10 Rules For Writing Great Dialogue

Dialogue is an ongoing conversation (Ba-dum-dum) between authors and editors because it is one of the trickiest aspects of writing.

There are a variety of resources out there to show authors how to write dialogue, integrate it into your story, and use this great tool to your benefit, for maximum effect.

Listed below are my top 10 rules for writing great dialogue – these are the code I live by when I do my editing, when talking with my authors, and even on the odd occasion I find myself needing to write dialogue.

1.     Make sure your dialogue has a purpose
2.     Balance your dialogue tag
3.     Show don’t tell
4.     Avoid long monologues
5.     Use a light hand with your accents
6.     Keep your dialogue dynamic
7.     Dialogue doesn’t work alone – coordinate!
8.     Pay attention to punctuation
9.     Read your dialogue aloud
10.  Read examples and practice

Make sure your Dialogue has a purpose

Whenever you need to have a conversation in your story, make sure you know why. Make sure it has a purpose and is moving the story forward in some way, whether by showing more about a character and their motivation or furthering the plot.

Many point to the example of a greeting – while in the real world it is normal to say, “Hi, how are you?” any time someone new walks into the room, you don’t necessarily need all these niceties in your dialogue. Skip to the good stuff!

Now, with that being said, small talk can have its place. If you have a character that is trying to stall, feels awkward, or maybe hates who they are talking to and has nothing else to say? That small talk can be the vehicle in showing those emotions. So feel free to add it in!

But, if not, cut it out. Sometimes you can show a reader so much more by what isn’t said than what is, and dialogue is just as much about writing quality conversation as it is knowing when not to include it.

Balance Your Dialogue Tags

One of the biggest questions surrounding dialogue and dialogue tags is how many “saids” are too many? How often should you write “he/she/they said” versus substituting in a more dynamic dialogue tag?

There is no right or wrong answer, but using “said” is not inherently a bad thing. It has been so integrated into reading culture that it is like white noise to the reader. It is hardly noticeable, leaving readers able to skip right over it and keep on moving to the more important details.

Your favorite authors probably use it way more than you realize. Go ahead and pick up one of your favorite books. I recommend it being a book you’ve already read and loved—one that you didn’t clock anything being too repetitive with the dialogue tags—and see how many times it crops up.

That being said, there are times when you might need something stronger, more descriptive, than “said.” So feel free to add in other dialogue tags, but you want to do so sparingly. While readers are no longer notice “said,” other dialogue tags do pull attention, and using them too often can be noticeable.

You also want to avoid over explaining with your dialogue tags. If you have a character who stutters and you’ve shown this in their dialogue, don’t add a tag that says, “he stuttered.” Let your dialogue speak for itself.

Two other quick mentions on dialogue tags:

Actions are not dialogue tags. Things like smiling, grinning, grimacing, etc… describe the main character, not how they are saying something. Take care not to confuse the two.

Also, if your dialogue asks a question, your tag should be some form of “ask.” Otherwise, there is a disconnect between what your tag shows and how the dialogue reads:

“How are you?” he said.

Just seems weird, right? But you’d be surprised how often it slips in, so keep an eye out.

 Show Don’t Tell

Yes, there is show don’t tell, even in dialogue! Oh, the irony. But there is so much you can show your reader through slang, phrases, and language choices in dialogue to detail a character’s personality, background, or mood, helping you craft unique characters without telling the reader about them.

For a clichéd example, perhaps you have a character say, “Ope, I’m just going to squeeze right past ya.” By this, the readers could guess that they are from the Midwest without you ever mentioning a region or state. I’m guilty of uttering this phrase a time or two, I must admit—born and raised Illinois.

Or you can use more subtle language choices as well. Something as simple as the difference between someone saying soda versus pop, clicker versus remote… you get the idea.

This is especially important when writing science fiction and fantasy. You are crafting an entire world, so there is a lot you need to get across to your reader in a short amount of time, with as little telling as possible. So being able to show that a character is a ship engineer by how they talk, their knowledge expertise and slang, is infinitely preferable to having someone have to tell the reader “LaForge is the lead engineer on the Enterprise.”

You can also add to this by reading the room—who are your characters talking to? What is the situation? Should it change your character’s tone, word choice, mood? They probably speak differently to their boss than they do their friends. Or, if they don’t, that can show that they are either quite close to their boss or care very little for their job.

The goal with this is to craft unique enough characters that your reader could tell who might be speaking by what they say or how they say it.

For example, if I showed a conversation between Hagrid and Dumbledore with no narrative, dialogue tags, or anything—completely made up dialogue, not from the books or movies—if you are at all familiar with the franchise, you’d probably be able to immediately tell who was who and that is on their rich, individual characterization.

