On Writing: Dialogue

[anthrodisiac]

Hey there! Welcome to the fun, wacky world of dialogue. There are so many ways and approaches to writing it. But let's just focus on the two distinct elements.

Dialogue is one of the best tools for giving characters voice Perhaps obvious, but dialogue does a lot of things.

• It gives your character voice. Literally, and figuratively. (See On Writing: Voice).
• It allows for the characters to interact with the world and each other.
• It allows your characters to be distinct from each other.
• It allows for information to be given to the reader in a fun, engaging way.
• It shows interpersonal dynamics.
• So many more.

How someone speaks is one dimension to dialogue. The words the use, the way in which they structure their words. Someone highly educated is going to use different word sets and speaking structures than someone who dropped out of high school. That's true in most cases. However, there are exceptions, and if you have a poorly educated character using big words, and are doing so with intention, then you're showing that this person has an unexpected large vocabulary, and that's going to speak to their character, backstory, and come out in their interpersonal dynamics with others.

How someone speaks to specific individuals is another dimension. Are they friendlier with some people? More serious with others? Do they code switch, and with whom are they more themselves, when are they putting on a difference face? Do they interject another language into their words, or speak a different language entirely with certain people? Do they curse? What curse words do they use? (Cursing is one of my favorite dialogue tools, it's such a versatile and useful thing.)

Some people find writing dialogue difficult. It certainly can be. Trying to write distinctions into the way people speak so you don't have characters who all speak the same can be a careful balancing act. Lean too far in one direction, and you risk them becoming a caricature; too far in the other, and they all sound flat and the same.

There's also the verisimilitude problem. Some people want their dialogue to be as accurate as possible. However, people tend to talk fairly meandering, not straight to the point, often with asides that have nothing to do with the topic at hand, tangents, etc. That doesn't serve you well in stories. So, another balancing act. You want dialogue that feels like real people talking, but also keeping the story on track and not dumping ungodly amounts of useless information and irrelevant details that will distract from the bigger picture.

The best dialogue is dialogue that balances a lot of different things, and conveys multiple layers of information to the reader:

• The subject of the words themselves, is the most obvious thing. It's the point of the dialogue in most cases.
• What the dialogue says about that particular character.
• What it says about the character's dynamic with the other person/people in the conversation.
• The mood of the scene, the person, and the dynamic.

I've always maintained that the best way to learn how to write good dialogue is to people watch. It doesn't have to be in person, but it should be a visual medium of some sort, preferably real life over fiction so you aren't having your observations impeded by the verisimilitude problem, in which fiction has to cut some of the minor/irrelevant details that are important to observations.

How do you approach dialogue? What tips and tricks do you employ for good dialogue? What aspects do you consider when giving your character their voice? Really, anything else dialogue-related, let's hear about it!*

*Maybe not tags, that feels like we could have a whole thread devoted just to that.

 

[Rambling_Chantrix]

It's fun figuring out where writers are from based on the casual use of extremely local slang in their dialogue.

 

[Mastered_again]

I believe dialog is the strongest part of my writing, but that's a relative term. I don't consider myself that good.
More than once when reviewing/editing I'd make a note to change the characters' interaction from straight prose (no dialog) to dialog. Rarely in the other direction.

Dialog works for me:
Expressing feelings in a few words that would take several sentences otherwise

Humor (I try anyway) can exhibit a level of comfort/intimacy between characters. Maybe because I've been so attracted by it in real life

Provide insight into a character's personality, for good or Ill

I try to picture the characters interacting and how they perceive each other. Sometimes altering one's comments to achieve the desired reaction in the other

 

[Cagivagurl]

Good dialogue for me as a reader is...
Like listening to a real conversation. People don't talk in perfectly, they ramble, break every grammar rule. They pause, hum and hah, they repeat themselves, There is no thought to adverbs, or infinitives. They just talk....
Dialogue in a story should appear just like that... Yeah, it's wrong but it's also right... Just modern times... And every generational change brings more slang and sloppier language...
The stories I seek out are dialogue heavy, minimum narrative, the story unfolding through conversations...

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I have a bad habit of writing pages and pages of dialogue that I later have to cut, because it isn't needed for the story.

 

[RemoteShadeofGreen]

For me, dialog is a more flowing way to introduce aspects of character and personality than descriptive prose. My plots require characters talk about real things and joke, and that's part of what bonds them together in their story. If I can't make the dialog work, then the match was never meant to be. RIP.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Good dialogue for me as a reader is...
Like listening to a real conversation. People don't talk in perfectly, they ramble, break every grammar rule. They pause, hum and hah, they repeat themselves, There is no thought to adverbs, or infinitives. They just talk....
Dialogue in a story should appear just like that... Yeah, it's wrong but it's also right... Just modern times... And every generational change brings more slang and sloppier language...
The stories I seek out are dialogue heavy, minimum narrative, the story unfolding through conversations...

