For fiction writers, dialogue is one of those tricky things you really have to master and it certainly takes

time. My dialogue
certainly sucked when I was writing the first book, and I continue to focus on learning how to improve it.
In todays guest post, Irving Weinman, author of Write Great Dialogue: A Teach Yourself Guide gives us 5 tips that should
help that improvement.

(1) Dialogue brings your characters to life.

Its the direct speech of your characters. Dialogue presents not just story information to your readers but shows your
characters emotions their desires and fears, what they really mean rather than pretend to mean.
Do they speak more slowly or more quickly when theyre happy? When theyre angry? When they command or when they
beg? Do they use a more formal or a less formal way of speaking when theyre delighted? When theyre offended?
Do they generally say what they mean in a straightforward way, or do they start and stop and seem to forget what they
intended to say? Or do they speak ironically, and does this show that theyre sceptical or trying to be funny?

Your dialogue is a key way of making your characters different from each other of making them individuals, more real and
more interesting to your readers.

(2) Where do you find dialogue to write?

You find it in yourself. Youve been speaking it all your life, taking part in all sorts of conversation, from the details of every
day, to joking around with your friends, to speaking quietly in love, of love. You remember the way your family talks, you
remember how different friends and acquaintances speak. And since you want to write, youre obviously a reader whos
come across characters in fiction that you like, that are memorable because of their dialogue.

Look closely at some of it again, and jot down a few quick notes about why you like it. Do this with several authors you like.
Then try it out in your own writing. Dont worry, you wont be cheating, youll be learning to write your own good dialogue.
Start listening to conversations around you; keep a small notebook and set down what strikes you as real and interesting
ways of speaking. As a writer, you sort of spy on life!

(3) Avoid the adverb trap
Keep she said and he said (identifying narrative) to the minimum necessary for clarity in a scene of dialogue. Effective
descriptive narrative is great mixed in with dialogue, but take care using a single adverb to explain the tone or emotion of
what a character says. This can be a trap because, first, the dialogue itself should reveal that tone or emotion. And it can be a
trap because it often results in a clich that says less than nothing, that turns readers off. For example, she said coyly, or he
said roguishly, or he said beseechingly. If you think of writing she said nervously, think again. You might come up with
something more specific that keeps the readers attention better, like As she spoke, her thumb rubbed across the tops of
her fingers.

(4) Regional and foreign accents
Accents are of course part of how some people speak. But a little goes a long way. Dont overdo it: you risk making it too
difficult to read and understand, or too boring or silly to keep listening to. For example: If the Austrian doctor is speaking
English to the patient whod had a skiing accident, dont have her say, Ve vant you to valk vell. Having her say We want you
to walk vell, indicates the accent without the distraction of sounding silly, and it also indicates the emphasis she puts on the
final word.

(5) Different levels of speech
Remember that most adults use different levels of speech for different listeners and in different social or professional
situations. You generally dont answer a five year olds question about what makes a rainbow using the same language you
would to the same question from a bright fifteen year old, when you might use the term the refraction of light. Or a
question by the boss: What do you think of Charlie Smith? would be answered in terms of the jobs jargon efficiency,
analytical ability, teamwork, etc. But What do you think of Charlie Smith? asked by a friend in a pub might get the answer,
Hes eye candy!
write dialogueWrite Great Dialogue: A Teach Yourself Guide is available on Amazon and all online bookstores.

irving weinmanIrving Weinman is the author of six critically acclaimed novels Taylors Dummy, Hampton Heat, Virgils Ghost, Easy Way
Down, Stealing Home and the latest, Wolf Tones, published in 2009. He founded and directed the Key West Writers Workshop and was
on the board of directors of The Key West Literary Seminar. He has taught fiction writing in the United States and in England, most
recently running workshops and master classes for the MA in Creative Writing and Authorship at the University of Sussex. He has
reviewed fiction for, among others, The New York Times, The Times and the Times Literary Supplement. With other Sussex writers, he
helped found and runs Needlewriters, a Lewes-based reading series of poets and fiction writers. He is currently working on a volume of
short stories. Irving Weinman lives in Lewes with his wife, the poet Judith Kazantzis.

