How to write dialogues
Personally, I think writing a dialogue is the most hardest task in the story. Many of our chapters might contain dope dialogues but mostly we can go a whole chapter without dialogue like ‘They said nothing throughout the chapter’. But come to think of it, dialogues ensure the reader that the story is moving on, that there is some sort of development in the characters. In short, dialogues will make your story leap forward and so sound like the characters are working for their goals.
But the real task is writing the right dialogue that would suit the situation and wouldn’t sound like you gave away too much information. Here are some of the rules that might help writers when they’re stuck on a dialogue in a scene.
1) Read
The first key to writing a perfect dialogue script is to read. Usually when I’m stuck on a dialogue, I would randomly open up one of my old books and observe how other writer’s wrote a conversation between two characters. If it doesn’t work for you, you can go for a movie. Watch a movie, drama or just sit next to two people talking or debating. Observe their actions and pauses, how they stop at a point or stutter or how often they use a phrase.
2) Cut out extra scenes
It often gets tedious for a writer when they’re stuck in a chapter without dialogues - which usually happens when their chapter is overloaded with important descriptions. You can cut out a chapter or let the characters speak as descriptions. For example:
Character A (to character B): ” Looks like someone long abandoned this house, there’s dust everywhere”.
It’s a simple example but just to explain that the other character can speak about the associated person, place or plan if you’re looking forward to decrease the descriptions.
3) Provide a unique voice to your characters
By providing a unique voice to your characters, not only does it create a diverse cast but also excites the reader when they naturally know who’s speaking. An easy way of using this rule is by removing the speaker’s name or pronoun (she said, he said) and let the reader know who’s speaking on their own.
“You can’t just give away your coin collection!”
“They’re taking up way too much space, I don’t need them anyways”
“But you spend your entire childhood collecting these?”
In the above example, we know that there’s a conversation going on between character A and Character B. When you’re writing a dialogue scene with more than two characters, you can’t use the above rule as it can make the reader confused with who’s talking. In those situations where more than two are conversating, you can go for names and pronouns.
4) Say your dialogues out loud
If you feel like one of your dialogue or the complete conversation doesn’t make sense, say your dialogues out loud. It can help the dialogue sound more smooth and real and may provide a natural flow to the conversation as you write.
5) Keep it real
‘Keep it real’ which is one of the writing rules you may hear very often. Now what does it mean to ‘keep it real’ while writing a dialogue?. If two characters are meeting up in the scene, cut off greetings (they make the scene sound uninteresting and dull). Remember who the character is talking to and so change their tones in accordance, for example the reader would use a much lighter tone with their parents or elders or a rough tone when they’re around their friends, colleagues or enemies.
Cut out small talks or pointless things a person would say in real life. Many times people stutter half way through what they’re saying or stop mid way in a conversation but avoid adding that in your book and cut out extra information which isn’t important for the development of your character.
6) Actually write
You have to write to get started with the dialogues haha. Goodluck with that.
_Ace
