and enhance the character. If your character is a professor they could sound more proper, maybe use less contractions and a higher vocabulary. To make it more personal decide if this character is more humble in their education or is unbearably pretentious. A teenager doesn’t usually speak like their parents and the parents don’t speak like the grandparents. An athlete doesn’t usually speak like a lawyer. Keep in mind that this doesn’t necessarily mean that their speech is higher or lower, but they have different nuances that reflect who they are and what they’ve experienced. Make their personalities come across in their dialogue by using sarcasm, making them very factual, vulgar, optimistic, childish or whatever else they are. On that note…