I've experimented with dialogue-only short stories a couple times. They're fun, but you quickly realize how difficult it actually is if you're doing anything other than two people talking with minimal action.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I have a bad habit of writing pages and pages of dialogue that I later have to cut, because it isn't needed for the story.

Same. Took me damn near 15 years to kick that

 

[SkyBubble]

I've experimented with dialogue-only short stories a couple times.

Sometimes I've written the dialogue for a scene first, then filled in the other information.

 

[Cagivagurl]

I've experimented with dialogue-only short stories a couple times. They're fun, but you quickly realize how difficult it actually is if you're doing anything other than two people talking with minimal action.

Personally, I love it when the dialogue takes control and drives the story. Rich nuanced dialogue, intimate and emotional. The story lifts on the back of the shared emotions...
It is probably very time consuming, dialogue must take a lot longer than pure narration, but the dividends for the reader... Immeasurably more immersive...
Just my thoughts... Preferences....

 

[anthrodisiac]

Sometimes I've written the dialogue for a scene first, then filled in the other information.

I'll do that too sometimes. I'm a big fan of banter, so I'll occasionally just start out a story idea by having a banter session between a couple characters. No tags, nothing, just pure dialogue. I also find it helpful for figuring out who they are, what their relationship to each other are, and figuring out their voice.

 

[SkyBubble]

I'll do that too sometimes. I'm a big fan of banter, so I'll occasionally just start out a story idea by having a banter session between a couple characters. No tags, nothing, just pure dialogue. I also find it helpful for figuring out who they are, what their relationship to each other are, and figuring out their voice.

I think in some ways it helps me get a better understanding of my characters.

 

[StillStunned]

Some of my best practices for dialogue:

Short sentences. Nobody in real life talks like they're reading aloud a lecture. People pause, gather their thoughts, take actions in between. They don't speak like on Gilmore Girls, which always struck me as trying to fit as much dialogue into as few minutes as possible.

This also keeps the reader's eye moving forward. Dialogue isn't monologue, and people interrupt each other, interject questions, make suggestive jokes. All these snappy bits and pieces stop the story from bogging down. Readers are just as likely to skip a long, unbroken block of dialogue as a long description.

Written dialogue is a distilled form of spoken dialogue. Even while you try to make it sound natural, with pauses for thought or interruptions or action moments, you get rid of most of the "uhmming" and "ahhing" and the endless "likes" and "you knows". So find the right balance between realistic and abstract. The realistic bits are where you can inject most character, I think.

Dialogue can easily get away from you. Writers often love their characters, or at least they love their own inventiveness or wittiness. Pages of dialogue or banter that does nothing to further the story but only indulges the writer's infatuation with themselves is where I nope out of a story. Like every other element of writing, dialogue should add something: plot, mood, character, sexiness. If it doesn't - and the returns diminish quickly, particularly if you're using it to add character - then it can be trimmed. It's a darling with a price on its head.

Way back when, @AwkwardMD and @Omenainen reviewed The Rivals Ch. 01: Dark Encounters. It was a very positive review, and the only suggestion they offered was to include the occasional misunderstanding in my dialogue. People don't always grasp each other's meaning straight away. Again, this is about the realistic v abstract thing, but it's a nice tool to use occasionally. In fact, by the time of the review I'd already included this bit in a later chapter:

The front of his breeches was white with dust. She brushed some of it off. "What's behind there?"

"There? That's my-- oh, you mean the door."

It's a tiny thing, but it adds a touch of lightness, in a very natural way.

 

[BeechLeaf]

The dialogue I use is mostly realistic, with breaks and hesitations and irrelevance, but I overuse it. The easiest thing is to just keep writing dialogue, so I'm trying to force myself to build more narrative around it, or convert part of it to indirect speech. Tell, don't show.

I listen to passers-by to try to take in how they repeat, break off, interrupt. In writing, this has to be slightly pruned, but I try to stick close to it. The odd info dump can be excused because my characters are generally intellectual or at least intelligent, and would sometimes listen to each other's longer explanations.

Like everything else, I haven't the remotest idea how readers take this.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

Dialogue is the razor's edge that cuts my readers throats, spilling the cum that is for some reason stored there.

I just mean, my stories are dialogue heavy. Dialogue is the lifeblood of incestuous relationships. How you gonna seduce a sibling without some banter? You're not, that's how. I even had a gruff character who was drawn out of his silence by his usually-talkative sister going quiet. It was a whole plot point.

But, my recent hiatus from writing (weeks in a row!) was largely caused by a dialogue-heavy story losing the plot, as they say. I couldn't bring it home, and I had passed 25k words, when it should've been a simple story... I lost hope. So I'm moving past that one to a different (also dialogue heavy) story.

