Tips for writing dialogue

“Kelsey Jo Koberg,” mom bellowed,
“Get in here this instant!”
Dialogue can give a lot of
information about character, emotion,
and mood.

1. Give it a purpose. Dialogue
should advance the
story, provide needed
info, reveal character, etc.
2. Keep it concise. Don‟t use 10
words to do the work of 5.
3. Make it flow. It should sound
effortless and spontaneous.
4. People all look different, act in
individual ways, and think
differently. So they don‟t all
sound the same.

Lisa had just gotten out of the car and was heading around the corner of the garage when she ran into
Brian. “Oh, you startled me. I wasn‟t expecting you here.” His face looked sort of pale and pinched. He‟s
found out, she thought. I finally broke it off, but I was too late.

He said, “It‟s been a real day for expectations. Where were you? I‟ve been waiting here for an hour. You
didn‟t leave a note or—”

“I wasn‟t planning on going anywhere—” Which sounded like bullshit when she said it, and she knew it.
She was wearing a navy dress with a fitted waist and a low neckline, which had been a gift from Kevin.
Heels. Hose. Make-up. The last time Brian had seen her in make-up when they weren‟t on their way to
church or a restaurant had been right after the second baby was born. Eight years ago? Yeah. About that.

He raised an eyebrow. “I can see that.” Pure sarcasm. For a moment his face lost the pinched look, and
she saw suspicion in his eyes. “Where‟s your coat?”

“I left the house in a hurry. I… um… my mother …”

The pinched look was back around his eyes, and she stopped, suddenly frightened. He knew she hadn‟t
been visiting her mother in the hospital. Maybe he‟d hired a detective to follow her. The sound of her
heart pounding roared in her ears. If he really knew, she would lose everything. The boys. Brian. Her
home. Her friends.

But he was saying, “The hospital reached you? God, I‟m sorry. That‟s why—”

Now the scared feeling was worse. Different. But worse. “The hospital?”

“They called me when they couldn‟t get you.”

“I don‟t understand.”

“Your mother. You said —”

The lie came easily, easier than the lies that had preceded it over the last three months, pouring out of her mouth without
any effort on her part. She shivered and rubbed her arms and said, “I ran out to buy some flowers for her. She‟s been so
down.” Breast cancer and a modified mastectomy at fifty-eight. Mom was in the hospital doing chemo, and she was
coming through it like a trooper, but she really had been down. Not that Lisa had done much to cheer her up. She‟d had
her mind on… other things. No more of that, though.

The suspicion was back in his eyes. “For three hours you‟ve been buying flowers?”

“And then I drove around. I‟ve had… a lot on my mind. But I‟m fine now. Fine.”

He looked a little sick. “You didn‟t go by the hospital?”

“No.” She‟d been saving that for when she could look her mother in the eye again. No, mom, I‟m not cheating on my
husband. I‟m not cheating on my family. I‟m a good wife. A good mother. Now she could do that. “Look, I‟m freezing.
Let‟s go inside. Why did the hospital call? Does the doctor need to talk to me about more tests?”

He was shaking his head—no, no, no—and his eyes were as bleak as the day. “We have to go to the hospital.”

Her mother was being demanding again. She couldn‟t face that right now. Not after the scene with
Kevin. That had been ugly. Ugly. Never again, she promised herself. “I‟ve had a terrible—”

He cut her off. “We have to go to the hospital. Now. The rest of your family is already there.”

Everything shifted. He hadn‟t come home because he knew about the affair. He hadn‟t come home
because the hospital had been trying to reach her about another of her mother‟s demanding snits.
Everything she did to make things right, she had done too late. “Oh. Oh, God. Mom‟s all right,
isn‟t she?” But the look on his face told her what she already knew. “Oh, Christ, she isn‟t. I‟m
being punished… she‟s dead.”

Having a sense of natural speech
patterns is essential to good dialogue.
Start to pay attention to the
expressions that people use and the
music of everyday conversation. This
exercise asks you to do this more
formally, but generally speaking it's
helpful to develop your ear by paying
attention to the way people talk.

