Dialogue makes or breaks the book. A well-written scene with carefully crafted dialogue entices the reader further. It gives insight into the characters by showing, not telling. It makes the characters come alive, jump off the page.
An otherwise well-written scene with awkward or stiff dialogue loses the reader. It distances the reader from the story by making them feel like something is wrong. They lose trust with your characters and the story falls apart. Instead of following your plot, the reader is disagreeing with you, “This character in this circumstance would never have said it that way.” And the worst part of all: it makes the reader look at the mechanics of your style rather than how you’re telling the story. As writers, we’re creating magic; we’re allowing our readers to forget about themselves and get lost. We don’t want them aware of the signposts.
You need three things to write good dialogue. A firm grasp on:
1. How people actually talk (not those zippy one-liners from your favorite tv series)
2. Which setting will most enhance the conversation
3. What needs are demanding to be expressed by your characters right now
1a. The caveat here is that you don’t need the lead in. Don’t bore your reader with, “Hi, how are you, I’m good, how’s it going.” Ain’t nobody got time for that. Dive in and get to the point, “I answered the phone. It was my mom asking me about school. ‘Good, Mr. Jacobson didn’t give us any homework tonight.’ I didn’t tell her about my run in with the school bully.”
If you feel like you’re having trouble knowing how people talk, then sit in a crowded area and listen to the conversations around you. Go to a park, sit at a coffee shop or bar, listen more than talk at the next family gathering. We all have little quirks in the way we speak that make it intimately our speech. Listen for the ways we talk in half sentences, get cut off, don’t finish our train of thought. Listen for the articles we leave out or the words we don’t enunciate all the way.
If you’re writing a character that’s a different gender or ethnicity, you’re going to need to do even more research. Don’t rely on stereotypes.
2a. Most of the dialogue in real life happens in neutral settings. Your novel is not a neutral setting. Every setting should either ramp up the drama and tension or be a release following a scene with drama and tension. Ask yourself, “Is this the best place this conversation could happen? If it happened elsewhere, how would that change the meaning?”
You can bring the dialogue to life by adding beats or breaks in the dialogue with small setting descriptions and actions. Say the following conversation is happening in a coffee shop. “Can you believe it? I almost choked on my salad. Hey, hold on a sec, I’m ordering coffee,” I told Heather. “Can I get a medium latte, almond milk, hot?” I told the checker. “Thanks,” I grabbed my receipt and then returned to my call. “Heather, you still there? So, what do you think, does he deserve a second date or what?”
3a. Every line in your novel should serve the same purpose: progressing your story forward. Every character in your story should desire something that isn’t satisfied until the end (if at all). Your dialogue should capitalize on this need.
In the first example, the reader’s interest is piqued by the mention of the teacher and the bully. Obviously, the mom is aware of both. Why is one mentioned but not the other? In the second example, we’re getting all kinds of info about the speaker. She’s the kind who talks on the phone in public, she drinks almond milk, she needs advice about the guy she’s seeing. We’re intrigued about what this guy did. We can also visualize the scene because it’s so intimate. We’ve all been in line behind this person in a coffee shop. We know the sounds and the smells without me having to describe every detail.
One sure-fire way to know if you’re writing a good bit of dialogue is to read it out loud. Note where you pause and what you’re brain automatically wants to fill in the next word or phrase. Always ask yourself, “Is there a better way to say this?” Hint, sometimes, the simpler the better.
Another good rule of thumb is to take a hard look at your dialogue tags. Do you use “said” or have you tried to beef up the language by adding a lot of unnecessary descriptions? Chances are you’re overexplaining in your dialogue tag when you should just say it in the dialogue. Don’t say, “‘I’m over it,’ she said madly,” when you could say, “Casey stamped her foot and crossed her arms. ‘I’m over it,’ she said.” Creating dialogue that sounds real will help you with your use of dialogue tags or the “he said, she asked” phrases that routinely follow. If your character shines through based on the way they speak, you will not need to rely on dialogue tags.
Finally, look at how much dialogue you have. No one wants to read a wall of text. See how many beats you have and whether sprinkling in a few won’t bring your scene to life.
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