Want to know the most important thing about writing dialogue in

fiction? If it sounds like a conversation you'd hear in the real world,

you've gone horribly wrong somewhere.

Seriously. The next time you're on a crowded bus or sitting by yourself

in a bustling restaurant, just listen to the two people closest to you
talking. You'll hear them...

 speak over each other

 say "um" and "er" a lot
 jump from one topic to another with no warning.

All of which is fine in the real world, but hopeless for novel writing.

Writing dialogue isn't about replicating a real-life conversation. It's

about giving an impression of it. And, yes, improving on it.

If fiction is like real life with the dull bits taken out, exactly the same
thing applies to fictional conversations. The role of the writer is to
select what is important and then distil it down to its very essence.

The rules below will help you to write realistic dialogue that keeps your
readers gripped – and definitely no dull bits!

1. Dialogue Must Be In Conflict

It's obvious, really. Just as a description of two young lovers spending
a perfect day out at the zoo doesn't constitute a plot (not unless the girl
falls in the lion enclosure!)... so two people chatting about nothing
much at all (and not disagreeing with each other, either) doesn't
constitute dialogue.
Pleasant conversations are great in real life. Even if nothing especially
interesting gets said, who doesn't like chewing the fat with a neighbor
over the fence or a friend over coffee?

Listening in on those conversations, as a third party, would be about as

exciting as watching laundry dry. So make sure you don't subject your
readers to tedious, yawn-inducing dialogue in your novel.

How do you ramp up the excitement? Easy...

Give the two characters conflicting goals – one of them wants one
thing, the other something else. Even if it doesn't end in a shouting
match here and now, the underlying tension will be all you need to
keep the readers turning those pages.

To illustrate that, take a look at this example...

"What are we having for dinner?" asked Jane.

Bill opened the fridge, shifted the milk to see to the back. "How does
steak sound?"
"Sounds great."
"There's chicken if you prefer," he said.
"No, steak is fine. With mashed potatoes."

A perfectly nice conversation, the kind we all have everyday – but

hopeless for the purposes of novel writing. Add some conflict into the
mix, though, and it might look something like this...

"What are we having for dinner?" asked Jane.

Bill opened the fridge, shifted the milk to see to the back. "How does
steak sound?"
 "What, again?"
"We haven't had steak since last Saturday," he said.
"I know. And the Saturday before that and the one before that! Don't
you ever fancy something different, Bill?"

Much more interesting. Why? Because the dialogue is in conflict. Jane

wants one thing and Bill wants something else...

 Bill wants to stick to the same old routine.

 Jane wants some adventure in their relationship.

And when characters have conflicting goals, consequences are sure to

follow later in the novel.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with having some everyday

conversation in a novel. The rules of dialogue, along with every other
kind of novel writing rule, are there to be broken.

Sometimes a simple exchange of information between characters will

beexactly what is required.

But for the most part, go for tension and disagreement and conflict
between the characters. Besides, writing dialogue is much more fun
that way!

"When characters have different goals and are intent on achieving

them, conflict results. If the stakes are high and both sides are
unyielding, you have the makings of high drama."
– James N. Frey

2. Dialogue Must Have a Purpose

Even if a passage of dialogue in your story is full of juicy conflict, you
still may need to delete it if it's not serving a storytelling function. If the
speeches in the novel don't meet at least one of the following criteria,
they should be cut.

i) The Dialogue Should Drive the Story Forward

Conversations in the real world often have little or no point to them,

with the circumstances of the people involved remaining unchanged at
the end.

Your dialogue, therefore, should advance the plot in some way.

How will you know if it does? Ask yourself these questions...

 Will the story still make sense if the dialogue is removed? If it can
be removed without leaving a missing link in the character's
journey towards his or her goal, scrap it.
 Does the dialogue increase the suspense for what is to come? If
a character says something which causes the reader to worry
about the nature or the outcome of an upcoming event, it should
stay.
 Does it change the character's situation, for better or worse? Do
they receive some good or bad news which leaves them closer
to their goal or further away from it? If so, it is moving the plot
forward.
 Does the dialogue shed some light on what the character wants?
Anything which makes a character's goal clearer is good and
should remain – as should anything which makes their motives
(or why they want to achieve their goal) clearer.
  Does it serve to strengthen the character's resolve, or perhaps
weaken it? Are they told something which makes them wish they
hadn't bothered to set out on this quest in the first place – or
make them glad that they did? Either one is good.

