Writing Realistic Dialogue

Hey guys, little side note: I'll be continuing 'The Publishing Process' next week. I've been pretty busy and Part 2 is a bit of a lengthy article. So I've got a pre-written article here for you. Thanks so much for understanding!

Dialogue is an important element to every story. It can make or break your novel and its characters, depending on how you decide to use it.

Whatever your characters say needs to push the plot forward, or reveal certain aspects of the setting, or of the characters' personalities. Too much dialogue is lazy, and not enough dialogue can get boring. Put briefly, there is a lot riding on what you choose to write between those quotation marks. It can be tough to get the hang of it all.

But after struggling in my own writing for years, and reading many helpful articles written by experts, I think I've nearly done just that. I hope the little I've learned will help you in your own writing.

Without further ado...

Here are 4 steps to writing realistic, gripping dialogue!

STEP 1: EAVESDROP

The best way to ensure realism in your writing is to model everything from the world around you. The real world, with real people. And that may mean you'll have to become a bit of an eavesdropper. That doesn't mean you press your ear against somebody's bedroom door. You'd be surprised what unusual things normal people say at the grocery store or the library. Observe the people around you. Observe how they speak to their relatives, or strangers. How they act when they're clearly angry or stressed. You might find a real gem if you just sit there and listen. True story--there was a little boy on the school bus recently, telling his friend that he had a psychic connection with his pet dog. It not only made me laugh, it inspired me.

STEP 2: LET THE CHARACTERS SPEAK

Writing dynamic characters is hard enough, but now you have to write dialogue to match. It's tricky because you want their personalities to shine through. You can't have every character sound like the same person. Maybe one character speaks more formally because they grew up with strict parents, and maybe another character is more of a 'hillbilly' so their grammar isn't exactly on point. You NEED to know absolutely everything about your characters! Because once you know them inside and out, you can let them speak for themselves as you write. You can let them come to life with their unique traits, likes and dislikes. Once a readers sees this in your novel's dialogue, it'll make the characters all that more real.

STEP 3: GIVE INDIRECT INFORMATION

All professional authors know this, and use the knowledge well--there's a lot you can tell your readers through dialogue alone. You can show the relationship between two characters in a couple lines. You can tell us who's angry and who's in trouble. You can tell us what time it is, where we are, why we're here..... as long as you're careful to keep the dialogue smooth and effortless. Something you need to avoid is making things too superficial and obvious. To give you an example, let's say there are two brothers talking about the upcoming prom. One brother says to the other:

"I'm not sure I'll go to the prom coming up. Anna's probably going to be there, and after our break-up it'll be awkward."

This is awful. No human being talks like that. It's clearly written for the readers and not the other character, since the other brother would know about the prom, and the break-up. If we change it up to be more believable...

"I'm not sure I'll go, man. You know why."

You can see the improvement right away. This is dialogue done right.

It's always better to assume your readers know everything, even if you've given them no direct information. That way they can follow along with the dialogue and learn as they go.

STEP 4: READ

This is the best advice I can give you. Go to the bookstore and pick up a bestseller. Or just skim through one of the novels in your own bookshelf. I can assure you that if the book is fiction and written recently, you'll find dialogue in the first chapter, if not on the first page. What makes the dialogue intriguing to you? What has the writer told you through what the characters are saying? If the dialogue isn't interesting at all, why not? How would you improve it? Read, and keep reading. Read books by successful authors. Read books by authors you've never heard of. That's the best way to learn.

For an excellent blog post on what to avoid in your dialogue, check this out:

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/common-writing-mistakes-goody-goody-characters/

Thanks for reading!

See you next week~

#writing #howtowrite #characters