How to Write Dialogue in Fiction

The part I enjoy most about writing fiction is writing the dialogue. While I often struggle with plots, the dialogue comes easily to me. I know for some people, though, it's the opposite. They may be able to generate a zillion plot ideas a minute, but then stumble on the dialogue.

If you've ever wanted to be more fluent in writing dialogue, or to write dialogue that is more convincing, try these tips:

1. Make your dialogue more concise than real-life conversations. If you pay attention to the way that people talk, you'll notice they use a lot of fillers -- the various grunts, the "ums," "ers," and "uhs" that people use when they're trying to think of what to say next. People also often go off on meaningless tangents. And even when they're on topic, they say a lot of things that are not all that interesting. Your job, as a fiction writer, is to edit all that stuff out. Don't think of dialogue as replicating real-life speech completely. Think of it as being like real-life speech, except without the boring parts.

2. Dialogue tags are the words that come before or after a bit of quoted speech that identify who is speaking. Avoid using tags like "he exclaimed," or "she gushed," or "he exploded." They will make your fiction seem overwrought. "He said" and "she said" are all you need. If you feel you must give the reader more direction, try adding an adverb: "He said softly." "She said angrily." That will be less intrusive, and usually more accurate, then using melodramatic verbs in your tags.

3. Don't over-stuff your dialogue with exposition. That can make your dialogue seem fake. You may need to transmit some information to the reader, but don't have one character telling it to another character who already knows. That's a conversation that would never actually happen. Find a different way to get the information across.

4. Make sure that your main characters don't all sound alike. Just as individuals in real life have distinctive ways of talking, so should your main characters.

5. Be sparing with variant spellings used to convey accents and dialects. Although there are a few writers, like Tom Wolfe and Alice Walker, who can pull it off, for most of us mortals, it's best to avoid the kind of dialogue where every word is spelled out phonetically. Unless done with exceptional skill, it will be hard to read. You also risk making the reader think that you are being condescending. If you do want to indicate a particular accent or dialect, it's best to use phonetic spelling very sparingly in just a few words here and there.

6. While you shouldn't mess much with spelling, you should feel free to mess with grammar. People rarely speak in grammatically correct full sentences. They use a lot of sentence fragments. They may speak in shorthand. They may use various types of slang. Your characters should do so as well when they speak. Remember that while the non-dialogue parts of your fiction should usually be written in gramatically correct standard English, no such restrictions should be placed on the dialogue.

7. If you get stuck, fire up your imagination. Imagine your characters in the particular situation that they are in. Imagine them as vividly as you can. Then ask them what they would say. See if you can hear an answer, in your mind's ear.

Good dialogue can be a pleasure both to read and to write. If you set some boundaries by being aware of some of the pitfalls described above, then you can let your imagination roam freely. You might be surprised where your imagination leads you!