Dialogue is one of the best ways to build characterization. Letting characters speak in their own voice allows us deeper insight into their personalities, beliefs, and eccentricities, helping them feel like real people.

But it’s also very easy to suck at. In fact, I’d say it’s one of the easiest parts of writing to get wrong.

Why?

All hearing people have heard thousands of conversations in their life.

And, of course, Deaf and HOH people have seen a lot of conversations in their life, with the nuances of signing and facial expressions and little gestural tics.

This means that even if a reader has never studied writing, has no idea how to build a plot, has no concept of theme or symbolism or motifs … they damn well know what humans sound like.

There are many things where you can bullshit and fool readers into thinking you are more skilled than you are. Dialogue is, sadly, not one of those things.

As such, it behooves you to learn how to write great dialogue that keeps readers engaged, builds suspense, and makes your characters feel real.

Of course, I’m not the end-all-be-all authority on writing whatsoever. These are only the things that I have used and implemented; there’s plenty of other advice out there that may serve you better. If you don’t like what I suggest, that’s fine. You don’t need to use it.

With that, let’s get started.

Dialogue should have a reason.

This is one place where you can divert from reality. Please don’t have a bunch of filler conversations or people rambling about something pointless. Of course that happens in real life, but no one wants to read about people just saying hello to each other and asking about the weather.

However, great writers can make even these pleasantries mean something. For example, someone who can’t bear bringing up their real point may talk around it and gauge the situation before addressing their issue.

Decide whether your intention is just to build rapport or to impress something about the relationship onto the reader.

Listen to IRL conversations as much as possible.

I covered this in previous posts so I won’t go into depth about it. However, you need to listen to a variety of unscripted, spontaneous conversations in order to note speech patterns and so on.

Watch interrogation videos, particularly ones with analysis, because then you don’t have to really keep track of the conversation as you do when you’re talking to someone. Do not rely on reality TV, movies, other books, or stuff like that, because it’s scripted.

Keep dialogue short.

Except for a prepared speech, a character shouldn’t speak more than a paragraph at a time, usually four lines or less.

I try to keep most of my dialogue to two sentences, with a few three-sentence or four-sentence sections if something is particularly important.

Don’t use a bunch of fancy words.

In general, even very intelligent people will default to the simplest way of explaining themselves because conversations are faster-paced than writing something; we don’t have the time to sift through our whole vocabulary to find the right word.

It’s fine to have your character use a few unusual words every once in a while, especially if they are related to their profession. However, in normal conversations, people are going to talk, well … normally.

Don’t make the character repeat themselves constantly in short succession.

While this is technically part of dialogue, it more has to do with the structuring of your story than the actual conversation itself. Basically, organize your story in such a way that you don’t have characters repeating themselves within the same chapter.

Yes, characters often need to bring others up to speed about things, but you must space these convos out. The reader already knows this information and is going to get annoyed if they have to sit through the same explanation multiple times.

For example, let’s say you have a character get a knee injury, and we see the doctor taking care of them. Then, just a few minutes later, they meet someone who asks about the injury and they mention their doctor’s visit, and then those two people go to meet another character and explain themselves all over again.

Now we’ve heard about the same injury three times in the same chapter. It’s obnoxious.

In that same vein, please don’t have one character introducing a bunch of other characters to one another over and over again.

“Oh hi Tom, this is Mary and Albert.” And then a few minutes later, someone else walks in, and the introductions begin again.

Stop. Please. Don’t do this to your reader.

Remember what we already know and organize things so that we’re not getting constant introductions, even if that’s what would happen in real life. It’s okay to get a little unrealistic by making people know each other without us seeing their introduction.

Consider context and peoples’ relations to one another.

You likely speak very differently to your friends and family than to bosses or authority figures: there will be a more formal, deferential tone when talking to a professional. You’ll also be on your best behavior when meeting someone new, and you’ll play it safe at first.

So, the setting and the relationship will impact how people speak. A casual meetup between friends will be jokier; people will be more honest and more of their “real” selves. A formal setting with a stranger will have restrained and reserved language with less personal details.

People don’t say each other’s names all that much except for emphasis.

