On Writing: Dialogue Tips
It’s only natural that novels and short stories are usually dialogue heavy - it’s a written medium. We need the characters to talk. However, a lot of the time we have difficulty writing dialogue.
Hopefully these tips will help some people!
How to Make Your Dialogue Better:
Relationships and voices matter. Unique voices matter, and character relationships will affect how they speak. Think of how strangers or friends or siblings would interact. Even friendly strangers will hold themselves back a little. Think of how Iroh and Zuko from ATLA talk, for example. Their relationship is clear from how they speak, and they have unique voices. Iroh frequently spouts wise idioms and is generally calm and serene, while Zuko is all anger and urgency. Think about how your characters feel about each other and how they might interact.
Summarise the boring parts. A common mistake in bad writing can be to repeat in the dialogue what was just described in the inner monologue…exactly how it was just described. You don’t need to do this; summarise it. Reword it. And you don’t need the characters to go through the usual motions of small talk every time they meet. It’s boring and a waste of words.
Avoid name drops and dialogue tags. At least, don’t use them too much. People don’t say each other’s name constantly in dialogue without a reason (see Captain Holt repeatedly saying “Rosa” in B99 because he didn’t want her to feel dehumanised. This was for comedy but the point stands). Dialogue tags are fine, but they should feel invisible. Try to use verbs more extravagant than “said” or “asked” sparingly, and don’t end every piece of dialogue with a dialogue tag. As long as every new piece of dialogue is on a new line, it should be clear who’s speaking, and it won’t bore the reader. This will also help vary your prose/sentence structure.
Create pauses through narrative. By breaking the dialogue up with narrative, the characters will pause in the reader’s mind without you having to specify that they’ve paused. This is a handy way to avoid using dialogue tags too much. It can also make the dialogue easier to read if it’s not all smushed together with no breaks. Especially if you have a long passage of one person speaking; long, rambling speeches aren’t that popular anymore (not that they have no place, but that’s another story).
Dialogue isn’t perfect. People make mistakes; they forget words and lose their train of thought when they speak. They change topics and get lost in the moment. This can add realism to your dialogue, and can be a fun way to show character. But don’t do it too much or the scene will go on too long without getting to the point. And try to avoid too many ‘um’s and ‘er’s - they may be common in real life but they can drag the prose down if used too much.
An example I have is from Big Hero 6 (a movie I love by the way, but this was bad):
Tadashi: What would mom and dad say?
Hiro: I don’t know. They’re gone. (this is good, this is fine)
Hiro: … They died when I was three, remember? (NOOO)
Dialogue should show something important. There’s a common idea that dialogue has to move the story forward or get cut out. This isn’t necessarily true. However, dialogue should tell the reader something about the characters or the world they live in. This comes back to cutting out the usual mundane small talk. Dialogue doesn’t have to move the plot, but it should be there for a reason, even if it’s to show the relationship between two characters, or how they feel about something that isn’t central to the plot. It doesn’t have to move the plot forward, but there has to be some reason for the reader to see it.
Fantasy/Sci-Fi Writers: use apostrophes! “I am not”, “I did not”, “I do not” - this can feel unnatural if all your dialogue is like this. You don’t need to write all your dialogue like this. Don’t be afraid of the apostrophe! Apostrophes are great! It won’t make your characters seem too modern, I promise. Don’t make the dialogue too awkward or stiff. After a while, they’ll stop sounding human.
How to Make Writing Dialogue Easier:
Write your dialogue like a script. If you’re struggling with the dialogue in a scene, try writing it like a script and omit the narrative (aside from very basic actions). I’ve done this once or twice; sometimes it’s easier to figure out what you want your characters to say when you’re not bogged down by writing the narrative, especially in a scene where the dialogue is especially important. You can incorporate the narrative later.
Read your dialogue out loud. Reading out loud can help you see how your dialogue will sound to the reader. It can help you spot weird sentence structures, or if something sounds out of character or inhuman. You can also get an idea of the characters’ voices. If you have a willing friend (and you’re not too embarrassed), try to get them to read with you!
Colour-code your dialogue. This is a trick you can use for scenes with more than two characters. By colour-coding the dialogue, you can clearly get a sense of each character’s voice, see who’s speaking the most or the least, etc. You can use this to redistribute roles and dialogue in the scene, or maybe experiment with adding or subtracting characters depending on their contribution to the scene. It can also help you keep track of all the characters, which is generally harder in written medium when you can’t see the group in front of you.
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