Your Guide to Writing the Perfect Story

Writing Effective Dialogue

Dialogue is a large part of a story. In fact, some people seem to like it so much that they write their entire story in it. This is not effective and neither are many other things that people like to do which I will go over. I've already taught the punctuation for dialogue and now you need to learn how write it.

Tip #1:

This I have already mentioned. Do not make your entire story dialogue! You have to balance out your story with narration unless you want your readers brains to explode all over their screen. Why? Because you can't tell an entire story using dialogue. If you could, there would be no point because your characters already know everything they need to in order to solve the problem they are faced with. This I can assume if your characters talk the entire time.

Tip #2:

When you are writing dialogue, think to yourself, "would someone really say this?" A lot of the time dialogue is so unimaginable that readers have no idea what to think. Make sure that it would be something someone would really say. Another example of this is talking for a really long time. Unless it's a speech or rant, people don't generally say a whole lot at a time. Think of conversations with your friends. Usually they consist of words like "yeah" and "okay" or "cool". This being said, it is possible to bore your readers with everyday conversation, so I'll go over that in another tip. Plus, we tend to say "um" or "like" in a lot of our sentences and we stutter. . . a lot. It's okay to say these things once in awhile but if you include them all the time, people start getting headaches.

Tip #3:

Don't have run-on sentences unless you are trying to make a point about a character and how they speak. Run-on sentences are confusing in narration, but especially so when you are trying to understand what a character is trying to tell someone. Pay close attention to this so you don't get away with yourself.

Tip #4:

This builds on the everyday conversation thing. The truth is, a lot of what we say is boring. Try to cut down the unimportant stuff from all of your dialogue. All that goes unsaid. Dialogue should be used because it is needed to be used, not because you have nothing else to do in order to fill your chapter.

Tip #5:

A good use for dialogue is to develop a character's personality. It's an excellent way to show what a character is like instead of telling your readers. A gangster would talk very differently from the Queen of England, for example. You can use dialogue to help distinguish characters from each other, especially when you have a large cast.

Tip #6:

Don't let everyone talk the same! All characters are different and they have their own opinions and things they might say. If your character is part of a certain culture then let it show in how they speak. Make everyone unique to the point that if there were no dialogue tags whatsoever, your readers could still tell who was speaking.

Tip #7:

Remember to stay in character in dialogue. The always angry and rude character isn't going to suddenly start talking like the president. It doesn't make logical sense. Their tone of voice should stay the same unless their character goes through a tremendous change.

Tip #8:

Here's the fun part. When you are speaking, your characters can have fragment sentences and they can abbreviate and basically say whatever they want. Grammatically, dialogue does not follow the same rules as narration does. Don't overdue this, but realistically your characters won't speak in perfect English all the time.

Tip #9:

In books, movies, and shows, there is one thing that really hits home in the readers hearts. What is this, you may ask. Parallels. People love parallels and it's especially easy to include in your dialogue. If one character helps another get through something or teaches them an important message, we love when it is mentioned again. Now, I absolutely adore the show "The 100" and you may not have watched it or didn't enjoy it like I did, but nonetheless, I have an example for you. It's not very specific so there aren't really spoilers. This example of a parallel focusses on the interactions between Clarke and Bellamy.

Example:

In season one, Bellamy is responsible for something horrible that happened.

Clarke: "You need want forgiveness? Fine, I'll give it you. You're forgiven, okay?"

Later, in season two Clarke has also made a horrible mistake that resulted in a huge tragedy. Bellamy remembered what she told him long before.

Bellamy: "Clarke, if you need forgiveness, I'll give that to you. You're forgiven."

In the fandom, this parallel is a huge thing and people who are a fan of these two characters always seem to come back to it. There are so many parallels in this show and I think it's the reason that the fans love it so much.

Tip #10:

It's time to talk about accents. They can be very hard to achieve and a lot of time people overdo them. Here's a short guide to perfecting them. For one, if it is an Australian or British accent you can't necessarily tell in dialogue so in the dialogue tag, tell your readers that they are talking in an accent. Another thing is that you should research common sayings for these nationality's because that will make it more believable.

For southern accents, you don't necessarily need to say they have an accent in the dialogue tag because you can tell from the abbreviations they use, like the words "ain't" or "'cause". Always, always research your accent though, so you can avoid stereotyping and know how to do it properly. If your character with an accent speaks another language, like French, they might get their tenses mixed up because it's different in their language. For example, they may say "I go to the market" instead of "I am going to the market". These are all things to keep in mind.

Those make up my tips for writing effective dialogue. Please give me your feedback. Remember that when you are writing a character that is racist, or sexist, or homophobic, etc, this does not mean that you, the writer, are like that. You don't need to avoid having a character say offensive things if you are trying to make a point, especially if you are advocating against topics like racism. I hope this clears that up. Thanks for reading!