s we now know, good dialogue is the elusive dark matter of the scriptwriting galaxy. Which is why we asked Daniel
Heath, winner of the 2007 Emerging Playwright Award, to share his dialogue-writing rocket science. Daniel has
had short plays produced for the Playwrights' Center of San Francisco and is a member of the San Francisco
Playground Writer's pool. He also sporadically maintains a blog at scratchfiction.com. Take it away, Daniel!
As we all know, nothing brings on the man-tears like achingly perfect dialogue. But how? I've written bales of lousy
dialogue myself, so I have a few pointers:
1. Don't try to write dialogue the way people actually talk.
Listen to yourself talk for 10 seconds to hear what I mean. We use an astonishing amount of filler:
ME: Um, yeah, so, I'm, uh, like, [expletive], y'know...
Moreover, we spend most of our time not saying anything:
THEM: Hey.
US: Hi.
THEM: How are you?
US: I'm good. How are you?
AUDIENCE: Unnngh. (falls unconscious)
It may be true to life, but it's incredibly boring, and all it tells us is that neither person is paying any attention. A
guideline: If the audience can guess almost exactly what the next line will be, write something better.
ZORA: I love you, Max.
MAX: I love you, too.
AUDIENCE: We hate this play! (they turn on each other and fight savagely)
Try this question: How could I write this in a way that tells the audience something about the character(s)
speaking? You and your audience may learn something:
ZORA: I love you, um... it's Max, isn't it?
MAX: It's anything you want it to be if you've got 50 dollars in your pocket.
2. Avoid writing dialogue that no one would ever say.
Yeah, I know, I just told you not to write dialogue like people talk. Now I'm telling you to make sure you write
dialogue that we can imagine a human saying. Yes, it's contradictory, but this is artparadox is the vodka-and-
Red-Bull of human creativity.
The first trick is to read your dialogue out loud. Characters should use each others' names very sparingly. Watch
out for really big or archaic words, especially if you're not 100% sure what they mean. Try not to use awkward,
formal phrasing unless you're doing it on purpose. And watch out for how long you let your characters speak
most of the time humans don't let each other go more than a clause or two before interrupting.
CLEO: Lupe, you look positively evanescent in that dress. And one more thing, Lupe, insofar as I consider myself
to be your friend for all these long years, and find myself therefore beholden to the necessity to say to you that
actually there is a fleck of some green matter, some parsley, I think right-- (points) There.
Instead try:
CLEO: Girl, you've got--
LUPE: I know. I put it there.
Yes, you can write stylized dialogue. Your characters can speak better or worse, more elliptically or more directly,
than normal humans do. But on the one hand don't make it too flat and obvious, and on the other don't make it too
outlandish and artificial.
3. When you use dialogue to convey factual information, make sure we don't notice.
The kids call this "As You Know, Bob," dialogue, and it goes something like this:
ZEKE: As you know, Bob, we're stuck in this here fuel-tanker rig heading down a mountainside and our brakes are
shot. It's only a matter of time until we hit a turn we can't make and eight thousand gallons of unleaded go up like
the Lord himself in all His glory.
When you thudding-ly inform us of things that the characters already know, you break the illusion of your script and
bust us out of the an otherwise poignant moment. Be sneakier:
ZEKE: Wife and kids?
BOB: Naw.
ZEKE: Ain't missing nothing.
BOB: You try them brakes again?
ZEKE: Been tryin'. No metal left to grind.
BOB: You reckon you're going to heaven?
ZEKE: Reckon if I am they'll have me driving a tanker truck there, too.
BOB: Don't need no gas in heaven. Everything runs on angel piss and sunshine.
ZEKE: Find out in a second here.
BOB: I told you to take it easy on them brakes.
4. If it's obvious, you don't have to spell it out. But if it's not obvious, you do.
When you're doing your job, your audience should usually understand how your characters are feeling at any given
moment.
(IVAN slaps ANGELIQUE)
ANGELIQUE: Ouch! That hurt! You [expletive]! Why did you do that?
Give us credit; don't tell us what's obvious. We like thatit makes us feel smart. Instead, tell us something we
didn't know about your character:
(IVAN slaps ANGELIQUE.)
ANGELIQUE: The last guy who did that is still scratching his stumps.
On the other hand, if you've got a character with a strange, hard-to-get psyche, then go ahead and lay it all out,
precisely, in detail. You've heard the advice, "Show don't tell." It's very good advice most of the time, but
sometimes you need to do both:
(IVAN slaps ANGELIQUE.)
ANGELIQUE: I kind of want to cut your hand off, but then I also kind of want to teach you to play Bach. I want to
show you how to use your hands to bring joy into the worldjoy for yourself. Joy for others. And then I'll probably
cut if off anyway, but I feel like the Bach would be a really nice touch.
The same rule applies to stage directionsgive the actors space, don't nag or micromanage (they'll just ignore you
anyway). Take it easy on the exclamation marks. Take it easy on physical instructions. Try to make your dialogue
strong enough to show them how to play the part the way you see it. But if you want something strange or
counterintuitive, then lay it out clearly.
5. Your dialogue is meant to make your audience feel something.
Whatever the goal of your script, remember that you are trying to make people feel something. Keep in mind that
emotions take time. Your characters are going to change during your story; give us space on the page to feel along
with them. If you try to pack seven emotional reversals in a short speech, you're likely to shake us off. Let new
emotions sink in, and once we're with you, take that seriously. If you're drowning cute animals and you get us all
bummed out, don't expect us to be laughing at your jokes two lines later.
Your dialogue and your story are just tools to make your audience feel somethingthat's why the audience is
sitting still for you. Given that, my final rule is more of an anti-rule: You can break every scriptwriting rule, every plot
rule, every rule of basic human decency and hygiene, if it serves the emotional point you are trying to convey.
Depending on the situation, sometimes dialogue that's absolutely wrong is absolutely right.