I'm sure there are plenty of other criteria to use, but they give you the
idea. If a conversation is in some way related to a character's goals
and conflicts (which you can read about in the section on Plotting a
Novel), it's moving the plot forward.

If the characters are talking about nothing important, the dialogue is

filler and should probably be removed.

Note, though, that some "pointless conversation" in a novel is good.

After all, you've got keep the dialogue authentic – and we all talk about
the weather or what we want for dinner.

Keep the chit-chat to a minimum, though. And always ensure that, if a

passage of dialogue starts out being about nothing of any importance,
it quickly gets to the point.

"The dialogue is generally the most agreeable part of a novel, but it is

only so long as it tends in some way to the telling of the main story."
– Anthony Trollope

ii) The Dialogue Should Characterize

Just as advancing the plot is one way of giving dialogue a purpose, so

too is adding to the readers' understanding of a character's personality.
So maybe the speaking character tells whoever is listening about a
formative event from their childhood, or about their love for their family
pet, or about their dreams for the future.

These revelations might not affect the plot, might not be important for
the telling of the story at all. But they help to explain the
character's motivation for wanting whatever it is they want. And
doing that not only helps us to get to know them better (which is never
a bad thing), it also gives us a greater insight into why, precisely, they
are chasing their goal.

One other thing worth mentioning...

Dialogue is one of the most important tools there is in demonstrating

the relationships between different characters.

The way two people speak to each other tells you virtually everything
there is to know about how they get along. And demonstrating this to
the readers, particularly the relationships between the major players in
the novel, certainly gives dialogue a purpose.

iii) The Dialogue Should Provide Information

What kind of information? Anything that is crucial to

the understanding of the story. Let me explain that...

Every novel has plenty of "dry facts" that the reader needs to learn...

 an important moment from the character's childhood

 a brief history of the town in which the novel is set
 and so on.
Details that are not a part of the story but are nevertheless important
forunderstanding it are known as exposition.

The key to exposition, which always runs the risk of boring the readers
(and make them skip ahead), is to present it to them in bite-sized
pieces. This makes the potentially dry facts more palatable and doesn't
significantly disrupt the forward momentum of the novel.

And guess what? Dialogue is one of the best methods there is for
getting information across in a bite-sized way. Heck, if you do it skilfully
enough, the readers won't even know what is happening!

Just beware of characters telling each other things that they already
know. A husband, for example, would never say this to his wife...

"Mary, my sister, had to take Florence, their miniature poodle, to the

vet again."

The wife will already know that her husband's sister is called Mary, and
that Mary owns a poodle called Florence. Information like that is there
solely for the benefit of the readers, and it makes the dialogue sound
horribly stilted. So don't do it!

And that's it: three ways to make sure that every line of dialogue you
write has a purpose.

Once you're satisfied that you are advancing the plot, characterizing or
providing information, you can stop worrying about if it "belongs" and
concentrate on all the other rules for writing good dialogue...

3. Dialogue Should Flow

"When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into
its writing."
– Enrique Jardiel Poncela

Actually, all writing in a novel should flow effortlessly. With dialogue,

though, it is doubly important. The conversations need to read
effortlessly and look good on the page. There are three ways to
achieve this...

i) Watch How You Use Dialogue Tags

You know what dialogue tags are – he said, she said and the like.

They're useful little things. But beware of overusing them.

Conversations in a novel will sound like games of ping-pong if you
have a tag after every single line...

"Hello," said Frank. "How are you doing?"

"Fine," said Mary. "I hear you're getting married."
"That's right," said Frank.
"When's the big day?" asked Mary.
"Next week," said Frank.

On the other hand, beware of using too few tags as well. Why?
Because there's nothing more annoying for a reader than having to
count back lines to work out who is speaking.

