Writing dialogue is hard, yet dialogue is one of the best ways to showcase a character's personality and connect readers to your character. Dialogue performs many functions when writing fiction, and should be used wisely. Effective dialogue can establish the time period of a story, highlight important character features, and reveal important plot features. But there are certain criteria when writing dialogue in fictional novels. Dialogue should:
- Help the readers understand and form relationships with the characters.
- Move the plot forward. Each discussion should affect the characters in some way.
Writing dialogue is very important in fictional writing, especially if it is your first time. But here are my best tips for writing engaging dialogue.
Give Each Character Their Own Voice
Just like in real life, each character should have their own way of speaking. Giving each character a special way of talking is important because it helps readers identify who is speaking and helps deliver their personality and beliefs. When giving characters their own voices, make sure to consider; word choice, speech, and background. Regarding word choice, think about the different patterns a character has when speaking. For example, some characters may tend to answer questions in one-word responses, while other characters may be more graceful and speak with a gentle and charming tone. Also, consider the different accents or patterns of speech a character uses. Does the character speak with a Southern accent? Jamaican accent? Do they have a low and gruff voice? Lastly, it is important to think about how background influences the way a character speaks. Every character should have their own backstory full of experiences that may impact how they talk.
*For example, character A who was raised in a castle may speak tersely and demand others to do things for them. While character B who was taught how to read and write at a very young age may speak very intellectually.
Avoid Small Talk
Let's face it, not many people actually enjoy small talk. As mentioned every piece of dialogue that you include in your novel, should advance the plot and in most cases, small talk doesn't do that. Instead, you may want to focus on setting details, clues (if you are writing a mystery novel), or other pieces of dialogue. Although you may feel tempted to include small talk in hopes of making your characters feel real unless small talk is noting something important or advancing the story, skip it and focus on action.
Read it Aloud
When writing dialogue it is super important that you read it out loud. Although the dialogue you are writing sounds great on paper, if you read it out loud it may sound odd or not flow together well.
Don't be Afraid to Include Flaws
One way to make dialogue engaging and give personality to your characters is to include flaws. Even real people don't make sense or speak with perfect grammar all the time, so neither should your characters. Instead giving your characters grammatical flaws or stutters makes them feel real and relatable. However, don't mess with grammar so much that the dialogue doesn't flow or make sense.
Ensure That You Punctuate Properly
Even though you can (and should) include dialogue moments where a character isn't using correct grammar, on other occasions, it is essential that you punctuate dialogue correctly. If you know how to punctuate dialogue properly, readers will stay immersed and engaged in your story without being "woken up" with incorrect punctuation. Make sure that question marks and exclamation points go inside quotation marks, enclose dialogue in double quotation marks, and only use single quotation marks when a character quotes another character.
*Examples:
"She said what?" Maria exclaimed.
"I just love when it is sunny!" She yelled with a smile.
"I only got a 98% on last week's quiz," I told her.
Minimize Dialogue Tags
Dialogue tags are useful when first beginning a conversation or when there are several characters, however, they aren't necessary all the time. When you repeat the word "said" all the time, the dialogue may get lost and feel choppy. Instead, you may want to describe a character's expression and use words such as; "exclaimed" "shouted" or "remarked."
Dialogue is super important when writing and is a great way to show more about a character. Although it can be hard, it isn't impossible and I hope these tips help you write or enhance the dialogue in your novel.