So just be cautious about your dialogue. You can get too invested in characters, far beyond what your readers will, and think that all your snappy witticism is gold on the phone screen... When it's really just first draft nonsense that should be scrapped. Dialogue is a tool, but one that can be sharpened very nicely to extract the cum from the readers' cumsacks with a few quick cuts. Otherwise it should go in the trash.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Sometimes I've written the dialogue for a scene first, then filled in the other information.

I frequently do this.

 

[sirhugs]

Dialogue maks a story more realistic because tht's what real pople do - talk.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

While I'll avoid mentioning tags, I will say I have list of dialogue tags as a crib sheet.

I do as well.

There are several from my list included in How to Choose Dialogue Tags.

Feel free to add any that you believe beneficial in the comments of the article.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I've always maintained that the best way to learn how to write good dialogue is to people watch.

I’m often complimented on my dialog. I think it’s partly the autistic super power of trying extra hard to parse what people are saying all the time. It makes you a student of the spoken word.

 

[Erozetta]

I like to experiment with things like dialogue. I've written pieces that are pretty much simply a running dialogue of the narrator speaking to another character to a piece where nobody says a word to each other in a few thousand words.

Both experimental, both fun, both well received.

Variation and experimentation with dialogue is fun.

 

[SimonDoom]

Good dialogue is often an essential part of the story. It gives life and interest to your story. It gives your characters personalities. It can propel action, and serve as a useful substitute for narrative exposition and info dumps.

It can also make or break reader interest. I'm a fussy and particular reader when it comes to dialogue, and dialogue, for me, is the aspect of a story that MOST often distinguishes the amateur from the experienced writer.

Some general guidelines I try to follow/that I look for in dialogue:

First and foremost, learn the basic punctuation rules of dialogue, and follow them unless you have some compelling artistic reason not to, and if you don't, be consistent and clear in the way you don't. There are about seven grammar/punctuation rules for dialogue. Learn them. Nothing is more likely to make me click out of a story than badly handled dialogue. I just can't read it.

Second, avoid getting cute with your tags. It's fine to use "said" and "asked." When I see an author going out of their way to avoid "said" and "asked," my response is: amateur. This author doesn't get it. It's fine to do this somewhat, but it becomes annoyingly obvious and mannered when it's overdone.

Third, avoid redundancy with one's tags. Example: "I agree with you," he concurred. Write: "I agree with you," he said. Dammit.

Fourth, a concept related to my third point is the idea that the dialogue should do the heavy lifting, and if it does, you don't NEED a cute tag. Example: "Give me your money or I'll shoot," he demanded. The bit of dialogue makes it clear that it's a demand. You don't need to tell the reader it's a demand. Let the dialogue do the work, and let the tag be unobtrusive and fade into the background, where the reader won't even notice it. It's fine to write "Give me your money or I'll shoot!" he yelled. Because in this case the tag adds a bit of information about the volume at which the dialogue is uttered.

Fifth, you don't have to eliminate tags altogether. There are plenty of techniques for reducing tag use so they don't seem intrusive. Clarity is key. The reader should know who is talking. A studious avoidance of tags is another trait that, to me, indicates "amateur" unless there's some particularly good reason for the author to handle the story that way.

Sixth, use dialogue to establish traits of your character, such as personality, verbal tics, regional habits, etc., but don't overdo it. "A little goes a long way" is a good principle with trying too hard to convey dialects and regional verbal mannerisms.

I generally separate bits of dialogue into separate paragraphs. It reads better this way.

I agree with Stillstunned: Avoid speeches. Generally, keep it short. It's more realistic and easier to read.

I also agree with those who say you should be realistic, but not too realistic. Realism would be long-winded and boring. Keep it short and snappy.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

You can avoid tags by mixing in some description.

"Why would you do that?" Her smile was barely detectable.

"To please you, of course." He made--no, performed--an exaggerated, courtly bow,

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I write my dialogue with just the text, then go back and edit, adding in the quote marks and whatever tags are needed. If you have two distinctive voices speaking, you can often go five or more utterances without needing a tag at all. If there's more people in the conversation, or the voices are more similar, then you likely need more.

For Lit purposes, differentiating characters by terms of endearment works well. If one person tends to say pet or love, while another says gorgeous or babe, that separates them.

And yes, people speak choppily and say "er... um... er... like, y'know, like," but readers don't want to read all that. A couple hints at hesitation are plenty. And similar with the dialect words - keep it simple for your readers. People often say 'unless you're Mark Twain,' but I bet he'd have problems getting published nowadays.

 

[sirhugs]

You can avoid tags by mixing in some description.

my preference is to seperate the description and dialogue into successive short paragraghs. Maybe just a sylistic preference, but I think it makes it more readable.

 

[FrancesScott]

Mostly about the technicalities of dialogue punctuation, but with some bits about tagging or omitting tags thrown in for good measure:

https://www.literotica.com/s/how-to-punctuate-dialogue