Another trick is to stick to the simple tags – like said and asked. Using
tags likeexclaimed or interjected or screeched makes the dialogue
sound amateurish.
Adverbs make it sound amateurish, too (as in, "Mary said excitedly"). If
you want to demonstrate Mary's excitement, describe her fidgeting in
her chair or bouncing on the balls of her feet while she speaks.

ii) Vary the Length of the Lines

One important rule of novel writing is to keep the readers reading. Duh!
Boring them is likely to have the opposite effect, which is why it's so
important to make your passages of dialogue flow beautifully.

Here is why varying the length of the lines matters...

 if Character A says something using half a dozen words

 then Character B replies using a sentence of the same length
 then Character A says something back using another short
sentence

...it can all sound a bit same-ish. A better conversation would look like
this...

 Character A says something.

 Character B replies using a longer sentence. Maybe a couple of
them. Or even three.
 Character A just shrugs here.
 So Character B says something else, something long again that
goes on and on and on...
 Until Character A cuts them short with a quick one-liner of their
own.
That's not a blueprint, of course – just one "top of the head" example of
how to shake up your dialogue.

iii) Don't Have Characters Talk In a Vaccuum

It's very rare for people to talk and do nothing else. Often, they have
conversations while cooking the dinner or trying to fix the radiator.

Even when they are "just talking," they're usually doing something –
drinking coffee, watching the world go by, whatever it may be.

To help your dialogue flow (and keep it authentic), you simply need to
mention these everyday, insignificant actions...

 Chopping an onion.
 Taking a sip of coffee.
 Noticing the paperboy cycle by.

Even if two fictional characters are having a conversation while sitting

still in a featureless room without windows, they will still cough or
scratch or pick threads off their clothes.

Why is it important to break up the dialogue with little snippets of

prose?

Because having one line of speech, followed by another, then another

can sound like ping pong again – even if you do vary the length of each
line.

To overcome this problem, simply freeze a conversation for a few

sentences while you...
  Describe the sound of the rain hitting the window or a dog
barking in the distance.
 Show what one of the characters is thinking (this is called interior
monologue).
 Write anything at all except another line of dialogue.

This before/after example demonstrates all of the key points to

remember when writing dialogue that flows...

Before...

"What do you fancy for dinner, Sarah?"

"What have you got?" she enquired.
"Not much," Frank admitted. "I think I could stretch to pasta, though.
And there's cheesecake for dessert."
"Cheesecake's my favorite," Sarah replied.
"Then later I thought we could catch a movie," Frank said cautiously.
"We could," Sarah said. "But I've got a better idea."

After...

"What do you fancy for dinner, Sarah?"

"What have you got?"
Frank opened the fridge, stood on his tiptoes to search the top shelf.
"I could stretch to pasta," he said. "And there's cheesecake for
dessert."
"Cheesecake's my favorite."
"Then later I thought we could catch a movie."
"We could," Sarah said as she poured the Chardonnay. Large
glasses. "But I've got a better idea."
 4. Dialogue Should Be Concise
"Dialogue is like a rose bush – it often improves after pruning. I
recommend you rewrite your dialogue until it is as brief as you can get
it. This will mean making it quite unrealistically to the point. That is fine.
Your readers don't want realistic speech, they want talk which spins the
story along."
– Nigel Watts

To write good dialogue, cut it to the bone – and then to the marrow.
Never use ten words when five words will do. And if you can get the job
done in three words – or even with a simple gesture like a shrug – so
much the better.

Concise dialogue isn't realistic. In the real world, very few people have
the ability to say what they mean without throwing a lot of empty words
into the mix. The paradox, though, is that it will seem realistic. And it
will certainly be a lot more gripping for the reader.

Here is an example of what I mean...

Before...

"Hi, John. How are you?"

"I'm fine, thanks, Mary. And yourself?"
"Oh, I can't complain," she said. "Actually, I'm glad I bumped into
you. Are you coming to the party tonight?"
"I hope to, Mary. It really depends if I can get off work early."
"Have you asked your boss?"
"Not yet," John admitted. "McNulty's having a bad day, to tell you the
truth. His ex-wife called. She wants money again. I'm waiting to pick
the right moment."
"Is there ever a good moment with that man?"
"Sure," John said. "Catching him somewhere between his third and
fourth scotch usually works."