Note: This article is not one that can be read breezily. I'm going to deconstruct a piece of great dialogue line by
line, and label every technique that's employed. There's much to be learned by doing so, but it requires focus.
Therefore, if you need Zen or caffeine or both (Zeffeine) to ratchet up your awareness, knock yourself out.)

Writing dialogue that sounds natural and which is emotionally layered seems like it's something that should be
easy. In fact, the dialogue written by many new (and even some not-so-new) often sounds flat and wooden.

Below you'll some specific pointers for making your dialogue come alive.

But first, some general remarks:
Intuition
The techniques I'll be discussing and others like them make dialogue, when
read aloud in a film, sound like the way people actually speak. We speak this
way intuitively, but we don't write this way intuitively.
Space
Techniques like this take up space. Therefore, you're most likely to encounter
them in dramas, or in any thriller, fantasy, sci-fi story, or comedy that also has
dramatic elements.

In an action movie, an action-thriller, or an action-comedy, the story often moves so quickly that techniques like
these can't be squeezed in.
An Option, Not a Requirement
These techniques are optional, not a requirement. But I suppose the heading sort of already says that. Therefore,
this particular paragraph is redundant and will now go hide its head in shame.




For an example to deconstruct, I'm powering up the way-back machine and landing at a TV Series called
"Thirtysomething." The creators, Marshall Herskowitz and Ed Zwick, have since gone on to have illustrious careers
producing, writing, and directing features. Look them up on IMDB.com for the full scoop.

But some of their best writing was in "Thirtysomething," a show that transformed television. Those with flair for juicy
details might note that one of the writers on the series was Paul Haggis, who of late wrote "Million Dollar Baby,"
and co-wrote and directed "Crash."

In the following scene, Michael (Ken Olin) is a young, powerful advertising executive. Gary (Peter Horton), his old
college roommate and best friend, has come to his office.

