Writing good dialogue

5 July 2011

Writing good dialogue is something that can be learned. You don’t have to have a natural talent for it; although I suppose the latter would help.

You might like to know that I used to struggle – a lot! – with dialogue in the past. In fact, I used to be so afraid of it, I tried to cut all dialogue at all by placing my characters in places where they wouldn't have to interact with others. Until I learned the “trick” and found out writing dialogue is really one of the easiest parts of writing.

The “trick” is - of course - to listen to people as they talk. Listen, listen, listen. How do different people say different things?

Some are highly sophisticated and use big words. Others are the silent types, and won't use two words if one would suffice. Then you've got the foul-mouthed ones. And the explosive types. The nervous "blabbers". You get the picture.

Once you figured out how people talk, you can apply that knowledge to your story.

Also, note that people don’t usually talk in long, grammatically correct sentences. They stammer and stutter, start out saying one thing, then change their mind and end up saying something different – and mess up the grammatical structure of their sentence as they do so. Some use double negatives. (I’ve never seen nothing like that.) Some say me when they should have said my. They say should of, could of, would of… Use these abominations to your advantage. They can help you create different voices for different characters.

Finally, even if your characters are highly educated people, with IQ's well over 200, you cannot allow them to be too high and lofty in their speech, or you will run the risk of losing your readers. Remember the average IQ is still 100. You've got to make your characters talk in such a way that everyone - not just the educated - will understand what they are talking about. Unless... unless you've got a character you want to alienate from your readers. (But then you'd better make sure you've got a good reason for wanting to do that.)