After...

"Hi, John. Coming to the party tonight?"

"If I can get off work."
"Have you asked?"
"The boss is having a bad day," he said. "Ex-wife troubles. I'll pick my
moment."
"Is there ever a good moment with McNulty?"
"Sure. Somewhere between his third and fourth scotch."

Much better, right? But how do you achieve that? Here are a couple of
specific things you can do...

1. Get rid of most of the chit-chat and social niceties. Don't strip
these things out completely, because you still want
conversations to soundnatural. But fictional conversations, if
they aren't to bore the reader, need to cut to the chase a lot
quicker than real-life conversations.
2. Don't write in complete, grammatical sentences. Because
very few people do, at least in informal conversations. "Do you
want to go to the park?" sounds stiff. "Want to go to the park?" is
better.

Bottom line? Trust your ear. Revise your passages of dialogue again
and again during the editing phase of the novel writing process. Whittle
them down a little more each time until they're perfect. Then when you
don't think you can edit them any more, go through them one last time
and cut out something else!

The only caveat is that some people are more long-winded than others
– in the real world and in novels...

If a character likes the sound of his own voice, don't make him come
across as a strong and silent type. Equally, don't let him ramble on.
You merely need to create the impression of long-windedness...

One way would be to have the viewpoint character stop listening and
look out the window instead. Have her describe what is happening out
in the street. When she "tunes in" to the dialogue again a couple of
minutes later, you've successfully given the impression of someone
rambling on without inflicting the words on the readers!

5. Don't Have the Characters All Sound the

Same
Every character in a novel is unique. They all look different. They all
think and act in their individual ways. And it should be no different with
the way they speak.

Having all the characters sound the same is one of those siren-howling
signs of an amateur. So you need to work hard at giving each and
every character a unique speaking voice.

How? It's actually very simple. Make sure that the words a character
says are a natural extension of their personality. And achieve that by
stepping into their shoes, so to speak, before you try to put words in
their mouth.

Here are four questions to ask yourself when trying to find a distinctive
voice for each of the people in your novel...

i) Who Are They?

You will have already developed the characters before starting to write
your novel. You'll know who they are and what makes them tick. (And
you learn how to do that, of course, in the section on Creating
Characters.)

And so, when putting words into the characters' mouths, you must
simply make those words fit their personalities.

 The kindly old lady won't say anything too mean.

 The mean old man won't be terribly kind when he opens his
mouth.
 The big-head will brag.
 The joker will have everyone laughing.
 The optimist... well, you get the idea.

ii) What Is Their Personal Vocabulary?

This means making a character's voice fit their background and

occupation...

 An educated character will have more words (and fancier words)

at his or her disposal than a not-so-educated one.
  A dockworker will probably swear more than a school teacher –
and won't care as much (or know as much) about grammar.
 A physics professor will likely throw the odd scientific term into
his or her speech.
 An artist will have plenty of words to describe colors.

Note that it's perfectly acceptable to use bad grammar and poor word
choice in dialogue. It won't reflect badly on you as a writer, because it
is understood that it's the character speaking.

Just don't go over the top.

If a character's natural way of speaking is to use a curse word in every

sentence, for example, you don't need to include every single one. The
odd expletive here and there will give the reader the idea!

iii) Who Are They Talking To?

In real life, we all speak differently to different people, and it should be

no different with a character in a novel. A tough city cop, for example,
will have...0p

 One way of talking to his colleagues.

 Another way of talking to his superiors.
 And when he's visiting his grandmother, he'd better watch his
mouth!

Of course, all rules are there to be broken, and having a character talk
in precisely the same way to everyone, no matter what the
circumstances demand, could be the key defining trait of a character
with poor social skills.
But this is the exception that proves the rule.

6. Give Characters an Agenda

We all enter into conversations knowing what we want to get out of
them. And the way we often achieve this is by broaching a subject
obliquely.