Gary has been struggling financially. Things haven't been going well lately between he and Michael -- they've been
fighting a lot, mostly as a way for Gary to divert his (Gary's) attention away from the humiliation and self-hatred
he's been feeling.

These feelings have been triggered by Michael's offer of a sizable gift of money to help out Gary and his family.
Gary needs the money -- but his self-esteem has hit the skids because he knows that, in being tempted to accept
the gift, he's admitting he's a failure, unable to support his wife and child.

When Gary sees the cold opulence of Michael's office, he looses it.

Techniques we'll see here are:
1. Delayed Answer:
Definition: Person "A" asks a question -- then "A" and "B" talk about other things -- and then "B" answers the
question.
2. Interruption
This one is self-explanatory. Interruptions can make dialogue flow faster and give it life.
3. Meaningful Silence
To me, silence is a form of dialogue. There are three ways silence can be used in dialogue. "Meaningful Silence" is
(obviously) silence that has meaning in the dialogue. The silence is written right into the dialogue, using one of
about seven different standard ways. In this sample, we'll see the use of double dashes (--) to indicate meaningful
silences.
4. What the Character is Saying or Feeling Beneath the Surface
Dialogue can give us the feeling that the character has emotional depth when the character's feelings are just
hinted at by the words of his or her dialogue (or the way the words are said), but not stated directly. We'll see some
of that here.
5. Sentence Fragment
Definition: This is a sentence in which more than one word has been dropped out.
6. Own track
Definition: "A" completely ignores what "B" says and stays on his or her "Own Track" (i.e. his or her previous topic).



(The set-up -- Gary steps into Michael's office and surveys its cold, sterile appearance. With its slate and steel, it
reeks of money and power. Michael is still smarting from a recent argument between the two of them.)

Gary: What are you doing there? How did all this happen? I'm sorry, I'll try and get to the point...

Michael: (quite composed) No, please. Take all the time you'd like.

Gary: Just -- do me a favor. Don't do that.

Michael: Don't do what?

Gary: Be -- polite like that. It's not --

Michael: Look --

Gary: That's not us.

Michael: You want to know what I'm doing here? Making a living. Making money.




(Below, MS means "Meaningful Silence")

Gary: What are you doing there? How did all this happen? I'm sorry, I'll try and get to the point...

Michael: (quite composed) No, please. (Sentence Fragment) Take all the time you'd like. (Beneath the surface,
Michael's coolness to his friend says, "I'm pissed at you.")

Gary: Just -- (MS) do me a favor. Don't do that.

Michael: Don't do what?

Gary: Be -- (MS) polite like that. It's not --

Michael: (Interrupting Each Other) Look --

Gary: (Interrupting Each Other) That's not us. (Own Track)

Michael: You want to know what I'm doing here? Making a living. Making money. (Delayed Answer to Gary's
original question: "What are you doing there?")
Summary
Above you see 6 dialogue techniques used in one short piece of dialogue. If you don't know these dialogue
techniques and many others, your writing will be judged inferior to those who master the art of capturing the sound
and emotional layers of spoken speech.

There are many, many ways to make dialogue sound natural and to give us a sense that a character has emotional
and psychological complexity. Those demonstrated above are just a few of the many such techniques you'll learn
in "Beyond Structure."

All of "Beyond Structure" is taught this way -- as techniques without theory. However, the techniques you'll learn go
far, far beyond dialogue. In fact, dialogue comprises just a small part of artful writing.

Posted on Apr 26, 2011 | 3 comments
If youve ever gotten confused about which character is speaking dialogue in a scene, then you know how
important it is for dialogue to be clear and easy to follow.
Dialogue is notoriously difficult to write. It has to mimic real conversation without replicating it. For
example, you cant record real people talking and then transcribe the conversation. Real human beings
speak in fragments, but written dialogue confuses readers unless it uses complete sentences.
At the same time, characters should sound like people talking, not writers writing.
The author must then create an illusion. The dialogue looks, sounds, and feels like something people
would actually say even though its not.
There are many ways to craft authentic dialogue. The techniques below focus on giving each character a
voice that is distinct from every other character and from the narrator.

