Recently, one of my friends working for a big 5 publishing house said that one of the most heartbreaking reasons she frequently rejects manuscripts is the dialogue isn’t up to snuff. At the editorial level, dialogue can be difficult to teach without taking on a lot of extra work. These kinds of lessons are better suited to the book coaching atmosphere.
But I also want to give my self-publishing authors a leg up on dialogue writing, as the costs can add up so quickly. These are my top tips to engage your readership with dialogue that sounds plucked from the real world, even though we both know it’s highly curated.
Simplify Your Dialogue Tags
This title sounds more complicated than it is in practice. Use the word “said.” Use it like 95% of the time you’re writing a line of dialogue. Or don’t use a dialogue tag at all. There are a lot of other options out there: proclaimed, murmured, stated, uttered, remarked. The reason they all should fall to the wayside for said is that they create an intrusive reading experience. Readers notice them.
I once had a great writing teacher who said the most important thing about a conversation is what was said. Next comes who said it, and the least important thing you'll write is that it was, in fact, said. By choosing an unintrusive dialogue tag 95% of the time, you’ll grow your characters' voices and increase readability. The other 5% should be used to show emphasis with tags like cried, muttered, shouted, etc. By saving these tags for one in twenty pieces of dialogue, they’ll carry much more weight for the reader and ring in their ears long after the conversation is done. Save them for key takeaways, emotional reader connections, or climaxes for your scenes.
Ignore the Pleasantries
Great dialogue is not the same as a great conversation. Get to the meat of the interaction first thing, and avoid polite responses that don’t give any information to the reader. Readers actually enjoy making inferences and filling in the gaps. Rather than spell things out repeatedly, make them feel intelligent for reading between the lines. The last thing you want to do is waste their time or insult their intelligence.
Use Action Beats as a Device of Pacing
Action beats are the expressions, movements or private thoughts of a character between spoken lines. Oftentimes I find authors trying to describe every expression during a heated conversation or every move in a fight scene while the protagonist and antagonist are talking. Similar to the above, readers like to fill in the gaps themselves. It’s okay to say they’re sparring, have a conversation, and show just one or two especially cool moves.
Too many action beats really slow down the pace of conversation. Are they having a very quick, intense fight? There should be as few distractions from characters’ quotes as possible. Is it an agonizingly awkward first date? So many action beats. The proper pacing with these moments will put readers in characters’ shoes.
Give Characters Distinctive Voices
Dialogue is the second most important aspect of building a realistic character. As such, a character’s distinctive voice makes a huge impact on their connection with your readers. The elements of syntax, diction, specific word choice, energy levels, formality, humor, speech-related quirks, and confidence levels will build out a character in the mind’s eye more than a narrator could ever do. It’s likely that some aspects of these should change depending upon to whom they are speaking, but an undercurrent of their unique character voice should always run through.
Avoid Monologues
How often in life are you given the opportunity to speak at length without any interruptions? In my house, it’s hardly ever. Even the most polite conversation has interjected questions. It may seem obvious, but it can be easy to forget when your character has something important to say.
In these instances, I suggest you write out entirely what the character would dream of saying and then consider the other characters in the room. What motivations do they bring to this conversation, and how might that change the direction? It can often lead to a far more interesting scene and may even build your plot better than if the lead character had gotten the chance to say what they wanted perfectly.
Writing dialogue can be intimidating, particularly if you aren’t experienced at it, but a novel full of conversation is objectively more relatable to readers whose lives are as well. The more you practice, the better you’ll get, and hopefully you’ve picked up a few tips here to help you dive in more comfortably. Captivate your readers with well-written dialogue.
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