BringBackTheDialogue.com

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Dialogue is one of the most hard elements of fiction writing. On the go up, it appears simple to do – we all speak, don’t we? – but real life speech is not nearly as compelling and as pointed as fictional dialogue.

1) When you write dialogue, be mindful of both pace and untreated progression. If you are relatively new to writing, read your dialogue aloud to get a better grasp of how you write. Your dialogue must by no means appeared to be forced into a certain direction, nor must it go on and on with meaningless exchanges.

2) Dialogue is an integral part of your characters. Dialogue must distinguish your fictional characters as much as their actions do. Their personalities must reflect the way they talk. For example, an impatient person might speak in fragments, and a chatty one in run on sentences. A scientist might use a technical vocabulary while a night club owner might spout cutting-edge idioms. Avoid stereotypical and cliché talk unless this is your point.

3) Avoid mundane exchanges. A writer does not have to include everything characters might say to each other. As a all-purpose rule, avoid writing empty pleasantries such as “How are you?” and “I’m fine. And you?” While people enter into conversations in real life this way, your job is not to document reality but to make a compelling illusion of reality. To do this, your dialogue must get immediately to the point and do its job in as few words as doable. As you read, note how authors frame their dialogue with synopsis, how each chat advances the plot, characterizations, and theme, and how the dialogue is compacted.

4) Dialogue does not always need to be linear in its progression. If you listen to how people talk, you’ll see we often digress, or avoid answering a question frankly, or are temporarily distracted by the environment or random thoughts. As a writer, you cannot let your dialogue meander in this way, but you may allow information and tension to rise out of conversational lapses. Of course, your readers must be with you the logic behind such abstruse dialogue, either by your inserting the distraction itself into the text, or by preparing the reader through previous characterization and plot events. This sounds simpler than it is. Study other writers to see how this can be accomplished.

5) Frame your dialogue with narrative descriptions and character gestures. At appropriate times, when you want to make a pause in the conversation or when you want to show a non-verbal reaction, describe what is happening. Let your characters interact with the environment. Although too much description will slow the flow of the conversation, too modest can place the speakers in a literary vacuum. Find the balance.

6) Start over if necessary. If you learn you cannot get your characters to make the points you want them to, you may have to start the chat anew. Perhaps you started the dialogue on the incorrect note, or had introduced emotions contrary to your aim, or have placed your characters at a place not conducive to the type of conversation they are having.

7) Dialogue is not real conversation. As an exercise, record a conversation – with the participants’ knowledge, of course – and then type up a transcript, word for word. You’ll find the result dull to read. Now edit the transcript to a few pithy lines. Most conversation is filled with extraneous words and exchanges while excellent dialogue is not. Dialogue only appears to reflect how people speak; it is the edited version of reality.

Hi, hi,
Mephistopheles has given you excellent advise.
I beg to disagree with Mighty Power — first,
she’s assuming ghetto, and if indeed you were
writing about ghetto, the use the ghetto dialogue,
as that is what is REAL,
and what I would want to read.