OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
Dialogue has been my own writing nemesis and I continue to find it a challenge, although each day of writing seems to improve it slightly!
Whether you love writing dialogue or dread it, you’ll probably agree it’s an essential part of fiction. Unless you’re writing an experimental short story, you’re going to need to include some dialogue – and it needs to be done just as well as the rest of your writing.
Dialogue has many roles in your story. It can:
- Reveal character
- Advance the plot
- Make characters seem real
- Give a sense of action unfolding
Dialogue is also easy and fast to read.
It breaks up the page, adding white space and making your story look more attractive. (If you’ve ever seen someone flicking through a novel in a bookstore, there’s a good chance they were looking to see how much narrative vs dialogue that novel contained.)
Unfortunately, dialogue is also easy to get wrong. Whether you’re a new writer or an established one, you’ll want to watch out for these mistakes.
(You can also look out for them in published books, too — plenty of pros still aren’t getting these right. If you come across a great what-not-to-do example, share it with us in the comments.)
Mistake #1: Being Too Formal
Even if you’re a stickler for the finer points of grammar in your prose, real people don’t talk like textbooks. They say things like:
- Me and him went to the shops.
- I dunno.
- If I was you…
Yes, we know that those should technically be:
- He and I went to the shops.
- I don’t know.
- If I were you…
…but most of your characters won’t always talk “correctly.”
There might well be circumstances where you want a character to speak in a precise, correct way – but that gives the reader some very clear signals about this character (perhaps they’re posh, trying very hard to get things right, or a little uptight).
On a similar point, characters shouldn’t speak in long, complicated sentences – or give long speeches. If you’re struggling to “hear” real dialogue as you write, try recording a conversation and listening to how people really talk.
However…
Mistake #2: Being Too Realistic
Some authors, shying away from formality, go too far into making their dialogue real. They pepper every character’s sentences with “ums” and “ers” and hesitations. They have so many interruptions that it’s hard to figure out what’s going on.
This might be a perfect transcript of how real people talk all the time – but it will make your character sound incredibly indecisive and uncertain to your readers:
“Um, I don’t really know if – actually, yes – er, let’s go to the, the park.”
There will be occasions where you want a character to hesitate or fumble their words – but again, keep in mind the signals that this sends the reader. Is your character very nervous, or perhaps lying?
#3: Using Obtrusive Dialogue Tags
A dialogue tag is the little phrase that tells the reader who’s speaking, like this:
He said
She asked
I answered
Some writers worry that using “he said” and “she said” all the time will get boring, so they start varying their dialogue tags:
He opined
She screamed
I exclaimed
In general, the simple tags are best – readers barely notice them, except to register who’s speaking. Stick with said, asked, answered and perhaps an occasional whispered, muttered or shouted.
If you do feel you’re overusing dialogue tags, an easy trick is to add a line of action to your dialogue, like this:
Sarah came running down the stairs. “I can’t find it anywhere!”
#4: Using Phonetic Spellings
If you have a character with a strong accent, you might be tempted to indicate this in every line of dialogue they speak.
Tread very lightly here. If you’re peppering your character’s speech with apostrophes and creative spellings, it’s going to make the reader’s life hard. It can also give the inadvertent and unfortunate impression that you’re looking down on or even mocking that character’s region, class background, or race.
Instead of writing words out phonetically, try using occasional dialect words, or unusual word order, to indicate a character’s speech patterns.
#5: Using Character's Names Too Often
In real life, we don’t tend to use other people’s names all that much when we’re talking to them – even if there are three or four people involved in the same conversation. We might say “Hi, Sue” when they arrive, or “It was great to meet you, John” when they leave – but we don’t use their name every time we address a remark or question towards them.
In fiction, though, you’ll sometimes find characters talking like this:
Hi, Amy. Is there much happening today?
Not much, John. Did you get those figures I needed?
Sorry, Amy, I forgot.
The conversation starts to sound odd and artificial – or even slightly patronizing towards one or both characters.
This problem sometimes arises when authors are trying to avoid using too many dialogue tags. In general, it’s much less intrusive to add in an extra dialogue tag than to constantly have characters addressing one another by name.
#6: Not Including Any Narrative
In #3, I mentioned that one way to avoid overdoing dialogue tags is to include action. You can also do this with a character’s thoughts, like this:
Julie couldn’t stand Mark, but she managed to fake a smile. “Hi. It’s lovely to see you again.”
Or with description, like this:
The pub was dimly lit, but now they were sitting down, Lucy could see the stains on the walls, and the deep scratches in the furniture. She cast around for something to say. “Do you come here often?”
