First Draft Pharmacy: Why Does My Dialogue Read Wrong?
Whenever I ask writers in my program what they’re struggling with, someone always says: my dialogue is terrible.
Dialogue can be really, really hard to nail. So why isn’t your dialogue working—why does it read just…wrong—and what can you do to fix it? Today, I’m going to give you five tools to diagnose and fix your dialogue.
I once worked with a writer who had the best ideas—I always loved hearing him talk about his book ideas. When I read his writing, I found he was really great at setting, at description, at narration. But the moment his characters started talking, it was like a record scratch.
I don’t buy it! I would think. These people are not talking like this. He had a really hard time nailing how they spoke. Have you ever read a book like that?
You’re reading along, maybe loving a story, but all the sudden, the characters are in conversation and you’re thinking, uh, I don’t feel like I can suspend disbelief right now because they wouldn’t talk like this.
Okay, I want to give you five questions to ask of your dialogue to diagnose why it’s not working and then fix it. First…
Question #1: Are their emotions showing up in their speech?
We as human beings are always feeling something. Whether we realize it or not—we may not want to be feeling something, we may not realize we’re feeling something, but we are. Some of us display this more openly than others.
But if you study someone closely, you can usually tell what it is they are feeling. Do they seem afraid? Happy? Irritated? Do they seem angry, sad, or hyper focused on something?
As the author, whether you are writing nonfiction or fiction, at any given moment you want to be aware of what the character is feeling…what their emotional state is, because this emotional state is going to work its way into their communication.
I don’t mean that if a character is sad that they’re necessarily going to say that they’re sad. But maybe their sentences are shorter and choppier. Maybe they are more reticent than they would normally be. Maybe they shrug more, seem less enthusiastic, aren’t as forgiving as they would normally be.
On the contrary, if a character is excited, that’s going to show up in their verbiage. Their speech should sound excitable. Maybe they speak in longer, rambling sentences. Maybe they interrupt. Maybe they even interrupt themselves, their brain moving faster than their speech.
When I read dialogue that isn’t working in someone’s writing, most often the reason it isn’t working is that I am unable to tell what the characters are feeling as they participate in the conversation.
If you aren’t sure how a particular emotion translates to how someone communicates through dialogue, simply start to pay attention to it.
How do your voice, word choice, sentence structure, and mannerisms change depending on your mood? How about for the people in your life?
This doesn’t have to be a dramatic distinction. We all sound like ourselves all the time, and so we shouldn’t sound like a different person just because we’re in a certain kind of mood.
But even small differences can go along way in showing the reader what the character is thinking and feeling through how they communicate.
Question #2: Are they saying each other’s names?
There are some things that only happen in books, never, or at least rarely, in real life.
One of those things is characters saying each others names before they make a statement: Mary, we’ve talked about this already. Jimmy, I need to tell you something.
Nope. Only in a book would you read that.
In real life, it would just be: we’ve talked about this already, and I need to tell you something.
If your characters are saying each other’s names, you should probably cut them. The names, not the characters.
The same is true for words like look and listen: look, we need to talk about Samuel. Or listen, I know we said we were going to go to Mexico on vacation, but I really want to go to Spain.
No one actually says look or listen before they make a statement in real life. I challenge you to try to remember a time when you’ve heard someone do this.
So cut out your names, your looks, and your listens, and your dialogue will read as more realistic.
Question #3: Are they mostly using contractions?
In the contemporary English-speaking world, most of the time, most of us speak in contractions. We don’t say, I cannot go to the store right now. We say, I can’t go to the store right now. We don’t say, I do not believe you. We say, I don’t believe you.
The rule of thumb when it comes to contractions is that unless you have a reason for them not to, your character should probably be using contractions more than not.
But there are exceptions. Maybe a specific character doesn’t use contractions because there’s a reason they don’t use contractions.
Do they happen to be especially formal, or of a generation where contractions were not used as regularly? Are they speaking English as a second language and learned it in such a way that contractions are less comfortable for them?