If we want to borrow money, say, we won't say it straight out. We'll start
by asking the listener how business is or something.

Nevertheless, our agenda will be there. And we'll eventually steer the
conversation to the heart of the matter (or else steer it away from the
heart of the matter if our aim is to conceal information).

And it is exactly the same for writing dialogue for fictional characters.
Two characters having a conversation in a novel will
both want something, often opposing things...

 A wife will want to quiz her husband about the affair she suspects
he is having, though she won't come out and say it because she
isn't certain yet. Instead, she'll ask him if he plans to be home
late tonight.
 The husband, desperate to move this conversation onto safer
ground, will start talking about his latest business deal instead.

7. Avoid Obvious Dialogue

Imagine a middle-aged woman sitting at the breakfast table. Her
hungover husband walks in, looking like hell. We'll call them Sarah and
David.
Here is how their conversation might go...

"Morning," said Sarah. "How are you feeling?"

"Absolutely awful."
"Could you manage some toast?"
"I don't think I could stomach it," said David.
Sarah poured him some coffee instead, with no milk, and asked him
how last night had been."
"Good," said David. "The part of it I can remember."

Not exactly the stuff page-turners are made from. The dialogue fails to
ring true because it's dull and obvious. The characters in this novel say
precisely what we would expect two people in this situation to say.

But here's the thing: folks don't usually talk that way in the real world –
and in a novel they never do. Instead, they...

 Rephrase lines to make them fresh and interesting, perhaps even

funny.
 Say the exact opposite to what they really think.
 Try to avoid having the conversation altogether by changing the
subject.
 Come out with an outright lie.

Writing dialogue that has the ring of truth to it is all about reflecting this
reality.

And so when Sarah asks her husband how he is feeling, he won't say
"absolutely awful" – instead, he'll say he "feels great" or "just zippity,
thanks!" or he might even ignore her altogether. (Authentic dialogue is
often just as much about what characters don't say as what they do.)

Instead of asking David if he could manage some toast (boring!) Sarah

could say, "I take it you won't be having extra syrup on your pancakes."
And when she goes on to quiz him about his night out, David (not
wanting to discuss it) could pretend he hasn't heard.

Here, then, is an improved version of the breakfast table scene...

"Morning," said Sarah. "You look good."

"Not half as good as I feel," said David.
"I take it you won't be having extra syrup on your pancakes."
No answer, not even a glance.
"Coffee it is, then," she said and poured him a large one. Black. As
she watched her husband sip it and wince, she asked if his watch had
packed up again."
Still nothing.
"Only I could have sworn you promised to be home before midnight,"
said Sarah.
David sipped some more coffee, pulled a face. "Is this stuff fresh?"

8. Use Subtext In Your Dialogue

"Learn to listen when you're talking to people. Listen to how people say
things, to what they really mean, because people frequently say one
thing and mean another."
– Nikki Giovanni

I suppose this is partly related to the previous point. But it's worth
mentioning separately.
One way of adding authenticity to a passage of dialogue is to have
characters talk about one thing... when they are actually talking about
something else entirely.

A couple in a failing relationship, for example, might argue about what

movie to watch tonight, and not what is really on their minds...

 What they really believe is that they are two different people and
it is time to head their separate ways.
 What they actually fight about is watching the horror movie vs.
watching the romantic comedy.

9. Get the Punctuation Right

Last but not least, a look at the nuts and bolts of how to punctuate
dialogue properly. Not a very sexy topic – but an important one to get
right nonetheless!

The odds are that you're a keen reader (most novelists are). So you
really don't need me to tell you the mechanics of how to set out
dialogue on the page.

But if you're unsure of the answers to questions like these...

 Should you use single or double quotation marks?

 What do you do if a speech runs to more than one paragraph?
 What is the difference between ending a line of dialogue with a
dash versus an ellipsis (...)?

... check out my guide to punctuating dialogue correctly.

 Caveat: Don't Be Afraid to Break the Rules
Those, then, are the "rules." But remember, rules are meant to be
broken occasionally.

