Writing dialogue can be challenging, but it’s also the make or break test of your characters. Dialogue—not eyes—is your reader’s window into the characters’ souls. Dialogue goes so far in revealing and building your characters. That’s why I’ve rounded up my best dialogue writing tips for you.
Telling about your characters is just, well, telling about them. Dialogue and actions show your characters, and that makes for much more powerful depictions. It drives your characters into readers’ souls.
Plus, dialogue is often a huge takeaway for readers. Many favorite literary quotes are, in fact, words taken from a character’s mouth. Dialogue can have a powerful way of connecting with readers. It puts feelings into words any of us might speak, and it forms truly memorable lines.
So dialogue is really important, but how do you make it good? Here are a few dialogue writing tips that can set you on the right path.
1. Add Realism to Your Dialogue
Characters should talk like real people, and they should talk about the things real people talk about. Dialogue should imitate real-life conversation. The way people speak, the way conversations shift and grow, and everything else. If characters don’t do that, they start to sound like robots (which is only good if you’re writing sci-fi).
Try copying normal speech patterns. Real people don’t talk in complete, perfect sentences. They use sentence fragments and run-ons. They trail off… and pick back up where they started. They repeat themselves, and they repeat themselves a lot. They use filler words, like, all the time. They cut each other off—and talk over one another.
This can add texture and realism to your conversations. Also, if you observe how people with different cultures, personalities, and classes use different speech patterns, you can use these patterns to reinforce your characters. The bullying character always interrupts others. The college-educated aristocrat only speaks in perfect sentences. The young teen uses “like” and “umm” pretty frequently.
Your characters also need to talk about more than just plot stuff. Real people bring the weather (it’s lovely right now), go off on tangents about their opinion on squirrels (which are very cute by the way), and generally talk about everything.
Let your characters make small talk sometimes. For example, “Isn’t the weather lovely today? It hasn’t been this nice since last March. Have you heard about the murders downtown?”
Let your characters get a little off-topic before you bring them back. Your protagonist might say, “I’ll bring round the divorce papers on Tuesday. And if you didn’t notice, the Lakers won the other day. I don’t know if you were watching the game, but it was great. Also, my lawyer will call you soon to iron out the details.”
One advantage of letting your characters go off script, besides making them sound human, is that it lets you throw in extra details and characterization that grow your characters. Awkward small talk tells your readers that those characters don’t have a close relationship. Or perhaps that they dislike each other, or one of them has social anxiety. Little dialogue hints are a great way to reveal characters’ relationships with each other.
When your characters go off on a tangent, it usually reveals their personality or interests. For example, bringing up a Lakers game suggests they are interested in sports together. If a character decides to inject their unsolicited opinions into a conversation, that is a great indicator of what they are like and what things they care about.
2. But Don’t Add Too Much Realism
So I hate to throw a damper on all the things I just told you in the first one of my dialogue writing tips, yet I’ve gotta say it: There’s such a thing as too much realism.
In real life, there’s too much awkward small talk. There’s a lot of going off-topic. In real life, conversations really meander. But fiction doesn’t get that luxury. Readers will get annoyed and lose attention.
So you’ve got to avoid putting too much real talk in your story. Don’t let the characters’ conversation get too far astray from the story. Don’t let characters start throwing in too many irrelevant details about what they last ate or their thoughts on cheese.
You want to find that sweet spot, where characters are real enough to connect with the reader, but fictional enough to still serve the story. Your dialogue needs to sound like a real conversation, but stay focused on your ultimate story goals.
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I find it helps to write out a conversation in purest, craziest, most natural, realistic form. Let characters ramble and react. Then, I go back in and cut out any dialogue that seems unnecessary or annoying. After a bit of cleaning up, the speech usually shines.
3. Remember Dialogue Reveals Character
Dialogue is one of the ultimate ways of showing characters. So I’ve just explained a bit about how realistic dialogue reveals character, but there’s so much more to say.
Every little bit of dialogue reveals something about the character saying it. Every line has something to say about its speaker. There is nearly no empty dialogue—it all carries meaning.
So take a look at what your dialogue says about your characters. There are so many messages to be found.
Short dialogue suggests a character is terse or quiet, while long dialogue makes them sound verbose or chatty. A wide vocabulary makes them sound educated. Using hedging words or terms like “I’m sorry to…” “I thought…” or “Excuse me for…” makes a character sound shy and unsure of themselves.
Create a vocabulary and a pattern of dialogue that reflects the character and the situation they are in. Find little ways to represent the characters’ souls in the way they talk.
Not just the character’s soul, but also show what the character cares about. Let them talk about their interests, give their backstory, hint at their goals, and speak out about what matters to them. Allow their dialogue to do more than simply deliver plot information or move the story forward; let it build who they are.
4. Use Dialects Sparingly
This one can be pretty controversial in the writing world; some writers love using dialects in their works while others hate it. Dialect, in writing, is when you spell a word the way a character says it, in their accent, rather than spelling it correctly. It also includes non-standard grammar a character might use. For example, writing “she doin’ dat” rather than “she’s doing that” is an example of dialect.
Famous writers like Mark Twain made great use of dialect in their writing, but some readers find aggravating or confusing. I was taught in my creative writing courses to never, ever use dialect. But personally, I’m a rebel and choose to use a little dialect in my writing.
