How to Write Believable Dialogue

Note: How to Write Believable Dialogue originally appeared on MetaStellar’s Writing Advice of the Week column.

I’m going to let you in on a secret: The key to writing believable dialogue is mimicking the way people talk in real life. Because authentic dialogue between characters is the same as the dialogue we speak to others. However, there’s also more to it than that.

Crafting dialogue is a skill that writers need to work on the same as writing descriptions and creating dimensional characters. Besides being authentic in the same way real conversations are, dialogue also needs to avoid certain pitfalls. So how do you write and maintain believable dialogue? Read below to find out.

How to Avoid Bad Dialogue

First things first, crafting good dialogue means characters avoid two main things when they speak. The first has to do with how they speak to other people. The second has to do with how readers experience their dialogue when they speak in general. Let’s talk about the first one first.

How characters speak to the reader and what readers expect – the second thing about dialogue is that readers experience how the characters talk. By that I mean that they interact with the character. When a character’s dialogue becomes repetitive, or predictable, filled with cliches and tropes, then readers are left disappointed. Let’s say a giant robot attacks the city where your group of characters lives. If one of your characters shouts, “We’re all going to die!” that’s a typical line of dialogue that a character might say. It’s so typical that people might call it cliched. This not only becomes something readers can guess someone will say, but it also reduces the character who says it to a stock comedy character. By taking away the realistic dialogue, you take away the dimensional aspect of the character.

How characters speak to other people in conflict (hint: avoid the drama) – when characters have conversations with each other, their dialogue should have an authentic flow to it, one that carries emotional weight. However, when they speak to other people, you can fall into bad dialogue by forcing your characters to be dramatic. Too dramatic. Like you’re writing a soap opera. A key to good dialogue, especially in a tense situation or in any kind of conflict, involves keeping your characters from directly saying what they mean.

Another aspect of this is having your characters talk in “therapy speak,” something I’ve seen as a growing trend in books lately. Characters know how to explain their problems like they’re talking in therapy, and being able to speak like this only adds to the drama. None of this is good to have. So when you write, understand what your character wants to say, then bury it under layers of confusion, or anger, or awkwardness. This adds to the realism that makes up good dialogue.

As you can see, dialogue connects to the character as a whole. Good dialogue helps your character shine because it adds to their complexity. Bad dialogue takes away this complexity and flattens them out. However, there’s a way to avoid these pitfalls.

Mimic the Way People Talk in Real Life

Now that you know the different pitfalls writers can face when they write dialogue, let’s get into the heart of crafting good dialogue. Like I said, good dialogue mimics real life. I’m going to explain a little bit more about the things I listed earlier.

1. Keep things realistic by breaking things apart – when you write dialogue between two people, they can do everything from talk over each other, interrupt someone when they’re speaking on accident, stutter, and more. Any one of these things reflects how real people speak, making your characters more fleshed out and dimensional.
2. Don’t forget to add different emotions – another aspect of bad dialogue is the lack of emotions, or too much emotion. Good dialogue incorporates emotion that lends itself to the complexity of a character. For example, characters need to express confusion in a confusing situation, or anger in a rage-inducing situation. Sounds simple enough, right? But bad dialogue either dials this up to eleven or doesn’t occur at all. Think about what your characters need in terms of emotion in any given scene, then write their dialogue accordingly.

Incorporate Your Action with Your Dialogue

Lastly, dialogue and action go hand in hand. Good dialogue especially works with action so that the dialogue continues to flow naturally, even if it’s broken apart by action. Here’s an example I wrote that shows how dialogue can be broken apart:

“OK, so that’s one two…” Hailey paused in her counting. “There’s only three cans of soup here. Where’s the fourth?”

This example uses ellipses to break up dialogue, along with the action of Hailey pausing. In this case, the dialogue continues to flow because it’s realistic. Here’s an example with em dashes:

“What are you—?” Alex stuttered. “What are you talking about?”

In this case, dialogue is not only broken up by these dashes, but this also conveys confusion without being unrealistic. From the example, you can tell that the situation is confusing based on what the character says. Bad dialogue would otherwise have your character explain that something doesn’t make any sense by basically telling the reader what’s going on. The classic line “This doesn’t make any sense!” comes to mind.

There are also ways to use hyphens to break up dialogue while still maintaining a flow of words. This comes from using hyphens. Here’s an example:

“S-Should we go b-back?” Carol shivered in the snow, tugging her coat tighter around her.

In this example, the character stutters because she’s cold, which readers can also infer from the description. But the hyphens also help to convey this.

These examples help add realism to good dialogue, creating dialogue that mimics real life, just like what I talked about. Keep these things in mind whenever you go back into your draft and need to start crafting dialogue.

Happy writing!

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