8 Ways to Improve Your Dialogue

Why is dialogue essential?
You’ve undoubtedly read lots of books and know that when it comes to fictional novels, there is always dialogue. Grab a nearby story and shuffle through the pages, stop at a piece of dialogue and read it. What do you notice? Are you learning new information? Or perhaps it’s a conflict between characters? The exchange is an excellent tool to give information to the author or to further the plot. Most importantly, the dialogue must have a purpose.

1. The purpose of your dialogue

When reviewing your work, ensure that each time that your characters speak, there is a good reason for it. The reader invests their time into your novel, hours of their time are now yours, and so it’s essential as a writer to not waste the reader’s time. Provide the reader with only relevant information.

2. Make it unrealistic

The typical “real-life” conversation usually begins with the ceremonial “Hi, hi, how are you? Good, how are you? Good,” talk. I suppose we don’t typically consider this a waste of time when we meet an acquaintance on the street; however, it is, but rarely does this ever amount to an actual conversation. The same goes for novels, omit the beginning and the end of every conversation. There is no need for it.

3. Show your characters personalities through their voice

Notice that everyone you know has their own way of speaking. Maybe your parents avoid using terms like, “LOL, yup, slay…” (My dad believed that lol meant lots of love.) Or maybe your best friend Sue reads the dictionary for amusement and would say, “That’s quite jocular.” In your writing, ensure that your reader can easily distinguish between speakers without name-dropping. (This also helps with keeping the reader engaged in the story.)

4. Be consistent

This compliment’s point #3, as the reader gets to know your characters, they should be able to recognize who is speaking. This will, in turn, help the reader to connect with your book. One of the most critical, yet difficult tasks as a writer is to create authentic characters who have flaws and face difficult challenges. Maintaining consistent personalities within the text will help to create that emotional connection between the reader and the characters.

5. Reveal

Always withhold information from the reader, the excitement associated with fiction stems from the tension and conflict within the story. Do not force-feed the reader with information, they will become overwhelmed, and the novel will seem flat. b) Also, in conversations, we do not reveal everything that we are thinking about. Hide some information to maintain the authenticity of the characters. c) Do not info-dump within your dialogues. Often, authors have built such a thorough environment, society, culture, story, that they want to ensure that the reader too has all of the information straight away. The dialogue is a great place to add new information, but your characters won’t be revealing loads of old details for no reason. Keep it current and necessary.

6. Avoid using lots of Character tags

If every line of dialogue contains tags, the reader will be removed from the action because of the frequent reminder that they are reading. For example.
“What! I am not going,” screamed Kim. “You are, and that’s the end of it,” stated Mom. “I hate you!” replied Kim “That’s fine, but you’re still going,” said Mom.

You notice that after the second tag, you understand who is speaking and when. So, avoid using tags frequently. This does not mean that you should remove all of them, but they are often unnecessary after the first couple of lines, even then. But, this is not always the case. If the dialogue becomes confusing or if there are many characters involved, use the tags to make it easier for the reader.

7. Turn character tags into actions

Instead of using the tags describe how the character spoke, try explaining what they are doing. …

“What!” screamed Kim as she threw her purse onto the leather chair. “I’m not going!”

“You are, and that’s the end of it,” her mom crossed her arms, before walking towards the door. …

As you can see, it gives a bit more oomph to the dialogue, it’s easier to visualize the conflict, and it helps to add flow to the sentences. This again isn’t supposed to replace all character tags, but it is nice to have some variety.

8. Read your dialogue out-loudI know, you might feel stupid reading your text to yourself, but it is an advantageous strategy to improve your exchanges. As you write, you are so focused on the work that we often lose the ability to critically analyze the project. By reading it out loud, you’ll be able to hear whether or not the dialogue is realistic and gives the intended reaction.

I hope these tips help! Which tip do you think you’ll focus on first?