I have actually been guilty of this sin a lot in the past, but a random tweet by Akana Phoenix ages ago gave me this epiphany.

Think about your everyday life; do you actually insert someone’s name constantly when you are speaking directly to them? Of course not. It’d be awkward. It might even seem kind of manipulative, like you’re trying to force a bond between the two of you.

So times that you can have characters say one another’s names:

• When greeting, especially if there are other people around and they are singling the person out (“Oh, hey, Finn”)
• When talking to one specific person in a group of people (“And what about your weekend plans, Mohammed?”)
• When they are calling out to one another (“Samara, where are you?”)
• When meeting for the first time, both parties might repeat one another’s names to cement it in their memory
• As a command (“Adam! Don’t touch that!”)
• If the other is in danger, to get their attention (“Delilah! The truck!”)
• During apologies (“Sanjeet, I really didn’t mean to hurt you.”)
• When offering comfort (“Oh Suzy, it’s going to be ok.”)
• When frustrated (“Don’t even say that, Mabel.”)

Now, there are people who do use someone’s name all the time. These are typically salesmen, interrogators, or spies. They are attempting to push a connection to get information out of someone, so they’ll use the person’s name constantly.

Doctors, nurses, firefighters, EMTs, etc may also do this, again trying to build a connection with their patient, but for a better reason of course.

Also, someone who is attracted to a given person will be more likely to use their name for no reason. If Character A has a crush on Character B, they will use Character B’s name a lot more than anyone else, even when talking to Character B themselves, because they like hearing it. They may also do this to force more closeness or to “claim” the character in a way.

During times of stress, fear, pain, or frustration, characters will speak in choppier sentences.

This could be because they are out of breath, or their brain is shutting down from stress, or they are in a high-velocity situation and need to get their point across as quickly as possible.

Going into shock can also make it difficult for the brain to function well enough to make well-articulated sentences.

For example, this is only three words but we get a lot from it: “Hurts. Love you.”

We can tell that the speaker is obviously in pain and they are speaking to a loved one. We might assume they are in fear of death and want to be sure that the listener knows they are loved because the speaker worries they may not get another chance to say it.

People talk over each other all the time.

It’s completely normal for people to cut each other off, especially in stressful situations. Don’t have characters do it constantly because then you can’t actually share any information, but a few times during a heated moment makes sense and iterates how frustrated they are.

When reiterating something, people will use a contraction the first time and the non-contracted version the second time.

Contractions are useful in language because they let us say more faster. However, they are not good for emphasizing things. As such, a character will likely use a contraction at first, then use every word the second time to drive their point home. This is especially true if it’s a stressful situation.

One of my favorite exchanges in any of my works is just this:

I don’t want to go to the front lines with you.

You have to.

I do not want to go to the front lines with you.

People who are close will match one another’s speaking patterns.

This is called mirroring and it is a phenomenon seen in many other things, including body language and mindset.

I like to perform this little experiment on a regular basis. I will start using a certain phrase as many times as possible, then see how long it takes for the people around me to start saying it too. This is usually some dumb meaningless phrase like “Valid!” used in a sarcastic context, or calling literally everyone a girlboss.

More often than not, I only need to use it about 5 times before my family also starts using the term. The number of Gen Z phrases I’ve started making my mom say is astronomical, and it’s hilarious every time.

The less a person likes me, the harder it is to infiltrate their lexicon. I know that I’ve established a strong bond with someone when they start to sound more like me.

And, of course, the reverse occurs too, when I pick up on other peoples’ verbal tics. But I do my best to resist this because it’s more fun that way.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that the closer two people are, the more alike they will start to sound in terms of turns of phrase, little exclamations, and so on. If they are having a conversation and one of them says something, it’s more likely than not that the other person will echo it in some way.

You can use this quirk to symbolize relationships between characters. Two people meeting for the first time are going to sound wildly different from one another. Then, as they grow closer, they will pick up one another’s eccentricities and create a new blend of both their vernaculars.

The more dominant a person is, the more they will be able to influence other peoples’ behavior and language. It’s unlikely that your little wallflower character will get everyone else to talk like them, but your cold ice queen can.

Specific nuances of dialogue

These are some common issues I see in new writers. While they’re meant to provide characterization or add local flavor, these problems take the reader’s attention away from the content, irritating them enough that they may give up entirely.

