10 Keys to Writing Dialogue in Fiction

Key 1: Dialogue is an Expression of Character

Dialogue is the impression of how people speak in real life, but actually much more interesting, with more forward
motion. Dialogue is one of the core elements of storytelling, and it needs to be used well.

Dialogue is an expression of character, background, education, locality, and circumstance. Listen to how people talk
and you’ll see that who they are and the situation they find themselves in will influence what they say and how they
say it.

Key 2: Prune Real Conversations to Create Realistic Dialogue

Most writing manuals agree that while you should listen to people and imitate speech patterns, you shouldn’t use
verbatim conversation. Writer Aaron Elkins gives an example of an actual conversation he recorded:

“You know how, how…but..some mornings the minute you walk in the door—”

“Every morning.”

“Yes, that’s how these, the way they, the way they…”

“No, it’s not. It’s not the, the—“

“Yes, it is, it is. Because if you, unless you—“

“No, uh-uh, absolutely not.”

While accurate to real life, that would be terrible dialogue for fiction.

If you’re not supposed to use actual conversation, how do you write realistic dialogue?

Aaron Elkins explains: “Realistic dialogue attempts to capture the flavor of real speech, but it does it selectively.
Word repetitions, hesitations, stammers, and dead ends have to be ruthlessly pruned. So do many of the polite
conventions.” (page 136 — see end of post for sources and further reading)
William Noble makes the same point, giving an example of how people actually speak, and what good dialogue
looks like.

How people actually speak:

“Where do you live?”

“230 State Street.”

Good dialogue:
“You live around here?”

“If you want to call it living.”

Key 3: Use Dialogue Attribution (also known as Tags)

One of the key decisions you have to make when writing dialogue is how to attribute it to your characters. A “tag” is
the noun (or pronoun) and verb you use next to a quotation. When it comes to writing, there’s actually a lot of
debate on how you use tags. Having read the arguments, to me it seems that it comes down to the style you want to
write in and the impact that style will have on the reader.

Aaron Elkins explains that there are “three camps” for approaches to dialogue.

Camp 1: He said/she said. Don’t use any adverbs or fancy verbs.

“Wonder where his mummy is?” said Harry, frowning.

“Given her the slip by the looks of it,” said Ron.

“Why, though?” said Hermoine.

–Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling

Camp 2: Vivid verbs. Be expressive!
Sample verbs: Snorted, sighed, chuckled, gasped, exclaimed, rasped, hissed, etc.

I couldn’t actually find a book on my bookshelf that used just vivid verbs. Apparently they’re out there, and I’m just
reading the wrong genres.
Camp 3: Some variety, but try not to draw too much attention to it.
Elkins says this is his approach, and that he tries not to use an unusual verb like “whispered”.

“Barnabus Wren,” I said impatiently, “why do you shake so? Have you seen a ghost?”

“No,” he confessed, “but all the talk is that you have, Keturah.”

–Keturah and Lord Death, Martine Leavitt

Key 4: Omit Attributions When You Can

If it’s a dialogue between two people and it’s clear who is speaking, you can get away with giving attributions every
five or six lines.

“It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some sort
of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.”
He smiled, and assured her that whatever she wished him to say should be said.

“Very well. That reply will do for the present. Perhaps by and by I may observe that private balls are much
pleasanter than public ones. But now we may be silent.”
“Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?”

“Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour
together; and yet for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged, as that they may have the
trouble of saying as little as possible.”
“Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?”

“Both,” replied Elizabeth archly; “for I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds. We are
each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will
amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb.”

“This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure,” said he. “How near it may be
to mine, I cannot pretend to say. You think it a faithful portrait undoubtedly.”
“I must not decide on my own performance.”

–Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Key 5: Mix in Action or Thought

One of the most powerful dialogue tools is to include actions and characters thoughts, mixed in with the dialogue.
This can actually be used as a replacement for dialogue attribution. Or it can be used to add a “beat”: when a person
is speaking, sometimes you need a pause between parts of what she is saying in order to add emphasis or show a
passage of time, and an action beat can be a perfect way to do that.

