What are your tips to write dialogue?
there are some basic tips that I won’t repeat here since you probably already are aware. IMO the rules for dialogue will largely be dictated by the rules you’ve set for the world you’re building. in a story, dialogue can trigger the next action/scene, inspire change, or bring the reader up to speed on something (among many other things), so knowing what kind of world you’re in and what your rules are will act as both guard rails and inspiration for how dialogue should do these things.
as an example it irks me when dialogue is too pointed or tidy in a contemporary romance (the world is already arranged for a cute storm in a snow globe; why is everyone also perfect? what is the point of setting perfect machines free in a simple world?), but I’m fine with it in a high fantasy (quick communication of symbols between archetypes is expedient in an overloaded story).
(I will also say that I do research for a living and interview transcripts REALLY drive home how rare it is for normal humans to speak in full, eloquent yet direct sentences… so I’m probably hypersensitive to this.)
for me it’s not just about genre; it’s more about what the engine of your story is and what you want to do with the genre rules. so for example a slice of life where the author wants to nod to magical realism while never actually using it will have different dialogue rules than a slice of life where the author wants to discuss how impossible it is to know our fellow humans. In both stories the dialogue CAN be a lot more strange and unexpected, your word selection can have a lot more freedom, etc. - but how that plays out on the page will be specific to the story.
and here is my controversial take: It doesn’t need to be what the reader expects or what the reader wants/thinks is good. It just has to work in concert with everything else you’re doing to build the universe and experience. if you’re creating a mystery where you want the world to feel bigger, lusher, and more complex than the protagonist grasps, you might have side characters use esoteric words here and there that they might not typically use. it’s like an extra stitch of a color that wasn’t in the main palette but when you step back it adds dimension and changes the tone, or quietly signals that the rules of the game may be different than expected. the reader might pick up on it as “wrong” but that’s what you wanted.
dialogue is a litmus test for me, in that if I know my characters and they’re ready to be played with, I don’t overthink the word choice or rhythm and it just comes to me; rounds of editing allow me to add in those further stitches. this isn’t true for everyone and it’s not necessarily a sign that your dialogue is “good,” or that your characters have distinct voices (which is another aspect of dialogue that will be shaped by your universe’s rules, since the voices you need will be partly dependent on the end result you’re looking for). it’s just, for ME, a sign that I’ve done my homework sufficiently… or that I have more universe development to do. so if I’m thinking too hard about dialogue when drafting, it’s generally a sign that I’m not ready to write.
this is a lot like the advice around using adverbs and filler words: it’s not that you can’t use them, it’s that they have an effect and it’s worth it to be aware of the effect. if your dialogue is the only thing that ever triggers a plot point, it’s possible that you have too much of it - otoh this may be what you’re going for. if your dialogue spans many pages and has many characters speaking, you may be suffering from “group chat syndrome” - otoh this may be one of your story’s quirks that hooks the right readers and turns off the wrong ones.
this was probably not very helpful and basically my answer boils down to “if you have a vision then you can do whatever you want” but it’s my honest answer so. there is that! *slinks off*
theartofmadeline
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pixelskylines
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