1. Catch Phrases
In Gone with the Wind Scarlett OHara kept saying things like fiddle-dee-dee and Ill think about it
tomorrow. These catch phrases made her identifiable. Real people do this too. Think about your friends
and family. Lots of them frequently use their own special words and expressions.
2. Group Speak
Have you ever noticed that your circle of friends all use the same slang words and expressions? If you
spend a day hanging out with another group of people, youll find that they have their own set of
expressions. But in fiction, this is best avoided so you dont risk confusing readers. Scarlett, and only
Scarlett, says fiddle-dee-dee.
3. Other Worlds
Group speak is best avoided in fiction, but there are exceptions. For example, all your characters will use
the same expressions if you are writing speculative fiction and have created an other-world. In Star Wars,
the Jedi way of saying Have a nice day is May the force be with you. In science fiction and fantasy, one
or two phrases like this can make the world youve created more realistic.
4. Gender Specific
Equality does not mean everyone is the same. Men and women speak differently. If you listen in on a
group of women talking, then a group of men, then a mixed group, this becomes blatantly obvious. It
should be obvious in fiction, too.
5. Job-Related
If the characters spend eight hours a day, five days a week, at work, theyre going to pick up industry
jargon and use it in their everyday speech. Do you have a character who is a scientist? A businesswoman?
A teacher? Think about how the characters careers will influence the way they speak.
6. Body Talk
They say Italians speak with their hands, and its beautiful and expressive. What do your characters do
with their bodies while theyre talking? Observe people in your real life to see the gestures and
mannerisms that people use while theyre engaging in conversation. Body talk can be anything from a
facial expression (eye rolling, for example), to nonverbal communication (body language).
7. The Tell
You can take body language a step further. Have you ever heard of a tell? This is when someones
behavior or mannerism changes while theyre telling a lie. Maybe your protagonists eye twitches or she
bites her lip when shes not being completely honest. Characters can also exhibit tells when they are ill,
nervous, or scared.
8. Dialect
Do you have one character from the south and another from California? Are your characters from
different countries around the world? True dialect should be reserved for experienced writers as its
incredibly difficult to execute effectively, but that doesnt mean you cant use regional language in your
characters dialogue. For example, southerners say yall and Californians say dude a lot.
9. Slang
Like dialect, slang is often regional. But slang is also age-related. Kids and teenagers will use a lot more
slang than adults, so pepper your younger characters dialogue with carefully chosen slang words and
make sure your older characters use age-specific slang (Baby Boomers will say groovy whereas
Generation Xers will say rad).
10. Vocabulary
Certain people just dont say certain words. A religiously devout character isnt going to curse a lot. A
pirate, however, will. Little kids arent prone to using big words and elderly folks dont use an abundance
of slang. A Harvard professor of linguistics hailing from Britain might not speak in contractions whereas
everyone else will. Think about which words are and arent in your characters respective vocabularies.


Readers should be able to easily follow your characters conversations. They shouldnt have to backtrack
or reread a scene to figure out whos saying what. One way to ensure that the dialogue is clear is to give
each character a unique voice.
Try this test: remove your dialogue tags from a scene and have a friend try to identify which character is
speaking (try it in a scene with more than two characters).
Giving each character his or her own unique voice requires critical thinking and creative writing. These
techniques can help you transform bland, unremarkable dialogue and make it vivid and realistic.

After finishing your novel, consider self eBook publishing services to share your hard work with the
world.

About the Author: Melissa Donovan is the founder and editor of Writing
Forward, a website packed with creative writing tips and ideas.

Related posts:
1. From tin ear to dialogue-writing master: 9 tips to consider
2. Help! How can I write authentic dialogue?
3. How do you make fictional characters seem real to the reader?
4. Reading about writing: Some of the best reference guides
5. 10 steps for growing novel-sized story ideas