Why Your Dialogue Feels Stiff

People rarely say exactly what they mean.

Good dialogue has:

• subtext

• interruption

• emotion

• avoidance

Real conversations are messy. Let your characters talk back and forth and go on for too long (you can always edit afterwards). Skip a dialogue tag or two. Readers will keep up!

Stop using dialogue only to give information.

“As you know, we’ve been partners for ten years.”

Nobody talks like that. People close with one another forgo niceties and usually state what they want more bluntly than strangers. Using nicknames, formal titles, or dialogue tags are helpful too. Close people may nudge or touch before they speak. Strangers rarely do.

Characters should speak differently from each other.

Think about:

• sentence length

• confidence

• vocabulary

• humor

• formality

A detective and a preschool teacher should sound different. People’s backgrounds and careers affect how they speak. You can show intelligence of a character - or lack of - using vocabulary and even sentence length.

Cut the filler.

You usually don’t need:

• hello

• goodbye

• excessive small talk

Start where the tension is. Dialogue tags can be useful here:

‘She answered the phone.’ or ‘He greeted Sammie.’

Unless the character’s greeting tells us something about the scene, or the small talk reveals a hidden agenda or feeling, skip it.

Use names sparingly.

People don’t use each other’s names in casual conversation that often.

If you need a character to speak to an individual in a group, use dialogue tags:

‘He said to Sammie.’ or ‘She tapped Keanu on the shoulder.’

Names in conversation should make a point, i.e. if a character is using a fake name, or to convey a certain emotion. Otherwise, leave them out.

Read your dialogue out loud.

If it feels awkward to say, it probably feels awkward to read. Our brains are faster than our mouths, but of you are stumbling hard over a sentence, then make it easier for the reader. You want to keep people inside your world, not remind them they are reading a book.

Dialogue is a powerful tool, but don’t overthink it!

Try writing a full scene with dialogue and either no or minimal tags and see what happens!

Read a script of your favourite movie or TV show and see how they conveyed information through dialogue. They are different mediums, but can be a useful learning tool.