Write.

Dialogue

Tricky, tricky thing is dialogue. I'm no master of it, that's for sure. It does get easier, though.

I'm gonna keep this one short and sweet because I think all the advice that's already out there is pretty solid and I can't really add much more to it, but if you want my personal advice, here's what I got.

Listen to how people talk.

Not everyone who speaks English speaks the same language. We all have unique rhythms and energies to our speech. Some people are monotone and dull, others are very sing-song and excitable, some sound nervous, some are confident, et cetera, et cetera. Listen to their choice of words, too. Everyone has a unique lexicon, and it's as individual as a fingerprint. Do they use slang? Are they using big words like 'lexicon' to try and sound smarter than they are? Pay more attention to people's speech and try and put your finger on what makes them sound the way they do.

Don't listen to how people talk.

Dialogue in books and films is not at all like real speech. If you fancy doing an experiment, go to a coffee shop and eavesdrop on someone's conversation and transcribe just a minute or two of it—all the um's and ah's and long pauses and repeated words. Now read it back. It's unprintable! Normal speech is terrible, both for content and flow (more on that below). If you want, try and take that conversation and edit it down to something vaguely readable. You'll end up cutting about 75% of it. That remaining 25% is the dialogue we're after: real talk condensed down to tidy, compact sentences that say only what needs to be said and not a single syllable more.

Lastly, good dialogue should have a good 'flow'.

When you read it through, it should sound clean and natural and not draw attention to itself. The best way to work out if your dialogue flows well or not is just to read it out loud, and if it sounds awkward, tweak it until it doesn't. Don't stress if you can't get this right away; it's one of those things that takes time to get your head around. My dialogue used to suck big time and hey, I'm still improving. I have no idea how many times I write and rewrite my dialogue over and over again, just to make sure it flows well.

Ultimately, dialogue is just a means to an end; it's useful but not entirely necessary. You could write an entire book without any dialogue at all, so long as you have a great story...

Dialogue just helps move things along quicker.