If you stuck to every piece of advice all of the time, you'd end up with
dialogue that is almost too good. In other words, there's a danger of
going overboard...

 Yes, you want the dialogue to sound original and witty and
clever, but not for every single sentence that a character speaks.
Do that and they'll simply sound annoying.
 Yes, you want your characters to avoid awkward subjects (or,
when they can't do that, to lie), but not all of the time.
 Yes, you want the dialogue to be there for a reason. But
occasionally, just occasionally, it's okay to talk about the
weather.

How do you know if you have gone too far? The same way that you
assess all of your writing: put the scene aside for a day or two and
come back to it with fresh eyes.

If you like what you read and it feels both sharp and natural, it's fine. If
it strikes you as being a little too clever, it's crossed the line to being
too good to be true.
Dialogue has many roles in your story. It can:

 Reveal character
 Advance the plot
 Make characters seem real
 Give a sense of action unfolding

Dialogue is also easy and fast to read.

It breaks up the page, adding white space and making your
story look more attractive. (If you’ve ever seen someone flicking
through a novel in a bookstore, there’s a good chance they were looking
to see how much narrative vs dialogue that novel contained.)

Unfortunately, dialogue is also easy to get wrong. Whether you’re a new

writer or an established one, you’ll want to watch out for these mistakes.

(You can also look out for them in published books, too — plenty of pros
still aren’t getting these right. If you come across a great what-not-to-do
example, share it with us in the comments.)

Mistake #1: Being Too Formal

Even if you’re a stickler for the finer points of grammar in your prose, real
people don’t talk like textbooks. They say things like:

 Me and him went to the shops.

 I dunno.
 If I was you…

Yes, we know that those should technically be:

  He and I went to the shops.
 I don’t know.
 If I were you…

…but most of your characters won’t always talk “correctly.”

There might well be circumstances where you want a character to speak

in a precise, correct way – but that gives the reader some very clear
signals about this character (perhaps they’re posh, trying very hard to get
things right, or a little uptight).

On a similar point, characters shouldn’t speak in long, complicated

sentences – or give long speeches. If you’re struggling to “hear” real
dialogue as you write, try recording a conversation and listening to how
people really talk.

However…

Mistake #2: Being Too Realistic

Some authors, shying away from formality, go too far into making their
dialogue real. They pepper every character’s sentences with “ums” and
“ers” and hesitations. They have so many interruptions that it’s hard to
figure out what’s going on.

This might be a perfect transcript of how real people talk all the time – but
it will make your character sound incredibly indecisive and uncertain to
your readers:

“Um, I don’t really know if – actually, yes – er, let’s go to the, the park.”
There will be occasions where you want a character to hesitate or fumble
their words – but again, keep in mind the signals that this sends the
reader. Is your character very nervous, or perhaps lying?

#3: Using Obtrusive Dialogue Tags

A dialogue tag is the little phrase that tells the reader who’s speaking, like
this:

He said

She asked

I answered

Some writers worry that using “he said” and “she said” all the time will get
boring, so they start varying their dialogue tags:

He opined

She screamed

I exclaimed

In general, the simple tags are best – readers barely notice them,
except to register who’s speaking. Stick with said, asked,
answered and perhaps an occasional whispered, muttered orshouted.

If you do feel you’re overusing dialogue tags, an easy trick is to add a line
of action to your dialogue, like this:
Sarah came running down the stairs. “I can’t find it anywhere!”

#4: Using Phonetic Spellings

If you have a character with a strong accent, you might be tempted to
indicate this in every line of dialogue they speak.

Tread very lightly here. If you’re peppering your character’s speech

with apostrophes and creative spellings, it’s going to make the
reader’s life hard. It can also give the inadvertent and unfortunate
impression that you’re looking down on or even mocking that character’s
region, class background, or race.

Instead of writing words out phonetically, try using occasional dialect

words, or unusual word order, to indicate a character’s speech patterns.

#5: Using Character’s Names Too Often

In real life, we don’t tend to use other people’s names all that much
when we’re talking to them – even if there are three or four people
involved in the same conversation. We might say “Hi, Sue” when they
arrive, or “It was great to meet you, John” when they leave – but we don’t
use their name every time we address a remark or question towards
them.

