Three Tips on Writing Dialogue

Dialogue can be tricky for many writers. The way we talk and the way we think doesn’t always look right on the page. New writers often struggle creating dialogue that doesn’t sound stilted, forced, or just plain weird.

When I first started writing, I was terrible at dialogue. It sounded unnatural, it went on too long, and I wasn’t sure of the rules of formatting. So I started paying attention to the dialog I read, I practiced it by using it everywhere I could (even in emails), and I would sometimes just write stories with 90 percent dialog and almost no narrative.

Now, 25 years later, my dialogue has greatly improved, and I think it’s one of the things I do best.

My narrative, on the other hand, still needs some work.

Here are three things you can do to start improving your own dialogue.

1. Show, Don’t Tell

You’ve heard this one over and over so much that you want to puke. But no one actually shows you what that looks like. I could spend 1,000 words doing it, or I could tell you to listen some good radio theater, now called audio drama or audio theater.

The trick with audio theater is that you have to show what’s happening without actually saying it. You can “show” things with sound or by alluding to them through narration, but don’t actually spell out what’s happening. Bad audio theater tells you what’s happening; good audio theater shows it by making you understand what’s happening without actually explaining it.

For example, you wouldn’t have a character say, “Oh my, I see you have a gun in your right hand.” Instead, say, “Watch where you’re pointing that thing.” The listener would know enough about where that phrase is usually used to know what it means in this particular instance. Add a sound effect of a gun cocking before the line, and we know exactly what’s happening without anyone telling us.

In short, don’t use dialogue for exposition or explaining what has already happened. That should either happen in the narrative, or happen in short bursts, not entire pages of dialogue (which I’ve seen; it’s terrible).

(You can hear one of the best ever radio dramas, the original Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio play here. It’s a great example of showing action through dialog.)

2. Said is Not Dead

Apparently, according to some English professor friends, high school students are being taught that “Said is dead.” This is so staggeringly wrong that I want to shout this at every high school English teacher I see. Instead I wrote an angry blog article about it.

This is what annoys me about our educational system. We have people who don’t write teaching people how to write. We make science teachers have a background in science, history teachers have a history degree. And yes, I know English teachers have an English degree, but they’re usually readers, not writers. Or they’re not very good writers, otherwise they wouldn’t be telling students to use “enthused,” “squealed,” “chortled,” and “shrieked,” instead of “said” and “asked.”

When it comes to writing dialogue, stick with “said” and “asked.” He said, she asked, and so on.

Additionally, when you have back-and-forth dialog, you can occasionally even switch back and forth between participants without tagging it with “said.” Of course, you should re-tag the dialog so you can establish who is talking. Otherwise, if you have a page or two of untagged dialog, it’s easy to lose your place. It looks like this:

“Walter Walker from the U.S. State Department. I’m here to see Governor Hernandez. . . Heather,” said Walter, reading the nameplate on her tidy desk.

“Do you have an appointment?” said Heather, pushing up her glasses.

“No, ma’am, I do not. But this is rather urgent. The Secretary of State has—”

“I’m afraid you can’t see the Governor without an appointment,” she said.

“Is he in right now?”

“Yes, he is. He’s in a meeting.”

“That’s fine. I’m from the U.S. State Department, and I have an urgent matter to discuss.”

“Are you from Washington?” Heather asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“We have an office in Washington,” said Heather

“That’s fine, but I’m here,” Walter said.

“You should have gone to our Washington office.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re from Washington.”

“But I’m—”

“And we have an office in Washington. Do you see?”

“No,” said Walter, not seeing. “Is the governor in the Washington office?”

“Um, no. Why would he do that?” said Heather, unsure whether this was a trick question.

“Then why would I want to go to the Washington office?”

“Because you’re from—”

“I swear, Heather, if you say because I’m from Washington, I’m going to scream.”

3. No Adverbs

I’m not a big fan of adverbs. I don’t like modifying verbs, but I really hate modifying “said.” It’s overused by a lot of young/new writers who think they need to reinforce the gravity and emotion of what their characters are saying.

“So they pepper their writing with adverbs,” he said saltily. “Don’t do that. Just use better dialogue.”

Do it too much, and you end up with a serious-but-funny problem of creating Tom Swifties (a form of Wellerism).

Named after Tom Swift, the kids’ pulp fiction books of the early 1900s, many of the Tom Swift stories used the “he said [adverb]” construction over and over. It got so bad that many people began to make fun of the form that they named them Tom Swifties, and came up with such gems as:

• “The doctor had to remove my left ventricle,” said Tom half-heartedly.
• “I couldn’t believe there were 527,986 bees in the swarm!” Tom recounted.
• “I manufacture tabletops for shops,” said Tom counterproductively.
• “You can find over 400 Tom Swifties here,” Tom said searchingly

Just stick with “said” and “asked” and you’ll be fine. Don’t modify anything, don’t use different words (except in rare instances), and don’t use dialog for exposition. Show us what’s happening, don’t use characters to tell us.

Writing dialog can be tough, and it’s a bugbear that many writers fight for years. Just focus on writing like people talk, keeping things simple, and don’t try to flower it up. If you can do that, and keep practicing, you’ll finally master the art of dialogue.