Some writers, though, seem to get into “dialogue” mode and have line after line of dialogue, with no more support than a few dialogue tags. By blending in action and the viewpoint character’s thoughts – not necessarily every line, but at least occasionally – you can enhance the dialogue by adding new levels of meaning.
#7: Having Every Character Sound the Same
We all have different ways of speaking … but sometimes in fiction, authors make all their characters sound exactly alike. This might work if the story is set in a homogenous group – but it sounds silly if some of the characters are teens and others are grandparents.
For each character, you could think about:
- Any habitual phrases they use. You won’t want to overdo these, but they can be a useful way to cue the reader in that a particular character is speaking.
- What words they don’t use. Perhaps they never swear, preferring “Oh sugar!” or “Fiddlesticks!” Maybe they tend to avoid long or complicated words.
- How eloquent they are – or how taciturn they are. Some characters have a way with words; others don’t say much, or say it awkwardly when they do.
- How polite they are – or not! Do they make requests pleasantly, or do they order other characters around?
#8: Using Indirect Speech Poorly
Not all conversations in your story need to be spelled out in full. Sometimes, you’ll want to give the reader a quick summary – and you can do that with indirect speech. It looks like this:
Tom and Jonathan chatted for a while about the football game they’d seen last night. Beth, bored, went to get another drink.
This is a great way to let the reader know that a conversation is happening, without having to go into any detail.
One mistake here, of course, is to never use indirect dialogue at all, giving a blow-by-blow account of the football game that leaves the reader as bored as Beth. Some writers worry that “show, don’t tell” means they should avoid indirect dialogue – but that’s not the case.
Another problem, though, is when important conversations get summarized in this way:
George had a massive row with his mum, about that letter she’d had from school, and she told him that he was banned from using the X-Box until he’d got his homework done. He told her he hated her, and stormed off upstairs.
In this case, the words exchanged matter – the reader will want to judge whether George is being a horrible child or whether his mother has overreacted, for instance. It’s also a lot more dramatic to hear the words spoken, rather than just read a summary.
#9: Spelling Everything Out in the Narrative
Some writers worry that the reader won’t quite “get” the dialogue, and decide to spell things out, like this:
“I hate you!” George slammed the door and ran upstairs. He was furious with his mum – he felt that she was being unfair.
We don’t need the last sentence here: it’s obvious from what George says (“I hate you!”) and what he does (“George slammed the door and ran upstairs”) than he’s furious, and we can make a fair guess that he thinks his mum is being unfair.
When you spell out what’s happening like this, it’s irritating to the reader: they’re perfectly capable of understanding subtext, and picking up on small cues, to figure out the thoughts and emotions behind what a character says.
Of course, there will be some occasions where you do need to explain what a character is thinking – but this should be the exception, rather than the rule.
Are any of these nine mistakes ones that you know you’re probably making in your own writing?
(I suspect I’ve managed all nine at some point!) Do you have a tenth mistake to suggest? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Top image: people talking from BigStock
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1 2 3 … 6 Next »Great post! Indirect speech is something I certainly need to work on. I'm of the mind that leaving something to the imagination of the reader can enhance the story--and I sometimes try to do that with dialog--but it's easy to let that get away from you as a writer. There are certain things that need spelling out.
It's funny you mention dialog tags, too--my editor pointed out a few of my more "creative" attempts in the last round of edits! Something I'll have to watch for.
Thanks James! :-)
Dialogue tags are a tricky one to get right -- occasionally varying them can work very well, but they become jarring so easily. This is where a great editor really helps!
A timely post for me, Ali! I'm in the process of writing a character with an accent, but of course, don't want to offend anyone (my character is the "good guy"). Thanks for your input!
Glad this was timed well for you, Ilana! Best of luck with your writing -- I'm sure you'll do a great job of conveying the accent without going overboard. :-)
I think accents are really hard Ilana - so I do wish you all the best :) I definitely struggle with this particular thing, and so I try to use vocabulary that is specific to culture as opposed to trying to portray accents e.g. Brits will say 'pavement' where Americans say 'sidewalk' - stuff like that.
An offshoot of #3 (Using Obtrusive Dialogue Tags) that I see is not using dialogue tags often enough. There's that fine balance, yes, but sometimes I'll read a section of dialogue and there are no tags at all, just a back-and-forth banter. After a long stretch of this I find myself going back to find out who said what. It sure takes me out of the story fast, and I try to watch out for it in my own writing.