In fiction, though, you’ll sometimes find characters talking like this:

Hi, Amy. Is there much happening today?

Not much, John. Did you get those figures I needed?

Sorry, Amy, I forgot.

The conversation starts to sound odd and artificial – or even slightly

patronizing towards one or both characters.

This problem sometimes arises when authors are trying to avoid using too
many dialogue tags. In general, it’s much less intrusive to add in an extra
dialogue tag than to constantly have characters addressing one another
by name.

#6: Not Including Any Narrative

In #3, I mentioned that one way to avoid overdoing dialogue tags is to
include action. You can also do this with a character’s thoughts, like this:

Julie couldn’t stand Mark, but she managed to fake a smile. “Hi. It’s lovely
to see you again.”

Or with description, like this:

The pub was dimly lit, but now they were sitting down, Lucy could see the
stains on the walls, and the deep scratches in the furniture. She cast
around for something to say. “Do you come here often?”

Some writers, though, seem to get into “dialogue” mode and have line
after line of dialogue, with no more support than a few dialogue tags. By
blending in action and the viewpoint character’s thoughts – not
necessarily every line, but at least occasionally – you can enhance
the dialogue by adding new levels of meaning.
#7: Having Every Character Sound the
Same
We all have different ways of speaking … but sometimes in fiction,
authors make all their characters sound exactly alike. This might work if
the story is set in a homogenous group – but it sounds silly if some of the
characters are teens and others are grandparents.

For each character, you could think about:

 Any habitual phrases they use. You won’t want to overdo these,
but they can be a useful way to cue the reader in that a particular
character is speaking.
 What words they don’t use. Perhaps they never swear, preferring
“Oh sugar!” or “Fiddlesticks!” Maybe they tend to avoid long or
complicated words.
 How eloquent they are – or how taciturn they are. Some
characters have a way with words; others don’t say much, or say it
awkwardly when they do.
 How polite they are – or not! Do they make requests pleasantly, or
do they order other characters around?

#8: Using Indirect Speech Poorly

Not all conversations in your story need to be spelled out in full.
Sometimes, you’ll want to give the reader a quick summary – and you can
do that with indirect speech. It looks like this:

Tom and Jonathan chatted for a while about the football game they’d
seen last night. Beth, bored, went to get another drink.
This is a great way to let the reader know that a conversation is
happening, without having to go into any detail.

One mistake here, of course, is to never use indirect dialogue at all,

giving a blow-by-blow account of the football game that leaves the
reader as bored as Beth. Some writers worry that “show, don’t tell”
means they should avoid indirect dialogue – but that’s not the case.

Another problem, though, is when important conversations get

summarized in this way:

George had a massive row with his mum, about that letter she’d had from
school, and she told him that he was banned from using the X-Box until
he’d got his homework done. He told her he hated her, and stormed off
upstairs.

In this case, the words exchanged matter – the reader will want to judge
whether George is being a horrible child or whether his mother has
overreacted, for instance. It’s also a lot more dramatic to hear the words
spoken, rather than just read a summary.

#9: Spelling Everything Out in the Narrative

Some writers worry that the reader won’t quite “get” the dialogue, and
decide to spell things out, like this:

“I hate you!” George slammed the door and ran upstairs. He was furious
with his mum – he felt that she was being unfair.
We don’t need the last sentence here: it’s obvious from what George says
(“I hate you!”) and what he does (“George slammed the door and ran
upstairs”) than he’s furious, and we can make a fair guess that he thinks
his mum is being unfair.

When you spell out what’s happening like this, it’s irritating to the
reader: they’re perfectly capable of understanding subtext, and picking up
on small cues, to figure out the thoughts and emotions behind what a
character says.

Of course, there will be some occasions where you do need to explain

what a character is thinking – but this should be the exception, rather than
the rule.

Are any of these nine mistakes ones that

you know you’re probably making in
your own writing?
(I suspect I’ve managed all nine at some point!) Do you have a tenth
mistake to suggest? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.