The biggest question when it comes to dialogue is: how do you make dialogue realistic? I’m going on the record telling you that this is the wrong question for a new writer to ask. What you need to learn, and what the pros already know, is how to make dialogue distinct for each character. Once you have accomplished that, then you can look at ways to make written dialogue seem more realistic without the clumsiness of realistic speech.
Distinct Dialogue
The biggest challenge of dialogue is making each character sound distinctive. Each person has their own level of confidence, style of humor, and favorite phrases. One of your characters might be more hesitant in speech and use lots of hedging (maybe, probably, if you want…), and another can be more assertive in word choice. A character might like dad jokes, another one puns, and a third sarcasm. Does he drink pop or soda? Would she drive on the parkway, highway, or freeway? You really have to understand your character and show who they are through their dialogue. Don’t make them all sound like you.
If you are representing different made up (or real) cultures, you can change up syntax. The most well known example of this is Yoda. Regular English follows the Subject-Verb-Object formula (“You must learn math.”), but Yoda speaks in Object-Subject-Verb (“Math you must learn.”). Be carful not to make the sentences too odd, or the reader will have to slow down to understand it. You don’t want to make reading your story more work for the reader, but doing it for a side character could add authenticity to your writing.
Don’t be afraid to give some of your characters quirks. It’s not enough to just say that he uses the word pop and not soda. Give him something memorable. For instance, growing up I always used the word “flustrated” for “frustrated.” I mixed together “flustered” and “frustrated.” When I got older, I realized that I was saying the word wrong even though I wrote it right. Nowadays, I say it correctly, but, sometimes when I’m so frustrated I get flustered, I tell people how flustrated I am. I’m not saying you need to make up words for your characters, but try to find some memorable quirk for a few of them.
Realistic Dialogue
Many writers say they want their dialogue to be realistic, but that isn’t exactly true. If you ever try to transcribe a recording of someone speaking, you’ll realize just how many “um” and “uh” and “you know” are in speech. The reader doesn’t want to read through all that. What a writer needs is to make the dialogue seem realistic without it actually being realistic.
How do you do that? You break the laws of grammar inside the quotation marks. Have your characters say fragments and run-ons. Use contractions whenever possible. Speakers are lazy and usually take the shortest route to convey their meaning. People don’t talk good. Don’t make them ask, “May I have an umbrella?” Have them ask, “Can you pass me a umbrella?” Or better yet, “Pass a umbrella, would you?”
Also, remember that because people take the shortest route to their goal, they often get misunderstood. Let dialogue confuse another character or get misheard. If it doesn’t happen all the time, it will add to the realistic feel of the conversation.
2 Things To Avoid In Dialogue
1. Delete Informative Dialogue
This is when your character says something solely to convey information to the reader. For instance:
“Tim, remember last week when I helped Mark, your brother-in-law, move that couch to your house and you said you would owe me a favor? Well, I’m calling in that favor now.”
Our speaker would never say this to Tim. First off, Tim doesn’t need to be told that Mark is his brother-in-law. He knows that already. He also doesn’t need to be reminded what the speaker did and when. Tim especially doesn’t need to be reminded that he owes the speaker a favor—it would probably annoy him. Instead, all the speaker needs to say is “I’m calling in my favor.” If the rest of the information is necessary to the story, let the narrator mention it. Having the speaker say it breaks character and makes the story less realistic to the reader.
A way to catch some of the informative dialogue that may sneak into your writing is to watch out for when “remember” (remember when…) or “I/you know” (I know you said…but; you know that I…) shows up inside quotation marks. Often they are used to remind someone of something in the past that a typical speaker wouldn’t bother saying. Not every instance of these words in dialogue will be informative dialogue, but a good chunk could be just that.
2. Resist The Urge To Write Accents
Don’t drop the -g or -r from words or try to write phonetically to represent accents. This makes the dialogue harder to read, and you don’t want to make your book more work to read. There are other ways to represent accents or class through the narration part of the story. Give the readers context and let them realize what is the character’s background or speech pattern. A lot of times, if you just use your word choice wisely in the dialogue, you can get the message across.
Final Thoughts
Writing dialogue is hard to master even though we speak everyday. Some writers try to channel a friend or family member for each character to try and make them distinct and realistic. This can work, but eventually you will either run out of voices to channel or repeat the same ones. Take the time to get into your characters’ heads and develop their speech. Then you can channel them when you write. Like everything else in writing, it’ll get easier the more you practice it.
Thanks for reading!
Write a tale
Leave a trail