Tips & Tricks to Writing on Wattpad

5 Tips on Dialogue

5 TIPS ON DIALOGUE



1) Speaker tags

Don't try and show of your vocabulary when it comes to speaker tags. Try and keep it simple. Like 'said', 'asked', 'replied', 'yelled', etc. There's usually varying opinions on this, some people like it when there are different words, but personally, I think it's distracting. Also, I think publishers like it better when most of it is simple. I'll admit, I used to try and use as many different words as possible, but like I said, it's kind of distracting.
Think about it. When you read a book, unless you're purposely looking for them, your eyes kind of just skip over 'said'. If you were to use a word like.... idk, 'interjected', it kind of makes you stop and stare.
I bet some of you right now are like 'But using said all the time is so boring!'. You don't have to use 'said'.
-cue stares-
Didn't you just say we should use 'said'?

There's another thing you can use after dialogue to make it known who's speaking.
I think they're called 'beats' but I'm not 100% sure since Google's failing me right now.
Anyway, 'beats' -or whatever they're called (if it's wrong, someone tell me what they actually are please, instead of letting me look like an idiot?)- are actions the characters do. For example:
Bob smiled. "Thanks Sally."
We're not 100% sure Bob is talking, but most, if not all, of us would assume that he is.
You can use beats instead of speaker tags to make who's speaking known.


2) Dialogue isn't 100% like how we talk in real life

Let's face it, most of us sound pretty stupid when we talk in real life. And a lot of our conversations are pretty boring. If we were to copy real life conversations directly into books, it'd look something like this:

"Hey."
"Hi!"
"How's it going?"
"Pretty good, you?"
"Good."
-silence-
"So, anything new?"
"Not really, you?"
"Same."
-cue another silence-
"...Did you hear about what happened in Japan?"
"Yeah! Tragic, right?"
"Yeah."
-more silence-

I have a feeling most of you skipped most of that. I don't blame you. Sometimes, our conversations in real life have no point what so ever. They're filled with silences, and random subject changes, and unfinished thoughts, and 'um's and 'well's and 'you know's. If we were to write dialogue like we that, books would be ten times longer and a hundred times more boring.
You can still put in some stuttering or 'you know's every now and then to show nerves, or nonchalance, or whatever, but keep them to a minimum.
Same with pointless conversations like the on above ^^


3) Your characters really shouldn't sound the same

I hate it when all the characters sound the same. They say the same thing, describe things in the same way, etc. Someone who was raised in a wealthy family that's always in the press won't talk the same way as a normal person. They'd be more careful about what they say, possibly use longer words, they probably wouldn't swear, etc. A gang leader won't talk in the same way as a billionaire CEO.
Your characters should have their own voices.
It can be personal, too. Maybe someone just doesn't like using a certain word. My friend doesn't like the word 'smart'. My other friend hates swearing. Another of my friends doesn't really like using long words.
Your characters should have pretty distinct voices. It doesn't have to be like, if you were to take away the speaker tags, you'd know exactly who's who, because let's face it, that's really hard. But they should have different ways of saying, and describing things.


4) Don't even try and type out that accent

If you have a character from a foreign place, please don't try to type out their accent. It's hard to read, and pretty much no one's going to say it out loud to see what it sounds like. Just say 'they spoke in a ___ accent'. Or have them stumble for a word, and say it in their language. Don't do that too often, though, because that can get annoying.


5) The Q&A isn't hiding your info dump

I've seen a lot of books do this. Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Paranormal especially.
It's where there's one character who just asks questions, and another responds.
I get it, they're curious, and it's necessary information. But try and find a better way to do it. If you're going to do a Questions & Answers scene, put in jokes, interruptions, irrelevant comments, anything that can hide the info dump better. Don't have the characters reply in long paragraphs, because when I see that, honestly, I just want to skip it.
A way to make the Q&A more interesting is make it tense. The character asking the questions could be really doubtful, and maybe make jokes about the other character's answers, and the character answering could get annoyed, or something like that. Put in some drama.



Next tip: Description

~JJ :)