Tips for dialogue

I want some general tips for a good dialogue, I want to keep the reader engaged in the story. I need to strengthen my dialogue-writing skills and I don't know how :<

Thank you!

 

Read, read, read. I picked up books similar to my genre and that helped. I also turned my sound off with captions for movies that were similar to the kind of stuff I wanted to write.

 

Try not to explain too much plot points in dialogue leave that for exposition. Having a dialogue is mainly about expressing opinions, hiding things, avoidance, truths, lies, manipulations, plans. It's navigating through situations of conflict, challenges, desires etc. Everyone is going to do that in there own way based on their own history and perhaps the history of the person they're talking with.
Once you set up a scene - take Star Wars -- Luke with his Uncle - you're delivering information to the viewer in a natural way. Luke is trying to express his desires and plans in a respectful way while the uncle is anxious to keep him on the farm. It escalates to anger because it's not the first time they've had this conversation. But the conversation is not as necessary to the plot as it is to exposing the characters. Luke is yearning for excitement. His uncle is worried that history will repeat itself. Allow the dialogue to express your character's character.

Sometimes you can think of your scenes this way - What does character a need from character b? In romances that can be easy - to be noticed as available and attractive, and receptive.
One dialogue in my novels was between a director and a young boy auditioning for a role in his series. They meet during a call back after the director had seen the boy's initial audition where he sabotages it by mocking the lines. The set-up is that the director is aware the boy has sabotaged his own audition and wants in turn to mock the boy who is now polite believing he has an actual shot at the series. The dialogue becomes a clash as the boy suddenly realizes that the director has seen his previous audition and he's only been brought back to be mocked. In my scene character a - the director, wanted to belittle a boy he felt was belittling him and character b wanted to finally get a shot he didn't think he had a chance of having.

 

I used to have an account at writing.com and would enter the "Dialogue 500" contest. 500 word short of just dialogue. Sometimes it could be very challenging to sound natural in opposing conversation but of course the practice was the value in the excercize.
When it comes to dialogue I just try to put myself in the characters' shoes and hope for the best.
I guess that's really what my writing generally is.

 

This. Definitely the best advice I could give regarding dialogue, or get your computer to read it back to you (sorry, can't remember where the thingy is to make it do that but I'm sure someone on here can lead you right to it). Either way, if it sounds awkward and clunky when you read it out loud then that's probably because it is. Also, written dialogue doesn't necessarily follow a spoken conversation - by that I mean the written version is often better if it's shorter. There are many 'extra' words that would be slipped into a conversation that, when written into a book just drag it out unnecessarily.

Hope that made sense - it did I my head - maybe I should have read it out loud

 

"Sean. Is Jen here?"

"Bret, what are you doing in town?"

"Is she here or not?"

"You had better tell mom you're....."

"Goddamnit Sean. Is Jennifer here?"

This may be a little 'ping pong,' but it shows interruption and not replying to the question.

 

@Seven Crowns has already given you this but almost every time I think I managed to write some "good" diauloge I find that have used:

Never give a proper answer.

Probably the easiest way to work with subtext.

EDIT: I now see that @Thundair added good examples!

 

Listen to how people talk, then write that, but minus the dumb bits.

 

Honestly, this is my advice. I love writing dialogue and I believe it's one of my biggest strengths as a writer. I have an excellent memory for conversations that I've either been part of or have observed, and with nearly 50 years experience listening to people jabber on, I've got a lot of pre-existing material in the old bean to work with when I write.

 

Get up out of your chair and act it out, making note of how the characters would move and what they'd be doing before, during, and after each line. You won't be writing all of them, but people aren't statues and are usually doing several things at the same time. It's important to give the reader a sense of that.

 

Dialogue is the one component of writing where you get to break the rules. We can compose dialogue untethered to most of that grammar stuff we're forced to follow when writing expository passages. As Seven Crowns mentioned, don't get in the way of your characters. Keep dialogue tags to a minimum and find those neat breaks in a conversation to slip in a gesture or expression. Dialogue is a writer's playground. Have fun with it!



“Are you speaking of such things that exist beyond the veil?”

Valerie shrugged and settled comfortably into the cushions of the couch, letting the question hang in the air.

With no reply forthcoming, Rosemarie searched the room for inspiration. Her eyes rested on one of the dancing figures on the back wall. It was Urania, the muse of astronomy. She wore a tunic speckled with stars and comets, her makeshift wings dropping feathers as she cavorted with her sisters.

Rosemarie drew a confident breath. “I know of expeditions returned from distant lands with astounding news of savages and wild animals unknown to us. One of the books you sent me has drawings and descriptions of creatures that look to be sea serpents and dragons, but they’re not that at all. The savages have a profound reverence for the animals and believe them possessed by spirits. But it’s been a great disappointment to most, the creatures aren’t like the myths. The people are backward and have strange rituals and superstitions. They know nothing of God.”

“And if we geld all the enchanted beasts, is the night any less wondrous?” A thin smile slid across Valerie’s lips. “ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Rose, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ”

Rosemarie winced.

“My goodness, what’s wrong?” Valerie said in a sugary voice.