Or perhaps your character is in a situation in which not using a contraction is more natural. If I’ve just said I don’t believe you and I feel like you aren’t hearing me, the next time I say it, I may say, I do not believe you. Because I’m trying to emphasize the “do not.”
Or a parent hollering at a child who won’t listen: John Matthew Gallaghar, you will come over here right now.
Outside of these exceptions, however—a specific character’s quirks of speech, or a character wanting to place emphasis on a certain point, or, of course, if you’re writing a historical novel set in another age—you probably want to default to contractions.
Question #4: Are they speaking for too long without interruption?
In life, we don’t really let people talk on and on without interrupting them.
Even the domineering patriarch of the family who holds court and lectures everyone on the price of oil and the decline of morality, gets interrupted every now and then. The mailman comes. Or someone sneezes. Or a kid in the room who is bored asks his mom if he can have a popsicle.
If, in your dialogue, someone is speaking a paragraph or longer section of text without interruption, unless it’s an actual speech or sermon someone is giving, that’s probably too much.
I’m not saying they can’t go on and on. I’m saying there should be interruptions: a clearing of the throat, a question, a knock at the door, a squirrel knocking over a bird feeder.
This is true for a couple of reasons. First, it’s simply not realistic for someone to be able to speak endlessly with nothing—not another person, not their environment, and not their own body—interrupting them with a thought, a doorbell, or a growling stomach.
But also, if a passage of dialogue goes on too long, the reader loses sight of what to picture—what’s happening around the person speaking? If they were driving in the car, about to turn left as they started their rant, where are they now? Did they ever turn? Or are they still waiting to turn left?
What’s the other person, the listener, doing? Are they paying attention, or waiting for their conversation partner to stop speaking? Are they texting? Looking out the window?
We need check-ins so we know what to picture. Any long stream of dialogue by a character should be interrupted at least every two lines, roughly speaking.
Question #5: Are people saying things that are usually communicated nonverbally?
If you listen to how we talk to each other, you’ll notice there are certain words that we don’t actually say all that often, like yes and no. We may say yup, we may say nah, but even more than those, most of us are likely to answer a yes or no question nonverbally.
We will nod our head for yes, or shake our head for no. Or maybe will even mumble: mmhmm. Or mmmnnnmm.
Same for I don’t know.
If my husband asks me where his keys are, and I don’t know, I’m probably not going to say I don’t know. What I’m going to do is start glancing around the room for them maybe even picking things up, and he’s going to know by my behavior that I don’t know and I’m trying to help him.
Another example: if I’m driving and he says turn left here, I don’t need to say the word OK out loud. I just turn left.
Think of someone suggesting a movie that you don’t really want to watch. Instead of saying I don’t really want to watch that you might shrug and then propose a different movie.
In that example, you are responding verbally, but not to say I don’t want to watch that movie; you’re suggesting a new one. The veto of their movie, you communicated with your shrug.
As you read through a passage of dialogue that is not working and you’re trying to diagnose why, ask yourself if there are places where a character is currently responding verbally when it would be more realistic for them to respond with just a behavior and not actually say anything.
Ready to write your book?
Okay, if you made it this far, I’m guessing that you are writing a book, or want to write a book. If so, I want to talk to you.
When I’m not writing, my mission in life is to help talented writers write their dream books. I love it. I live for it.
Because before I published my novels, I first had to figure out how to write one. It wasn't easy because none of the writing classes I was taking showed me how to actually write a novel.
Not until I had a newborn and only a couple of hours to write did I come up with a process. The process worked. I wrote my entire novel during my 8-week maternity leave.
Now, I teach it in my program the Book Incubator and it works for dozens of other writers.
If you're curious to know more, I have a free video walking you through my exact process for writing a book. You can get it by clicking below and answering two questions to apply to the program. You get the video whether you join or not—no pressure to enroll.
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