I agree Harlow and this happened to me recently while reading Mark Haddon's The Red House - I was so confused, and at one point even inanimate objects seemed to be speaking. There was little use of dialogue tags and that put me off - it is literary fiction I guess, but too much experimentation makes it hard to read.
Harlow, great point, thanks for adding it -- like Jo, I completely agree with you here. It's very frustrating to have to count back through lines of dialogue to figure out what's going on.
This is a very useful post. And I would definitely like to read more articles like this that help with the writing itself. Not to say I don't adore all the marketing and publishing posts Joanna puts out here at The Creative Penn, but I do enjoy articles like this that allow me to learn about the writing itself.
Thanks Ali
The writing posts definitely get a lot of interest - but I do like to balance them Gary - because there are a LOT of blogs out there that only do writing :) and I take this as a whole business approach to being an author-entrepreneur.
That's understandable, and I hope it didn't come across as a dig. I love every post on here, and even if I don't always comment I find them all very useful. I just feel that I personally need more work on my writing at the moment.
No, of course not Gary :) I know you hang out here with us - we're all writers and we all need improving, that's for sure! Thanks for commenting.
Thanks Gary! For me personally, Jo has the balance of articles spot-on (in fact, if anything, I'm at a stage where I'm focusing more on the business side of things than the writing side) ... but I'm glad my post could tip the balance for you. :-)
Best of luck developing your writing!
I agree with your points Ali. I love dialogue and letting my characters tell the story.
Thanks Shaquandra! :-)
Thank you so much for this post. It makes a nice checklist.
Thanks Leanne! That was my hope. :-)
Great article. I've been reading them all, first response however. Dialogue is new to me since I am a history writer and have just gone over the line by giving my characters a voice.
Any suggestions on late 18th century Georgian dialogue? Keep the tips coming.
Fred, that's definitely not my area of expertise -- I've never tried my hand at historical fiction! My best tip would be to read some novels set in that time period that are generally agreed to be good, and study how they do the dialogue. You could also read novels written at the time (though obviously these authors will have had different standards from what's "expected" in the dialogue).
Very best of luck!
I'm doing some research for a historical novel and I've found letters, diaries, memoirs, periodicals, and newspapers from the period helpful for word choice, speech patterns, and expressions. Gutenburg.org, archive.org, openlibrary.org, wikibooks.org, manybooks.net, Amazon, http://www.history.org, universities, historical societies, the Library of Congress, Creative Commons... are a few places I've found books and documents free to download or read online.
Fred - another thing to keep in mind is that dialogue writing at the time was most likely not very natural. Dickens and other authors were often paid by the word, so they crammed every sentence of their book with as many descriptions as possible that even some people at the time found ridiculous! I've sent you a link to an article below called 'Silly Novels by Lady Novelists' by George Elliot, a woman who wrote during the Victorian era about how annoyed she was with bad novels written by air-headed women of the time, and she's got some bits in there about dialogue. It's not the Georgian era, but you might find it helpful. Good luck on your novel!
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/42607/
I've been reading Stephen King's "On Writing," and at one point he compares adverbs to weeds- as soon as you use one, they just start sprouting up all over the place. I had never noticed how horrible they were until he mentioned it. I feel like I'm learning to read like a writer now and actually identify the things that feel "off" about a page or a book instead of just having an odd feeling.
I really appreciate these tips. Each one is so solid and well-expressed; I'm stowing them away in my brain alongside King's recommendations and wisdom. I am so glad that I read this before working on more of my book! Thanks a ton for sharing it :)
"On Writing" is one of my favourite writing books, Jennifer. :-)
I think occasional adverbs are fine (and sometimes pretty much necessary), but over-using adverbs can really weaken a good piece of writing. The rule of thumb I've been taught, and try to use, is to let the verb carry the weight -- e.g. instead of "walked slowly and casually", try "ambled".
Really glad you enjoyed the post, and very best of luck with your writing!
Thanks! :)
I like the idea of letting the verb carry the weight. I'll tuck that in my mind too. Thank you!
Lord, I never thought that I would be making soo many mistakes in my dialogue writing. Thanks a lot for sharing! I'll defiantly use these tips from now on. Thanks again!
Glad to help, Vivek! :-)
Great summary, covers all the bases--thanks!
To me, the master of using dialect in dialogue was the science fiction writer Henry Kuttner. I wish I could do so well!
See what I mean with one of his short stories in a series written entirely in "dialect" here: http://www.pdfdocspace.com/docs/36327/henry-kuttner---cold-war.html
Wonderful example, Mark -- thanks! Another great one for anyone looking at the use of dialect is Kathryn Stockett's "The Help."