Dos And Don’ts Of Dialogue

Dos And Don’ts Of Dialogue

Dialogue: either you’re great at it, or it’s your worse nightmare. Writing dialogue can be difficult, confusing, and frustrating. Here are some tips to clear the air when it comes to dialogue!

DON’T overuse dialogue tags

From the very beginning, writers are often told not to overuse “said”.  While this is sound advice, it can create the false notion that “said” is never to be used.  This simply isn’t true!

Stay away from repeating creative dialogue tags one after another, especially if it’s redundant.  For example, if there’s an exclamation point after a sentence, you don’t need to say that the character exclaimed or yelled.

Often, a dialogue tag isn’t even needed.  Just end the dialogue without a tag.

DO use “said”

Repeat after me: IT IS OKAY TO USE “SAID”!

I’m guilty of this one as well.  The urge to not use “said” too often becomes a habit of never using it and replacing it with unnecessary dialogue tags.

Just use said!  It will make your writing seem far more mature than if you used something like “growled” or “stated”.

DON’T go on tangents

Dialogue should be realistic.  If you have a character that is known for going off on tangents, then by all means do so.  If you’re going on a tangent to seem “artistic”, you might want to cut it off there.

My biggest pet peeve with modern young adult literature is that writers try to combing their need to prove they can write beautiful prose with dialogue.  Don’t.  In the end, it’s just unrealistic and a cheap way of trying to show your talent.  Leave the long-winded metaphors for your narration, please.

DO use unique speech

Everyone speaks differently.  This could mean accents, slang, catchphrases, or misused words.  Include this in your dialogue!

Colorful dialogue creates colorful characters, and allows the reader to be able to easily distinguish who is speaking (without dialogue tags!).

DON’T overuse phonetics

Though accents can be a great way to create colorful dialogue, phonetically spelling every word according to the character’s accent can get annoying fast.  Stick to spelling out the most important words.  After a while, the reader should be able to read that character’s dialogue with their accent in mind anyway.

DO show, not tell

Every writer has received this advice at one point or another, but with good reason.  Dialogue is the best way to put “show, don’t tell” into practice.  However, writers often think that dialogue itself counts as showing.  Though dialogue is a better tool than description in these instances, it doesn’t completely serve as a way to show on its own.

Telling: “Hey, calm down.  You look nervous.”

Showing: “Hey, calm down.  You haven’t stopped tapping your foot since we got here.”

DON’T repeat names too often

I too fall into the trap of constantly clarifying who is speaking.  When you’re writing, it feels natural to say things like “’How are you doing, Jim?’ ‘I’m doing well, Pam.’”, but the reality is that no one speaks like that, especially to people they’re close to.

Most of the time, you should use names in dialogue tags and greetings.  Otherwise, use names sparingly.