“You should never, ever quote Shakespeare on opening night. It’s bad luck, very bad. Everyone knows that.” Rosemarie shook her head. “Worse, you’ve used my name. Thank heavens you didn’t invoke the Scottish Play.”

Valerie suppressed a smile. “I’ve never known you to be rigid in your beliefs, so quick to dismiss. We can observe the world through the skeptic’s looking glass and be satisfied that all is in good order — Shakespeare would expect nothing less of us — but pull on the wrong frayed thread and you undo the universe. If something utterly unbelievable presents itself to you, and there it is right before your unbelieving eyes, you’re obliged to accept it. Even so, you should welcome it in from the cold.”

“Might we stop talking of Monsieur Shakespeare?” said Rosemarie.

 

...but without the dumb bits, some folk don't talk.

It's true though, that listening helps, I mean. There's a reason they call a talent for writing dialog having "an ear for dialog". It's difficult to recall the exact couse of a conversation later, and you wouldn't want to write everything as a reproduction anyway, but as a writing tool, mindful observation is invaluable.

 

Dialog should move the story along. from those few lines of my example above, a reader would construe that Sean and Bret are brothers, and that Bret was out of town, and for some reason he thought that Jen would be at his brothers house. And of course the crux of the whole conversation. Why is he in such a hurry to find Jennifer?

 

Show the character's personality through how they say certain things, not necessarily the details of what they say, and try to do this without adverbs on the end of dialogue tags.

"Do you mind if you make me a cup of tea too?"

Is different from the aggressive "Make me a cup of tea."

which is also different from the passive-aggressive and arguably more annoying "Oh, you're making a cup of tea, are you?" by which they imply that you're going to make them a brew and try to make you feel bad for not offering in the first place.

And also note the redundancy "Make me a cup of tea," X demanded. No need.

As a practice exercise (not saying that this is a rule by any means, but might be useful) - try to take out non-skid dialogue tags and convey their meaning through speech. Only use them if the meaning is still unclear or you want to portray a certain feeling.

 

Along with the excellent advice given by @peachalulu and @Seven Crowns (I've not read through the entire thread yet—probably more great advice there as well) I'd like to add that—like any other part of the story— it's a good idea to ask yourself beforehand what you want an exchange of dialogue to accomplish. It helps focus the purpose of the exchange.

Peachalulu's example of the director and the boy is an excellent one. She's defined exactly what she wants that interchange to show. If you can articulate that purpose to yourself before writing, I think it helps. A lot. You aren't likely to get taken off track by witty exchanges or lots of warm-up stuff like hello, how are you, I'm fine, how's the wife and kids, etc.

You can actually write a dialogue passage with a lot of people in it (such as the goings-on at a meeting or conference of some kind.) The trick is to stay strongly in the POV character, and let the character give frequent spoken or unspoken reactions to what is being said, as well as general observations about the state of play. Who seems chummy with whom, who seems to be itching for a fight, etc.

This kind of multiple speaker scene is where 'he said she said' as the only form of attribution just doesn't work very well. It's too limiting for a large-scale scene. I feel it's a mistake to make it a writing mantra ..."I will ONLY ever use 'said.'"

Other ways of attributing dialogue and the emotional impact contained in a multiple speaker exchange certainly have their uses. You don't need to be melodramatic. Just descriptive of what is happening while people are saying things. Are they suddenly on their feet? Do they lean back in their chairs. Do they grin? (Be careful with this one. People don't 'grin' a speech. But they can certainly grin at the end of a sentence, or before they begin another one, etc.) Do they wave papers in the air? Do they slam their fist on the desk? Do they speak quietly, but with force?

We don't have a camera or recorder here, so the writer has to provide the visual and audial effects. Without visuals and audials, dialogue exchanges of more than three or four speeches can become talking heads, and it's easy for the reader to lose track of who is saying what.

 

1. Listen.
2. Listen.
3. Listen.

 

Yes. I've broken away from this idea too. I like to go untagged or even use words that might get me flagged by critiquers - "Do whatever you want," he snorted -- And I get told that you can't snort words. They have not met my uncle. lol.

On other sites I've noticed when writers go too thin or empty in details - a smile, an arched eyebrow - they're left trying to make up in dialogue what the lack of details failed to reveal. You want to mix it up - insert actions that imply varied emotions - leave things untagged, or slant it with some telling verbs - anything to shape a mood and take the pressure off having to write good dialogue cause at the very least you can manage believable dialogue.

Also with multiple speakers there's an issue of what do you want to show with the multiple speakers? I remember Ann M. Martin she used to write the Baby-sitters club series which started with a group of four girls and rose to a number of seven? (Claudia, Mary Anne, Kristy, Dawn, Stacey, Jesse, and Mallory) yes, seven and she used to have a page of untagged dialogue sometimes just to show the chummy confusion of a group of girls gathering together and speaking over top of one another. I've read a lot of girl 'gang' fiction with a lot of multiple characters in scenes a lot of times the author, as Jannert said, usually stays in one pov and uses the other characters to explore and bring out varying opinions and possible oppositions to plans.