Dialogue is one of the hardest-working components in fiction—but only if you take full advantage of it. It’s easy enough to make your characters talk to each other and even relatively easy enough to make what they say interesting to readers. But if interesting is the only burden your dialogue is carrying, it’s not doing […]
September 29, 2010 by 37 Comments DialogueDon’t Overuse Names in Dialogue
One of the biggest challenges for any writer is creating realistic dialogue. It’s surprisingly difficult to recreate the patterns and nuances of human conversation. If you can write ace dialogue, you’ll have agents, editors, and readers all clambering at your door. You can start by making sure you’re not falling into one of the most […]
September 22, 2010 by 32 Comments DialogueWhy Every Protagonist Needs a Dialogue Buddy
Although some successful novels feature lone-wolf characters who face the world and its challenges by themselves, clever authors will sidestep the pitfall of leaving a main character without someone to talk to for the majority of the book. Your protagonist’s fellow conversationalists can be varied and multitudinous over the course of the book—but usually, you’ll […]
June 16, 2010 by 40 Comments DialogueInfo Dumps Don’t Belong in Dialogue
Dialogue is such a handy little technique that we sometimes try to force it to carry more of a load than it should. One of the loads dialogue should never have to bear is the weight of info dumps. When characters start telling each other things they already know, just to keep the poor ignorant […]
June 9, 2010 by 37 Comments DialogueWho Said What? – Identifying Dialogue Speakers
Dialogue is one of the most interesting and useful parts of any story. As readers, we all love a witty conversation, but what we don’t love is when we have no idea which character is saying what. Why Failing in Identifying Dialogue Speakers Is Sure to Give Readers a Headache Having just finished a memoir in […]
December 20, 2009 by 34 Comments DialogueDialogue Mistakes: Are Your Characters Talking Heads?
Good dialogue is one of the most enjoyable parts of any story—both for the reader and the author. But dialogue alone isn’t enough to make a scene. Perhaps you’ll recognize the following dialogue mistakes from your own reading—or maybe even (gasp) your work-in-progress: “John, where have you been?” “Oh, just… out.” “Out where?” “You know, […]
