TIPS FOR WRITING EFFECTIVE DIALOGUE
Dialogue is one of the first things agents and editors look at when they receive a manuscript for consideration. If the dialogue is wooden, stilted, and artificial, most agents will assume that the rest of the writing is amateurish, and the manuscript will be quickly rejected. Here are some concrete ways to make your dialogue more compelling and natural-sounding.
This one is huge. As Randy Ingermanson and Peter Economy say in Writing Fiction for Dummies, “Dialogue is war! Every dialogue should be a controlled conflict between at least two characters with opposing agendas. The main purpose of dialogue is to advance the conflict of the story.”
1. Leave out the “Hi, how are you?” “I’m fine, and you?” “Nice day,” stuff, and cut to the chase. Skip past introductions and all that empty blah-blah small talk.
2. Avoid any kind of long monologue or dialogue that just imparts information, with no tension or emotion.
3. Don’t use dialogue as “filler” – if it doesn’t advance the plot, heighten the conflict, or deepen the characterization, take it out.
4. Include lots of emotional or sexual tension and subtext in your dialogue. Silence, interrupting, or abruptly changing the subject can be effective, too.
B. Loosen up the dialogue.
1. Read your dialogue out loud. Does it sound natural? Can you cut some words out, or use more common, everyday conversational words, rather than more “correct” words? In conversation, use “bought” rather than “purchased,” “use” rather than “utilize,” etc.
2. Use contractions. Change “I am” to “I’m”, “we will” to “we’ll”, “do not” to “don’t”, “they will” to “they’ll,” etc.
3. Break up those long, grammatically correct complete sentences. Nobody talks in complete sentences in informal conversations with friends (or enemies) and family, especially in stressful situations. Frequently, use some short sentence fragments, and one-word answers.
4. Don’t have one person go on and on about a subject. Fiction is not the place for a lecture on a topic, or somebody speaking at length about himself. It’s not natural, and your readers aren’t interested in long monologues! Have the other person interrupt to ask a question, give their opinion, seek clarification, change the subject, etc.
C. Keep it real!
D. Give each character his or her own voice or speaking style. Make sure all your characters don’t sound the same (like the author).
E. Gender differences.
Bear in mind that men and women tend to express themselves differently.
- In general, men are terser and more direct; they usually prefer to talk about things rather than people or feelings; and they often use brief or one-word answers.
- Women, on the other hand, like to talk about people and relationships; often hint at or talk around a subject, tend to express themselves in more complete sentences; and often want to discuss their feelings.
- These differences are especially important to keep in mind if you’re a female author writing dialogue for male characters, and vice-versa.
F. Other tips:
1. Avoid “talking heads” – pages of unbroken dialogue, with little action or description.
- Move the characters around the scene, and indicate their reactions, gestures and body language:
“…as they walked into the kitchen,” “They pulled up in front of the police station,” “He crossed his arms,” “She got up and started pacing.” “He touched her arm.” “She gasped in alarm.” “He clenched his fists.” And so on.
2. For dialogue tags, use mainly he said and she said (and asked for questions), which are non-intrusive, rather than words like remarked, conjectured, queried, interjected, insinuated, pronounced, and uttered, which draw attention to themselves and can be annoying.
3. Also, beware of using non-speaking words as attributes, like “That’s so nice,” she smiled, or “You bet,” he grinned. You can’t “smile” or “grin” words! But you can say, “You bet.” He grinned and waved as he pulled away.
5. Avoid the dialogue tag if it’s obvious who’s speaking.
6. But do make it clear who’s speaking. Readers don’t want to have to back up and check to see who’s talking now.
7. Try to use action tags (beats) instead of dialogue tags, such as:
Shelley hung up the phone. “That was Carole.”
Mark tensed. “What did she want?”
8. Avoid having the characters constantly using each other’s names. Once in a while is good, but don’t overdo it.
Resources: On Writing Romance by Leigh Michaels, A Writer’s Guide to Fiction by Elizabeth Lyon, Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella, Novel Shortcuts by Laura Whitcomb,
See also "Dialogue Nuts and Bolts - How To Write Dialogue Accurately."
Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller. She has also published two clickable time-saving e-resources to date: Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, and on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Click HERE to sign up for Jodie’s occasional newsletter.