“Let’s go to the bow.” I tugged on Elle’s sleeve.

She made a face. “I said I’d meet the others from lunch by the pool.”

I hesitated, darting my eyes between her and the receding deck.

“You go.” Elle gave me a gentle push. “Just be sure to meet us for dinner at seven, okay?”

–A Change of Plans, Donna K. Weaver

This example uses a mixture of tags and action:

“Does that server look familiar?” Marasi asked, turning and watching him go.

“He must have served us last time we were here,” Lord Harms said.

“But I wasn’t with you last—”

“Lord Harms,” Waxillium jumped in, “has anything been heard of your relative? The one who was
kidnapped by the Vanishers?”

“No,” he said, taking a sip of his wine. “Ruin those thieves. This kind of thing is absolutely unacceptable.
They should confine such behavior to the Roughs!”

–The Alloy of Law, Brandon Sanderson

Key 6: Limit Your Use of Adverbs in Dialogue Tags

Most writing experts agree that you should use adverbs in dialogue tags as rarely as possible, because it distracts
from what the speaker is saying and it can often be more useful to provide an actual action the speaker performs
(“Ryan flinched”) than give a modifier about how they’re saying something (“Ryan said flinchingly”).

Of course, every single book I looked at for examples used adverbs in the attributions, but seemed to do so very
selectively. Here’s an example of good adverb usage:

Again there was some silence as Mitchell Sanders looked out on the river. The dark was coming on hard
now, and off to the west I could see the mountains rising in silhouette, all the mysteries and unknowns.

“This next part,” Sanders said quietly, “you won’t believe.”

–The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien

The key is asking yourself, can someone actually verbally say something in this manner and is this the very best way
to say it? If the answer is yes, use an adverb. If the answer is no, change it to an action or a description. For example,
“he said quietly” is physically possible to do, and it’s a useful adverb. But as Tom Ciarella points out, “she said
quaintly” is not truly possible to do—she might be a quaint person or dressed in a quaint way or be looking at a
quaint portrait while saying something, but there’s no real way to say something quaintly.

Key 7: Interject Silence or a Change of Subject

Sometimes instead of coming up with a direct verbal reaction from your character it’s better to use silence, or have
your character change the subject. Tristi Pinkston writes that “Sometimes the absence of dialogue says more than
dialogue itself.”

Pinkston gives a nice example of revealing things about a character through what she chooses not to say and
deflecting a question:

“What happened to Greg?” I asked.

Viv stepped over to the window and pulled back the curtain, staring down to the street below. I wondered if I
should break the silence, but she finally said, “Let’s go out to dinner. I want a good steak and some mashed
potatoes.”
 –Tristi Pinkston

Key 8: Test your Dialogue

As a cardinal rule, you should always read your dialogue aloud. It might look good on paper, but before you speak
it, you’ll have no idea what it actually sounds like.

It’s also a good idea to look at the dialogue of an individual character across the entire novel, to make sure it’s
consistent. It takes time, but it’s worth it.

Key 9: Look for Inspiration from your Favorite Authors

The Romans used imitation as a way for students to learn oration. It’s a great way to learn writing techniques as
well. Open a book on your shelf to a random page, and analyze how the author uses dialogue. It may also be useful
to analyze dialog in the genre you’re writing in.

Key 10: Consider what Each Line of Dialogue Adds to the Story

William Noble gives five things he thinks good dialogue should do:

 “characterize the speaker;

 establish the setting;
 build conflict;
 foreshadow;
 explain”

Each line you include should have a very clear purpose. But you can just force dialogue on your characters to meet
your own ends as an author–it has to be dialogue that works for your characters and their desires. One of the most
useful pieces of advice for writing dialogue comes from Kurt Vonnegut: “Every character should want something,
even if it is only a glass of water.” When your characters are talking, as a writer you should be very clear on what
each character wants, even if they’re not openly sharing that with each other.
Whether it’s adding to characterization, to plot, or to foreshadowing, every line of dialogue should forward the story.
Make it count!