While dialogue should be one of the easiest things for a writer to write (we all have conversations), writing compelling and meaningful dialogue in fiction challenges most authors. This is because good dialogue in fiction needs to fulfill a role in storytelling and is prosaic like most dialogue you hear in real life.
What Dialogue Is and What Dialogue Isn’t
Good dialogue neither mimics actual speech (e.g., it’s not usually mundane, repetitive or broken with words like “uh”) nor does it educate the reader through long discourse (unless the character is that kind of person). Good dialogue in a story should be somewhere in the middle. While it should read as fluid conversation, dialogue remains a device to propel the plot or enlighten the reader to the character of the speaker). No conversation follows a perfect linear progression. People interrupt one another, talk over one another, often don’t answer questions posed to them or avoid them by not answering them directly. These can all be used by the writer to establish character, tension, and relationship.
Show, Don’t Tell
Beginning writers commonly use dialogue to explain something that both participants should already know but the reader doesn’t. It is both awkward and unrealistic and immediately exposes the writer as a novice. Writers should avoid the use of “As you know…” It’s better to keep the reader in the dark for a while than to use dialogue to explain something. On the same note, characters should talk to one another, not indirectly to the reader through polemic or long dissertation and exposition.
Use Relevant Tag Lines and Reduce Them
When using tag lines for dialogue, take care to avoid the use of redundant tag lines. For instance: “I’m sorry,” he apologized; “Do you have a dog?” she asked. Novice writers tend to avoid “said” and replace with distracting verbs or add excessive speech modifiers. In truth, most professional writers use said and let the dialogue speak for itself.
Develop Character “Voice” & Speech Signatures
Each individual develops their own idiosyncratic way of speaking. Writers can create a character’s distinctive “voice” by introducing a unique vernacular to each character. This can take on the form of a certain repeated phrase, a body movement (itself a “language”), a stutter or speech intonation or accent. The writer can add additional depth to these specific traits through linking to metaphor.
Use Oblique Conversation & Overlapping Speech
People often don’t respond directly to questions posed them. This may be due to their avoiding the question or excitement or rudeness. The writer can make use of these as devices to enlighten the reader on theme, plot and character, while making the conversation more interesting and realistic.
Intersperse Dialogue With Descriptive Narrative
Many beginning writers forget to “ground” the reader with sufficient cues as to where the characters are and what they’re doing while they are conversing. This phenomenon is so common, it even has a name. It’s called “talking heads.” Strive to achieve a balance between too little setting description, which disorients the reader, and info-dump, which halts conversation and slows pace considerably.
 |
