Tips for Writing Good Dialogue

It is true that some writers have a natural ear for dialogue. Others have to work at it.
Good dialogue is a cross between art and everyday conversation. The key to good
dialogue is that it is interactive. In other words, dialogue is about response and
reaction—response and reaction not only to what is said but also to how it is said through
words and actions.

1. Listen to How People Talk. Having a sense of natural speech patterns is essential to
good dialogue. Pay attention to the way people talk. Develop an ear for the expression
people use in everyday conversation. Eavesdrop on student conversations on campus.

2. But Not Exactly How People Talk. If you've ever read a transcript of a trial or
interrogation, or any taped conversation, you're probably aware of how disjointed and
awkward most speech is: cut-off sentences, repeated words/phrases, bad syntax,
ramblings, interruptions, and pauses. Consequently, you do not want to just mimic natural
conversation in your script, but you do want it to sound natural. You are aiming for
somewhere in the middle, for an artistic representation of they way people naturally
talk—as Hitchcock said a good story is “life, with the dull parts taken out.”

3. Exposition vs. Action Dialogue. There are two kinds of movie dialogue: Expository
& Action. Expository dialogue says something about your characters—who they are,
what they want, why they want it, etc. Action dialogue is what moves the plot forward.
Expository dialogue builds your character’s personality. It gives the audience a chance to
learn more about who your character is. Advancing action moves the plot forward from
one scene to the next. Every screenplay is built on a combination of the two. Know
which kind of dialogue you are using and why.

4. Avoid Talking Heads: Repetitions (Mirroring), Interruptions, and Non-

5. Parallelism or Paired Constructions

Aaron Sorkin, David Mamet, and David Milch use paired construction in many of their
lines of dialogue. These are balanced sentences where one phrase is balanced or even
paired with another or several other phrases—sometimes to the point of repetition.

“We’re organ donors to the rich. The Red Sox took our kidneys and the Yankees took our
heart.”
“Second prize’s a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”

“Mr. Hickok will lie between two brothers. One he likely killed, the other he killed for
certain. And he’s been killed now, in turn.”

Other examples of paired constructions:

• “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been
somebody instead of a bum which is what I am.”

• “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

• “I feel the need, the need for speed.”

This form of balance or pairing can turn a basic unassuming line of dialogue and turn it
into a classic. Which sounds better?

“James Bond” or “Bond… James Bond.”

6. Dialogue Tied to Character Personality: Totems. One of the biggest mistakes that
novice writers make is to create characters that all sound alike. This makes for flat-
footed, uninteresting dialogue. It is vital to create a voice, a way of speaking, for each
character. Does the character speak in short sentences? Do you have a character that
rambles? Is he uneducated? Does the character speak in perfect grammar or does she
make a lot of grammatical errors? You can create a very stiff, very proper type of
character by simply having him use large words that are unfamiliar to most people.
Another character speaks in sentence fragments. Everyone has at least one speaking quirk
or totem. You can use conversational peculiarities to enrich your dialogue and
differentiate your characters. For example, in the 1962 classic To Kill a Mockingbird the
young, southern, girl Scout always calls her father by his first name, Atticus, and utters
grown-up expressions like, “What in the Sam Hill?” Atticus, a lawyer, is better educated
than most of the townspeople, and his speech reflects his relative refinement. Strong
regional accents are heard in some of the supporting characters, the "poor white folk."
The African American characters have yet another way of speaking. The blending of all
these voices lends the drama texture and authenticity.

7. Break Up Dialogue with Action. Remind your reader that your characters are
physical human beings by grounding their dialogue in the physical world. Physical details
also help break up the words on the page: long periods of dialogue are easier for the
reader's eye when broken up by description. (And vice versa, for that matter.)

8. Have the Action Lead to the Dialogue and the Dialogue Point to the Action. This
connection is often achieved by focusing the last sentence of the action on the person
who is about to speak, and the last sentence of the dialogue leading to some action.
9. Images or Gestures Can be a More Powerful RESPONSE to Words than More
Words. Sometimes an image can takes the place of a long speech, and more powerfully.

Consider, your hero goes into a bar and encounters a teacher he’d admired when
attending college, twenty years before. The teacher looks down on his luck and is drunk.
The hero asks him what happened. In the first draft you give the teacher a long speech
about how he’d turned to alcohol and at first it seemed to help him but then he lost
control of it, etc.

In the second draft the teacher just lifts his shot glass and says, “This. This is what
happened.”

Maybe he didn't need to say even that.

10. Don't Overdo Dialogue Tags or Dialogue with parentheticals. Another mistake
that inexperienced writers tend to make is to put emotional keys under the character, e.g.,
Susan said sympathetically, David said a little angry. Actors simply hate that. Unless a
line can be mistaken because it can be read two ways, then it just isn't worth putting in
the description. If the line is ambiguous, then it might be worth putting in a descriptive. “I
just love that!” (sarcastically). But aside from that one exception, try to eliminate that
kind of direction from scripts. You can give the attitudes in the shot descriptions, but
don't keep repeating them throughout the dialogue. You want the reader's attention
centered on your dialogue.

11. Cut, cut, and then cut some more.