Writer Wednesday: Fiction Dialogue

Writing fiction dialogue is hard work. Fiction dialogue versus what we actually say are very different things. When I sent my first manuscript off to an editor, she came back telling me to work on my dialogue. She highlighted some points that she said wouldn’t work. Many of those conversations were ones that I have really had. I was confused. If that was something I said in real life, how couldn’t that transfer over to my novel?

When you write dialogue, there needs to be a purpose behind it. The dialogue should be moving the story forward, developing a character, adding to the plot, create a voice/tone for a character, showing conflict, showing time transition, etc., etc., etc. Get it? It took me awhile, but I realized that a conversation between two characters should not sound like this:

Jasmine: “Are we meeting at Perkins tonight?”

Abby: “Yes, we are meeting at Perkins at seven o’clock tonight.”

Jasmine: “I love your purple tank top.”

Abby: “I got my tank top on sale at Kohl’s.”

Jasmine: I, like, totally did not get what Mr. Matthews was saying.”

Abby: “That history teacher is whack.”

Those are just a few different examples of what fiction writing should not sound like. You don’t want your characters to be formal with each other. The words they are saying will read stiff to the readers, and they will quickly become bored and pulled out of the story. You also don’t want to make your characters say anything obvious. You don’t want to use dialogue for the sole purpose of letting your readers know that you have one brother, two sisters, grew up in California, and have a poodle. The fillers that we use when talking, such as the word “like” also should be cut from your dialogue, or very rarely used. Remember, every word in a novel needs to count! Finding those fillers and deleting them is a good way to lower your unnecessary word count. Another way to make dialogue sound more real is to have contractions. How does this read:

Jasmine: “I am going to the store. I will not forget the grapes.”

Abby: “You are always forgetting them. I did not see you write it on the list.”

Who really talks like that? Using contractions, for example, taking “I am” and making it “I’m” will sound a lot better!

Read your dialogue out loud. Your ears will be able to pick up what sounds stiff, formal, or just not right while you are reading. Ask a friend of family member to read it over. Getting a second or third opinion will help. Dialogue is so important when writing, if your dialogue doesn’t work, readers will have a tough time sticking with the story. I will be touching more in depth on dialogue over the next few weeks. If you have any tips that you would like to share, please do so below!