Writing dialogue: the dos and don’ts

Dialogue is one of the cornerstones of great fiction writing. Whatever genre you’re working in, and whether your novel is literary or commercial, your characters need to speak to one another.

Why? First, because talking is just what people do. A book where the characters didn’t have conversations would feel totally unrealistic, not to mention decidedly odd.

Just as importantly, dialogue provides blessed relief from long stretches of narrative description. While these are crucial for establishing context, worldbuilding and setting readers’ expectations, they simply aren’t sustainable over 300 pages. Dialogue is immediate and immersive: it lifts the tone of a scene and quickens its pace, providing vital balance. I think of it as a load-bearing wall: something that keeps the shape of your story sound, and its structure strong. Without it, your novel could sink beneath the weight of too much ‘telling’.

This leads me on to another reason why dialogue is so very useful for us authors. It allows us to show, clearly and effectively, all sort of things that might be tiresome to describe. Want to make clear that one character has history with another? Give them an opportunity to bicker about something that happened years ago. Need to signal that someone in your novel is more educated than they claim? Give them a short speech where jargon they’ve no business knowing creeps in.

In my Write With Jericho lesson, I go deep into the theory and practice of writing great dialogue – and I also explain how internal monologue can intersect with what your characters say out loud. Here, I’m going to share a few dos and don’ts that should help you while you craft or edit your characters’ dialogue. I hope you find them useful.

Do give your characters distinct voices.

Think about accents, dialect and vocabulary. A wealthy, Oxbridge-educated lawyer will likely sound different from someone who’s grown up in poverty, left school at sixteen and has spent time in prison – and please note, that remains true even if the characters are of equal intelligence!

What can the way your character speaks tell us about their background, upbringing, education and social status? Does their voice truly reflect who they are inside? If not, why not? (I’m looking at you, Charlotte from The Traitors…)

Do make characters’ speech appropriate for the situation.

We all modify the way we speak, depending on who we’re speaking to; we chat with friends and family in a very different way than we’d talk to a job interview panel! While your character’s dialogue needs to stay consistent with who they are, you also need to allow for subtle shifts in how they speak.

Do remember that most speech is informal.

Unless you’re writing dialogue for a novel set in another world or time period, I’d always recommend using contractions and keeping your characters’ speech casual. In real life, we usually say ‘I can’t’, or ‘I don’t’, not ‘I cannot’ or ‘I do not’. Informality is key for making your characters’ speech believable. It ensures their conversations feel overheard, rather than artificial.

Don’t allow your characters to speak in soliloquy or conduct Q&As.

Unless you’ve created a Winston Churchill-style character, it will feel unnatural for them to make long, uninterrupted speeches. Likewise, most conversations involve meandering and obfuscation – especially if one person is trying to extract information that another isn’t keen to share. Very rarely do any of us give a straight answer when we’re asked a point-blank question, so bear this in mind as you write.

Do make your dialogue work hard.

We’ve all heard the advice to strip adverbs out of our work and use simple dialogue tags – and I’m not the woman to gainsay it. Broadly speaking, if you’re choosing the words your characters speak carefully enough, they can do an awful lot of heavy lifting for you. Want to imply your character is shouting? Show their growing exasperation through the words inside the speech marks. Want to make it clear they’re grief-stricken? Use words that show this, so you don’t need to tell readers how they feel.

Don’t overuse exclamation marks and italics.

This is an especially useful tip for when you’re editing dialogue: if it’s riddled with exclamations and italics, you probably need to tighten it up. Too much shouty, slanty content is a sign your dialogue isn’t strong enough, or that you didn’t have full confidence in it as you were drafting. Review it and see what could change.

Finally, don’t worry that everything your characters say needs to match up perfectly with what’s going on inside.

In fact, it’s thrilling for a reader when a character’s internal monologue contradicts what they’re doing and saying. This dichotomy is often key for developing a strong connection between your reader and your story’s protagonist – so exploit it if you can. Show them that your character’s outward loathing of their workplace rival hides a powerful, secret crush; signal that the perfect wife’s devotion to her husband is the smokescreen for her dastardly murder plot.

For more on dialogue and internal monologue, don’t miss lesson three of Write With Jericho – now available for Premium Members.

As always, happy writing!