Using dialect can be more realistic, hint at a character’s regional origin, or add flavor to dialogue. On the other hand, misspellings and grammar mistakes confuse some readers and drive pedantic readers crazy. A whole book, with a many conversations, written in dialects is bound to drive a lot of readers nuts.
Also, dialects can reinforce racist or xenophobic stereotypes sometimes (especially for African-American Vernacular). Do your research and use an accurate accent. Avoid any kind of speech that might make your dialect sound like a mockery of its speakers or imply negative things about them.
So, I recommend using dialects, but using them sparingly. A little goes a long way. Research the appropriate dialect for your characters, don’t fall back on stereotypes, and sprinkle in bits of it throughout the story.
5. Cut Repetitive or Unnecessary Dialogue
Let’s be brief: your characters shouldn’t say too much. They should say just enough. Any more, and you’re wasting your reader’s time.
I mentioned this when cautioning you about having too much realism in the second of these dialogue writing tips. Sometimes, it’s easy to get into a flow, write down everything your characters might say, and end up with a crazy long conversation. Avoid this.
Don’t repeat things your readers already know. Paraphrase and summarize wherever necessary. Instead of writing, “He told them, ‘I went on this crazy adventure and all these crazy things happened and I…,” try writing, “He filled them in on everything that had happened to him.”
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Don’t include dialogue that doesn’t advance the story, build the characters, or serve some other important story purpose. If you have any dialogue that can be cut without changing the story, cut it. If any conversation simply happens to get in a snappy line or allow characters to kill time, rewrite it till it has a stronger purpose.
Don’t detail minor, unimportant conversations. Giving dialogue is showing, but there are parts in your story you just need to tell. Let’s say your character has an argument with her mother over dirty dishes before she goes to work, leaving her in a bad mood. When she gets to work in a sulk, the real story continues. That’s all you need to say. Unless there’s more going on, you don’t need to tell readers exactly what the daughter said or exactly how the mother replied. It’s enough to know the conversation happened—no details necessary.
6. Don’t Be Too “On the Nose” With Your Dialogue
Oooh, this is a tough one. There’s no simple gauge for when your dialogue is too on-the-nose. What does that even mean?
It refers to when your dialogue feels too precise, or appropriate, or meta. It’s so on point it jars your reader out of the story for a moment. It might sound a little like the narrator’s voice sneaking into the dialogue.
Say you’re writing a tragic romance, a tale of two lovers parting ways. In a crucial scene, one asks, “Is this the story of how we break up?” Now that line sounds poignant and striking. But it’s also a little much. Readers already know they’re reading the story of how the two break up, so that line hits the nail too squarely on the head. It sounds a bit forced.
When you have lines of dialogue that are a little too on-the-nose, it’s usually not too hard to rewrite them to be a little subtler, a little less artificial. Don’t force lines to sound “perfect”; let them come out naturally.
7. Every Conversation Should Have a Purpose
Every piece of dialogue should benefit the story. Every line should advance the plot, build the characters, flesh out the setting, or fulfill some other purpose within the story.
You might have read “Every scene is either a fight, seduction, or negotiation,” a declaration by screenwriter Mike Nichols, or heard any of the other quotes like it giving dialogue writing tips. I don’t think every scene can be so simply categorized, but it does help to identify what your scene or conversation is and what it does.
To do this, hunt for the purpose of any section of dialogue in your story. Does it characterize your protagonist? Does it strengthen your setting? Does it advance the plot?
Or maybe it doesn’t serve a great purpose at all. You find the conversation is solely there to take time, fill a few pages, or give two characters a chance to talk. Maybe the scene does little or nothing for your story. Then, it needs cut.
To make good use of dialogue, you have to either eliminate useless conversations or rewrite them to have a stronger purpose. Every bit of dialogue in your story should serve a purpose.
8. Read Your Dialogue Out Loud
To ensure your dialogue sounds natural, you’ve gotta read it aloud. I know many writers who advocate reading your entire story aloud, but if you don’t do that, you should at least read the dialogue.
Sometimes, we write lines that nobody would ever actually say. Lines that don’t make sense, that conflict with human emotions, or that simply don’t fit the character in question. When you read the lines out loud in the character’s voice, you’re more likely to catch these mistakes than if you read them.
But, you reply, my character is an 18th-century uneducated French orphan. My natural speech is so different from his, how could I tell what’s unnatural for him to say?
Even with all your differences, after speaking in his voice for a while, you’ll get into his perspective and start noticing when something’s off. You’ll notice when his historical dialect is a bit too strong. You’ll start noticing when he uses words too big for his age and education.
When you speak aloud and hear the words your own voice, you’ll detect all the lines of dialogue that sound off in your story. Putting the character’s words into actual speech makes it easier to spot mistakes. Then you can cut and rewrite to perfection.
Writing dialogue well is so important for nailing characters. Getting their voices down makes your characters and their lines so much more memorable, so I hope these dialogue writing tips helped you out. Do you have any dialogue writing tips you’d like to share? Questions on how to improve your dialogue writing? Let me know in the comments!
Mint is a writer and digital marketing pro who lives in coastal Virginia with her family and one lovable pitbull. Her passions include helping people and businesses display their best side through the power of communication, buying her dog costumes he doesn’t want to wear, and talking all day about Batman.
