Writing: The In-depth Approach

Chapter 4: Dialogue

The dialogue in a story is more than just an exchange of words between characters. Dialogue gets information across to the reader. It insinuates and implies things. It can reveal personality and the relationships between characters. Matched with gestures and emotions, it can tell us if your character loves a person to bits, or if they'd rather cut the person into bits. In some instances, you may not need dialogue at all to imply something in the conversation. You might need silence instead.         

To write dialogue, you should first think about how your characters would speak. They might speak casually, or formally. They might have an accent. (Don't go overboard with accents. Your reader needs to understand what the person is saying.) Your character might use jargon, words used by a special profession or group that others might find hard to understand. If you've ever watched a medical drama, you'll know what I'm talking about. A doctor in your story might mention the words hematoma, haemorrhage, contusion or pneumothorax, etc. When you use jargon, make sure the reader will be able to understand the dialogue. For some readers, a character who speaks in jargon may as well be speaking in another language. A character might use colloquial language. They might use idioms, words or phrases that are not taken literally (e.g. Out of the blue. Jump the gun. High as a kite, etc).

The next time you are in a public place, or even at home, listen to how people talk. People hesitate in speech. They stop mid sentence. They say small things like: um, you know what I mean, like, ah, erm. Now in your dialogue, you can include these pauses and these small words, but avoid going full out. Your aim as the writer is to get the information across. So speech taken directly from a real person might not be the best option. When you write, like, um, like this, ah, you, erm, aren't really, you know, doing it, ah, very clearly, you know what I mean?

Also a word of warning about cliches. Avoid clichés in dialogue. Cliches are overused phrases and words. They lack originality and read as tired and overworked on the page. These include phrases like: Dead as a doornail, blind as a bat, fit as fiddle, a diamond in the rough, every cloud has a silver lining, what goes around comes around, etc. Try using different ways of expressing these cliches. Make them fresh. For example, you could turn 'Lucy was as blind as a bat' into 'Lucy was as blind as a short-sighted pensioner'. Make your cliches fresh and new.

He said, She said

To start off, let's focus on the structure of dialogue. How does it look on the page? How do we identify who is speaking and who is not?

a) Structure

When it comes to dialogue, there are a number of ways you can structure it. Here are two of the basic structures. First of all, start dialogue on a new line. For instance:

...Miranda plumped up the curled ringlets in her hair.

"Do you like my hair?" she asked.

Darren grimaced, waving the chemical cloud of hair spray from his face.

"How much hairspray did you use? I think I might need a gas mask."...

Dialogue can also trail together. This might happen when a character is explaining something. When it is written like this, it may sound like the character is pausing for breath. For instance:

...Miranda rolled her eyes.

"I didn't use that much," she retorted, rolling her eyes. "Just enough to hold it in place."...

When it comes to the structure of dialogue, just do whichever feels right at the time. Sometimes you might feel that dialogue runs on, joining up with the next line of dialogue. If in doubt, just start the dialogue on a new line. These are just two basic ways of writing dialogue. There are other ways to structure dialogue. When you read novels, be on the look out for other interesting ways you can structure your character's dialogue.