Most writers realize that writing dialogue can be a way to show rather than tell a story. Too often, however, they’ll take a long expository passage, put quotes around it and let a character make what amounts to a speech. For starters, that’s not how most of us talk. If we do run across someone who gets on that kind of a long-winded soapbox, we wind up looking for an excuse to leave, which is exactly what your reader will do.
Writing dialogue is all about moving your story forward. As I mentioned in one of my “Power Up Your Writing” blog posts, “we want the highlight reel only, the parts that move the story along or reveal something about the speaker. That leaves no room for small talk or the meaningless niceties of real life.”
In short, the dialogue should be more like a scene or an event than an explanation or a bridge. In the Writer’s Digest article “4 Tips on Writing Dialogue,” Emily Henry writes that “an easy way to spice up your dialogue is to think of it as two (or more) characters pulling in opposite directions. Even when you’re using dialogue to discreetly drop in exposition, there should be some kind of tension.” That doesn’t mean you need conflict all the time. That, too, would be boring. But when appropriate, you want your dialogue to reflect how your characters disagree with each other, whether openly or not.
Dialogue also needs to sound authentic. When we talk, most of us use contractions such as I’m instead of I am and haven’t instead of have not. We often don’t talk in full sentences. We cut each other off. We throw in a snarky reaction here and there (or at least think it). When writing dialogue, you want to reflect that in your word choice, your sentence structure and your pacing. If you’ve ever seen a pickleball match, let that be your guide. And don’t slow down that verbal exchange with unnecessary speech tags like he said and she replied. Leave those out if the speaker is obvious.
Finally, our words reveal not just what we’re thinking but also how we’re feeling. So, when writing dialogue, how your characters say something can be just as important and just as revealing as what they say. Reflecting that those telling emotions will advance not just your story, but your character development as well.
luvit
Thanks, Jeff!