How to Write Compelling Dialogue: My 5 Step Process
Let me guess, you’re reading this because you don't want your dialogue to sound like a third grade play.
"Hello there, sir. To whom shall I address this letter?"
I'm going to give you FIVE TIPS for writing dialogue that sounds like the way people actually talk.
While writing my first novel, When You Read This, my agent gave me the feedback that she loved it, but everyone sounded like me. Whoops.
How could I write like other people talk? I wanted to be realistic, but I also needed to capture different character voices in my prose.
Tip #1: Lose the ping-pong talk
The first thing I want you to do is lose the ping-pong talk.
In real life, we don't actually talk like we're hitting a ping-pong ball.
It's not like I ask you a question, you answer it, then you ask me a question and I answer it.
It's more like: person A says, "Want to go to the store?"
And person B says, "Where are my keys? Have you seen them?"
Person A says, "I can't remember. Are we out of bread? Do we need milk?"
And person B says, "Oh, there are my keys.” Right?
We talk past each other. We're not very good at listening to each other.
If you make your characters kind of messy listeners and messy speakers, it makes their dialogue more realistic.
Tip #2: Lose the grammar rules
My second tip is to lose the grammar rules.
Only certain types of people say "whom". Yes, it's technically correct, but most people don't talk like that, so if your characters don't, leave it out.
If your novel isn't set in the 1800s, you probably don't need the word whom.
And guess what? Your sentences can end in a preposition.
A lot of times writers come to work with me, and they're lawyers or they're academics and they think, "Oh, I'm not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, right?”
Wrong! First of all, of course you can in creative writing. The same grammar rules don't apply when you're writing fiction.
This is particularly true when it comes to how your characters are speaking. We don't worry about ending a sentence with the word to or the word with when we're talking in everyday life, so we don’t want to worry about it with our characters’ dialogue, either.
I don't worry about saying, "Who are you going to go to that party with?" I just say it like that. So lose the grammar rules, and gain authenticity in how your characters talk.
Tip #3: Drop the dialogue tags during your first draft
Tip number three is to drop the dialogue tags while you're writing your first draft.
By “dialogue tags,” I mean, he said, she said, they said. Around the dialogue itself, these dialogue tags tell the reader who is speaking.
When you ultimately finish your draft, of course you're going to have dialogue tags so that the reader knows who's talking.
But in your first draft, if you're like me, you're hearing the conversation play out in your head and it's a lot easier to write exactly what they're saying without the tags and then add them later.
When you do add them later, using the word said is fine. You don't need to get creative with your verbs.
A lot of times writers say they feel like they're writing the word “said” too much.
"I feel like maybe I should say ‘chortled,’ ‘yelled,’ ‘whispered.’"
Of course it's fine to use some original verbs, but “said” is a solid choice all the time.
The reader isn't going to be distracted if you’re using “said” a lot. In fact, it's one of those filler words and their eyes are just going to gloss over it, and in a good way.
You notice when you're using it a lot as the writer, but the reader isn't going to notice.
Tip #4: Cut the chitchat
Here’s tip number four (my favorite), which is cut the chitchat, alright?
We don't need, "Hey, how are you?", "I'm fine. How are you?", "It's sunny today,” etc.
We don't need that unless it's hiding underlying tension. So if someone says, "How are you?", and the other person says, "I'm fine," that could work if we know as the reader that the person really isn't fine. That chitchat could work, because it's actually not chitchat—it's masking underlying tension. It's people trying to avoid a certain topic.
Chitchat or casual talk about nothing works if it's there to hide an underlying tension, if it's there to show what they're not talking about.
Otherwise, cut it—it's not useful to the story.
Tip #5: Read your dialogue aloud
My last tip is to read your dialogue aloud.
You don't have to do this on your first draft, but at some point in your writing and revising process, you want to read your dialogue aloud to see how it really sounds.
A lot of times when we're reading words on paper, we think it looks like the way people talk, but when we hear it, we realize that it doesn't.
So when I'm working on dialogue in any story, I read it aloud—several times.
I have to revise my dialogue more than I do any other part of a book, except maybe the opening.
This is because making dialogue sound like how a person—in this case a specific character—actually talks, takes time. It takes going over it again and again, and really listening to how these people are speaking to one another.
I find that as I'm doing that, I'm cutting a lot. I'm cutting a lot of “wells” and “ums.”
One pet peeve of mine when I'm watching movies or TV is when people say, "Look, Diana." That's not how it works.
You know that in real life you've never heard someone say, "look." They only do it in TV shows and movies.
That sort of thing sneaks into your writing, and if you read it out loud, you can catch it.
So expect to read your draft out loud, and expect to do quite a bit of revision on your dialogue. Your story—and characters—are worth it.
Ready to write your book?
If you've made it this far, I know you're ready to write your book.
Maybe you're in the middle of writing your book, or maybe you don't know how to find the time to start (or continue!) writing.
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