Writing Tip #11: Dialogue

Dialogue is basically one, two or more people in an exchange of conversation in your story. Dialogue is a tidy way to move a story forward without a lot of description. Characters can tell each other what is happening, describe locations, have judgments the narrator might not want to have and can move time along.

Here are four terrific dialogue insights to help you make good choices when approaching dialogue in your own storytelling:


1) Dialogue must characterize and capture the voice of the speaker…Everyone has a natural cadence and dialect to his or her speech. We nearly always speak in simple sentences, not complex compound ones. We might say, "When the rain comes, the grass grows," which has one short dependent clause beginning the word with "when"; we aren't likely to say, "Whenever it happens the rain comes, provided the fertilizer's been applied, grass grows, unless it's been masticated by cows grazing thereon"—a simple sentence or main clause ("the grass grows") festooned with wordy subordinate clauses.

~ Brenda Miller & Suzanne Paola Tell it Slant:

2) The way you craft conversations between characters can effectively elevate the tension in subtle or overt ways. If your protagonist wants something from the other character but doesn't want that character to know, tension underlies the seemingly innocent conversation. Another character may want information from your protagonist, who sidesteps the issue. Or, the dialogue can be openly confrontational. In any case, the exchange pushes the story to the next plot point.

~ Laura Backes, Write4Kids.com

3) As with sentence length, avoid loose, baggy lines of dialogue. Cut to the chase.

~ Sue William's Silverman from Fearless Confessions

4) My Rule is to not over-think dialogue and try to sound as natural as possible....Read your dialogue out loud and ask yourself--does this sound normal?

~ Paula Balzer from Writing & Selling Your Memoir:


Now let's take a look at a solid example of very effective dialogue from Faraway Places by Tom Spanbauer:

"This boy's too old to give a licking to, but I'm going to," my father said.

"The boy didn't do nothing," my mother said.

"He jumped in the river!" my father said, and stood up fast, kicking the chair back, "and I told him to stay clear of that river and those people. Now, just look at this mess!" my father said, moving his face right up against hers.

They stood like there like that, the two of them, my mother and my father, squared off, my father's hands becoming fists.

"You're going to lose that boy," my mother said. "You can't beat that boy for this."

"Mary," my father said. I had never heard my father call my mother that. "Leave us alone now. This is not a woman's concern."


These lines are clean and mood is so well established by these sparse lines of dialogue that are as harsh and as controlled as the characters themselves. The two are not talking to the narrator but the narrator is witness to the moment. The lines of dialogue are haunting and more so because the listener (the narrator) is the one who is going to get the beating.


Now you go write.

The Prompt:

1) Imagine two people in a setting, on a stage almost and they are having a disagreement. It could be a big fight or more subtle. Write dialogue between these two and make each argument convincing. The goal of this exercise is to see how dialogue reveals character and complexity in human relationships.

2) Go to a public place and just write out dialogue around you.

Do one or both and see what comes up for you. Enjoy listening in. Enjoy writing dialogue and if you have more say (and I hope you do), put it below in a comment.