There are a few crutch ways that authors tend to tell in their stories—addressing characters, using their names in dialogue unnecessarily to confirm with the reader who they are talking to, and having their character tell another information they might already be aware of because they need the reader to know and don’t know how else to tell them. Phrases like “As you know” and “Remember” are a kiss of death in dialogue. Avoid these at all possible.

Avoid Long Monologues

This rule pretty much speaks for itself. If you find a character getting a bit long winded, you are most likely telling. Break it up, and consider how much actually needs to be said versus what can be shown in other ways.

Take a Light Hand To Your Accents

I separate out accents from the showing point above because, while this does certainly show a detail about your character, it is more about how they are saying something versus what they say. So instead of choosing flashlight versus torch, you are deciding whether or not to show how words might be shortened or elongated to show an accent.

With this, be aware of what your readers will prefer and what market expectations are, but the biggest consideration is how much will be helpful versus distracting. You want to convey the accent, but you also want to make sure your readers are focused on the information you are showing, not just how it is being said. If your readers are spending their time trying to pronounce your sentence, and not taking in the key message, you’ve gone too far.

Jamie from Outlander is a great example – there are times when words are changed to show his accent, but for the most part Ms. Gabaldon let the reader imagine the accent in favor of keeping their focus on the plot.

Keep Your Dialogue Dynamic

People lie, and so do characters—and you want to translate how nuanced conversations can be into your dialogue. So pay attention to when your characters should leave something out, lie, be vague, maybe not say anything at all. Keep the tension and plot moving with how you shape their conversations, the back and forth, keeping the readers engaged.

Dialogue Doesn’t Work Alone—Coordinate!

Dialogue can’t carry the emotion and pace of your novel all on its own—it is a part of a whole—so make sure you are coordinating your dialogue with the body language of your characters, setting, other characters… all the pieces of your story, to show your reader the full picture. Don’t rely too much on just narrative or just dialogue, or your book is going to feel unbalanced.

A great way to spot check for this if you feel like a chapter is coming across as clunky is to take a look at the white space on your page. Does the page look empty? You might be relying too much on dialogue and not enough on narrative or action beats. Is the page one big block of text? You might have too much narrative or a long monologue that you need to break up. It is all about balance and using all the tools at your disposal to show the reader, inviting them into your world.

Pay attention to Punctuation

I know, I know, punctuation isn’t sexy or fun… ever. Especially when all you want to do is focus on your plot and characters. But with dialogue, what isn’t said is just as important as what is, and part of that includes the non-verbal cues you can send to your reader to show them what is happening without having to tell them. And punctuation is your answer!

So some quick and dirty rules:

• All dialogue should end in some form of punctuation within the quotes. So a comma that would lead to a dialogue tag; a period if it is leading to a separate description or narrative; an exclamation or question mark (never both!) to show more feeling or emotion; an ellipses if they are hesitating or trailing off; or an em-dash if they are interrupted. What punctuation you choose will give your readers more information about what is going on, without you ever needing to tell them!

• New speakers should be new paragraphs. It is signaling to the readers that a change is happening, and helps with the balance of your dialogue and page.

• The start of a new sentence should be capitalized, even if it is in the middle of a narrative sentence. It is the start of a new dialogue sentence, and you want to signal that to the reader.

Read aloud

The best thing you can do to test your dialogue is read it aloud. Whether you go through your story, you have a program, or maybe a very kind family member or friend, read some, if not all, aloud. Does it flow? Does it make sense? Sound natural?

A key thing to keep in mind here is it doesn’t need to sound real—again, we don’t need a greeting every time a new character walks into the room or the usual small talk—but you want it to sound natural. True to how that character would speak and what they would say in that moment. NOT what the reader needs to hear in that moment.

There is a great quote from Screencraft (link) that says, “One could argue that it’s less about how real people talk and more about how real people would want to talk.”

I love that. It has always stuck with me.

Read and Practice

The golden rule of writing great dialogue is read examples—both good and bad—and practice! Pull out books by a few of your favorite authors, and your least favorite, and see why. What did they do differently with their dialogue that drew you, or put you off? How can you learn from that and adapt that into your own writing?

And practice, practice, practice! Pull characters from your favorite books, your favorite tv shows, or even your own book—put them in a new setting and write a conversation. See how you can put all the above rules to the test without the pressure of knowing it is going towards your final story. Play with new techniques and see what you love, what catches your attention!

Do you have publishing or writing questions? I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to reach out on social media (links below).

Check out my YouTube channel for more tips and tricks!