Avoid using constant ellipses.

Like any trick, these special circumstances need to be used judiciously or they get annoying. Characters may trail off a lot, but you don’t need to constantly use ellipses to show this.

For example, consider these two versions of the same text and consider which you like more.

“She is … not doing well … at all. They think … they think it may be terminal … but no one’s quite sure yet,” Branson hiccuped.

Compare this to the second version:

“She’s … not doing well. At all.” Branson hiccuped and wiped his eyes. “They think it might be terminal, but no one’s quite sure yet.”

The first ellipses is fine; we can sense he’s struggling to formulate his thoughts and break the terrible news. We then get a choppy sentence fragment, which tells us that he needs a few seconds to get the next part out.

Action attribution (him hiccuping and wiping his eyes) demonstrates that he composes himself before he says the rest of it.

Don’t make the character incessantly stutter.

I see this a lot when people are trying to show the character is flustered by something, but it comes across as a bit corny and amateur.

You can show a character is flustered through action attribution, which is more dynamic and lets us see what the character is actually doing.

Again, let’s compare two examples.

“Wuh–what are you doing here?” Elise stammered as she slammed the box shut. “I–I really didn’t want you to–to see this because–well, I–I wanted it to to be a surprise. So, uh–um, go away!”

We don’t need to know she stammered. We already figured that out. We’ll also ignore how wooden this dialogue is and how it tells rather than shows.

However, we can clean this up without changing the dialogue at all, just through adding more actions. Even mentioning the other character’s name gives more context.

“Wh- what are you doing here?” Elise slammed the box shut, face red. “I really didn’t want you to see this. Because, uh. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

When Maria didn’t move, Elise frantically waved one hand, the other pressing down on the cardboard like it’d explode at any second. “So go away!”

Elise is less annoying now, but we still feel her shock and sputtering. One stuttering exclamation at the beginning suggests that the rest of her dialogue will also be staccato without actually having to do the schtick every time.

The “because, uh” makes it clear that she’s struggling not to explain the whole thing right then and there. Separating out the last part of the dialogue with an action also suggests she’s not thinking clearly but without making her stammer.

Of course, some of your characters may have a chronic stutter. This is fine, and I’d encourage you to explore it. However, stutterers who have gotten speech therapy in childhood do not stutter all the time; it typically happens when they’re in a heightened emotional state.

If your character didn’t get treatment, you still don’t have to make them stutter constantly. Avoid using multiple stops and starts, even if this is normal for a stutterer, because it’s annoying to the reader. One false start is fine. As I always say, fiction must feel realistic but does not need to perfectly match real life.

Do not write in ebonics.

This is an infuriating mistake, when people edit out syllables or write things phonetically. It’s annoying to the reader who now has to translate what the speaker is saying into actual English.

Instead, use vernacular. This is how people talk between themselves and is very regionally based, so you can pack in a person’s culture through this. A lot of time, this will be exclamations, terms of address, terms of endearment, or specific verbal structures.

For example, Southerners use “y’all” or might say “fixin’ to” when they’re about to do something, like “I’m fixin’ to head down to the store.” While, yes, a syllable has been removed, it would sound bizarre if you wrote it as “fixing to.”

Or, in Midwestern America, saying “ope” when surprised. It’s just a meaningless noise but is very particular to certain states, namely Ohio and Indiana.

People who speak English as a second language will make mistakes that are natural in their native tongue.

This is mostly in word order and it changes based on how fluent they have become. For example, if someone’s first language puts verbs before nouns, they are likely to put verbs before nouns in English because that’s how their brain works.

These kinds of errors will be more common in speech because the speaker doesn’t have time to self-edit or use a grammar checker. They will also be more frequent if the person is in a heightened emotional state.

To demonstrate ESL speaking errors, you will need to understand sentence structures in their native tongue. Many times, the speaker will go back and fix their mistake after a pause, so they may repeat themselves in the correct order. This is especially common if they are still learning and trying to cement what they have learned.

That’s about it for this super-long post. I hope you’ve learned something about making more natural dialogue and are ready to tackle your next scene with aplomb!