Hi Betts! I was wondering if you had any advice on writing dialogue that's both in character and also get across the necessary points of the conversation. I feel like a lot of the time I'm either letting my characters wander off on tangents or they sound like robots expositing or saying weird quips to get plot points across
dialogue is certainly tough. one time i asked one of my favorite writers why none of his novels have any dialogue (every time a character speaks it’s embedded in the narration), and he, a man who can articulate all of his craft choices using fancy words i have to look up every time i’m done talking to him, said simply that dialogue made him feel awkward. which goes to show that everyone struggles with it at least a little.
here are my quick tips for good dialogue:
pare it down by (at least) half
if a character says 8 words, cut 4 of them. if a character says 100 words, get it down to 10. with dialogue, less is always more. sometimes you have to over-write in order to find out what a conversation is really doing. and once you figure it out, get it down to almost nothing.
i hate to break out the whole “writing is re-writing” but you have to get it wrong in order to get it right. and when it comes to dialogue, sometimes you need to write 200 lines to drill it down to the handful that matter.
every interaction is a transaction
which is to say, every character wants something out of an interaction. as the writer, it’s your job to figure out who wants what and how they’re going to get it. ask yourself: what is being transacted here?
let dialogue stand on its own
if you write the line, “get back here!” you do not then need “he shouted loudly.” you probably don’t even need “he shouted” because the exclamation point is doing all that work for you.
your characters’ voice should be strong and distinct enough that you can cut almost all clarifying dialogue tags unless 1) the way they are saying something changes the meaning of what they are saying (ex: “i want to die,” he said cheerily), or 2) you need to straight-up state who is doing the talking.
utilize concise punctuation
if you listen to the way people actually talk, they pause and start and stop and use fragments. maybe you don’t need to do the “i-i-i-” stammer (unless your character has a stutter?) but you could do something like, “i, i just wanted to tell you, i have feelings for you.” or, “look, i just. i don’t know. i have feelings for you, okay.” see how the commas and periods are placed at natural pauses rather than clunky punctuation like ellipses and em-dashes*?
*i do use a lot of em-dashes in dialogue, but usually when someone hard-stops mid-sentence or is interrupted. note also that if you have an interruption, you usually need to go two or so words beyond where you want them to be interrupted.
(ps problematic opinion but i love the word “like.” i use “like” all the time, both in speaking and in dialogue. some people rely on “like” to get their point across. if it’s right for the character, it’s right for the dialogue.)
pay attention to cadence and patterns
people speak in rhythms determined by things like their upbringing, the shape of their mouths, their given audience. we usually say things in short bursts. almost no one monologues, and when they do, it’s mostly only to tell a story. even the most verbose of us only speak a handful of words at a time.
i used to date a guy who had this bizarre rhythm to everything he said. it was like, “xyz, whatever.” three quick things in a row, followed by “whatever.” that was the first time i really noticed cadence.
my grandma does this thing where everything she says sounds like she’s spilling the tea. she repeats phrases to emphasize all her points. “they said this should all be done by april, and i say it’s not realistic. it’s not realistic!” or “milk was two-forty-nine, can you believe it? two-forty-nine!”
watch your go-to bodily markers
he bit his lip. he bit his cheek. he licked his lips. he fidgeted. he ran his hand down his face. he pinched the bridge of his nose. he scratched the back of his neck. or god forbid, he SMIRKED (if i never read the word “smirk” again it would be too fucking soon).
you may need to write these out for your own sake; we write as the process of thought, so sometimes we reach for these descriptions while we are thinking about what we need the character to say. later, almost all of them can be cut. the ones that can’t be cut are the ones that are not in line with what a character is saying and therefore add additional meaning or complexity to the dialogue.
if your character is nervously rambling, for example, we do not then need 17 physical descriptions of the nervousness. however, if your character is pretending to be nervous, then we might need a hint or two that they’re putting on some kind of performance, and what they’re saying is not matching up with their body language.
sorry to parrot hemingway right now but this is the realest real. if you read your dialogue out loud and you cringe to yourself and think, no one would ever say this? that’s a good sign you need to keep tweaking it until it sounds more natural.
of course, to caveat all of this, you are not obligated to make dialogue realistic. you always get to choose the aesthetic aims and style of your work. if you want your story to sound like an aaron sorkin screenplay, then that’s your vision and you should go for it. all writing is valid and important, and all interests are valid and important.
i hope this helps! thanks for the great question.
ko-fi | commissions open | writing advice tag