Dad winked at me.
“When tomorrow comes,” he said, and he changed the subject to McNulty. “Mebbe
he‟s there every Sunday morning,” he said. “I should try to get to talk to him, eh?”
“Aye,” I said.
“The Fire Eaters”

But dialogue should read like real
speech. How do you accomplish that?
Alfred Hitchcock said that a good
story was "life, with the dull parts
taken out." This very much applies to
dialogue. A transcription of a
conversation would be completely
boring to read. Edit out the filler
words and unessential dialogue —
that is, the dialogue that doesn't
contribute to the plot in some way.

It should not be obvious to the reader
that they're being fed important facts.
Let the story unfold naturally. You
don't have to tell the reader
everything up front, and you can trust
him or her to remember details from
earlier in the story.

Remind your reader that your
characters are physical human beings
by grounding their dialogue in the
physical world. Physical details also
help break up the words on the page:
long periods of dialogue are easier
for the reader's eye when broken up
by description. (And vice versa, for
that matter.)

People don‟t typically stop
everything when they talk. They
fidget. They keep washing the dishes.
They pace. Don‟t forget that your
characters aren‟t static.

“What happened to sisterhood, Carol?” she complained. “Come on, give us a break.
Surely there must be something you can tell me apart from „No comment‟.”
“I‟m sorry, Ms. Burgess. The last thing your readers need to hear is ill-informed off-
the-cuff speculation. As soon as I‟ve got anything concrete to say, I promise you‟ll be
the first to know.” Carol softened her words with a smile.
She turned to walk away, but Penny grabbed the sleeve of her mac. “Off the record?”
she pleaded. “Just for my guidance? So I don‟t end up writing something that makes
me look like a pillock?”

“The Mermaids Singing”

Veering too much beyond "he
said/she said" only draws attention to
the tags — and you want the reader's
attention centered on your brilliant
dialogue, not your ability to think of
synonyms for "said."

“What do we do now?”

Shadows from the single candle flickered on Heather‟s face. It masked the basement smell
with green apple. She rolled her eyes at me.

“Nothing, Kristy. Just wait.”

I sighed. I was sick of waiting. My arms, and my butt, were starting to hurt. I drummed my
fingers impatiently on the plastic pointer thingy.

“Stop it,” Heather hissed. “You‟ll make them mad.”

“Make who mad?”

“The spirits, stupid.”

Right. The spirits. Like I really believed the spirits were going to talk to us on a piece of
Parker Brothers cardboard.

Be aware of falling back on
stereotypes, and use profanity and
slang sparingly. All of these risk
distracting or alienating your reader.
Anything that takes the reader out of
the fictional world you're working so
hard to create is not your friend. Read
some examples of how to achieve the
tone you want without stereotypes,
profanity, and slang.

Pay attention to why things work or
don't work. Where are you taken out
of the story's action? Where did you
stop believing in a character? Or,
alternatively, when did the character
really jump off the page, and how did
dialogue help accomplish that?

The rules for punctuating dialogue
can be confusing: many writers need
help getting them right in the
beginning. Take some time to learn
the basics. A reader should get lost in
your prose — not feel lost trying to
follow your dialogue.

A good rule of thumb is that every
time a character speaks, it starts a
new paragraph. However, if one
character speaks then performs an
associated action then speaks again
later, it can remain in the same
paragraph. You can also have mixed
actions by more than one character in
one paragraph, but not mixed
dialogue.

John hovered in the doorway, wondering if he needed to wait for a hostess or just sit
down at the first table he could find. “Oh miss. . .” he said, trying to catch the
uniformed blonde‟s eye. She ignored him. “Oh miss. . .” he tried again.
“Yes!”
John fought back an urge to salute. “What is it?” she snapped, looking at his finger
nails.
“I er, was wondering … er, nothing. Sorry. I‟ll go somewhere else.”

Tips for writing dialogue

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Tips for writing dialogue