Dialogue gives readers insight into your characters’ feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and motives. How can you write dialogue that effectively adds depth to your characters and story? How can you use it to create tension while driving your plot forward?
In this article, I’ll share five simple ways to tighten your dialogue and make it more compelling.
Five Simple Ways to Write Compelling Dialogue
- Craft It To Sound Natural
- Create Unique Voices
- Use Tags Sparingly
- Embrace Silence (Subtext)
- Be Careful With Exposition
Writing compelling dialogue is an art form unto itself, and like anything else, it takes practice to get it right. We know what it should sound like. We can identify it in a novel or when it’s delivered powerfully in a movie or show. But knowing how to craft the right words can be challenging, if not intimidating. Fortunately, I have a few simple tips to help you craft better dialogue and make it more compelling.
Craft it to Sound Natural
There’s a difference between writing dialogue that emulates how people talk and crafting it to sound that way. Everyday conversations are hardly engaging, but there are crucial elements like flow and syntax that ring true. Write dialogue with the same tone and nuance as a real discussion, but craft it to reflect your character’s unique perspective. You can achieve this by removing unnecessary filler words and repetitive phrases.
Above all, know your world and what makes it unique. Write dialogue that fits your created reality to sound natural to that specific time and place. No one knows that world better than you, so have fun exploring the possibilities.
Create Unique Voices
Think of every scene in your story as a high-stakes poker game. Your characters are the players, and each comes to the table with cards that reflect their unique set of emotions, secrets, and motives. We won’t know what they’re holding until they decide to turn those cards over.
The words of each character and how they deliver them ought to ring true. Giving each character a distinct voice is essential while ensuring they remain consistent throughout your story. Make their words reflect their personality, background, and motivations while giving them a unique point of view so that they feel more complex.
Use Tags Sparingly
Dialogue tags are words and phrases designed to break up, precede, or follow written dialogue. Simply put, they indicate who is speaking, making it easier for your reader to follow the conversation. While these help avoid confusion, they can become repetitive and distracting if overused.
One way to create variety is to add actions or descriptions that indicate who is speaking. For example, let’s review the dialogue from a scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones has just begun his quest to find the Ark of the Covenant and he travels to Nepal to ask Marion for information about the headpiece to the Staff of Ra.
“I need one of the pieces your father collected.,” Indy said
Marion pounced, her fist smacking him across the jaw. “I’ve learned to hate you in the last ten years.”
We know Marion is upset and angry about something because of her actions. We don’t need to add “she said” to her dialogue because we already know she’s the one speaking. This is a prime example of “show, don’t tell”. Using action instead of a tag draws more attention to your characters’ emotions and motives, making for a more dramatic scene.
Embrace Silence (Subtext)
While spoken dialogue is effective, it isn’t the only way to reveal how a character feels or what’s on their mind. Sometimes, it’s the things your character leaves unsaid that speak to their emotional complexities.
Silence forces your readers to fill in the blanks, which causes them to become more emotionally invested. Your character’s words are like the tip of the iceberg above the water while their silence speaks to the mountain of ice below. And if you do it right, your readers will want to keep reading to discover how deep that emotional iceberg goes.
Be Careful With Exposition
It can be tempting to use dialogue to reveal additional information about your world, its history, or lore. But you need to ask yourself whether that dialogue makes sense in the context of a conversation between your characters or if it’s purely for the sake of your audience.
While the general rule is to avoid exposition altogether, it is a necessary component, especially in genres like sci-fi and fantasy. So, how do you include that information without it sounding artificial and contrived?
For a solid example, consider the scene between Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope.
This scene covers a lot of ground. There’s a lot of information here about Luke’s father and his friendship with Ben Kenobi. We learn about lightsabers, the Jedi, the Old Republic, the Empire, Darth Vader, and the Force in just two minutes. How are we not overwhelmed by it all?
First, the scene focuses only on what’s essential. The information is sprinkled into a conversation that evolves organically, making good use of pauses and silence to break things up. Second, the conversation is driven by Luke asking the same questions the audience is asking, which makes us want to hear Kenobi’s explanations. Finally, the whole scene is accentuated by the introduction of the lightsaber, which serves as a symbol of the Jedi, hearkening back to the “more civilized age” that Kenobi is describing.
If exposition is necessary, look for creative ways to sprinkle it organically into your narrative. Tie revelations about your world with new revelations about your characters. This makes the story less about their history and more about how that history is affecting their choices.
Summing it up
Dialogue should convey something more significant than what’s being said. It’s meant to reflect emotion and shed light on your characters’ inner struggles, ideals, and motives.
I hope you found these tips helpful as you work to develop tighter dialogue. Don’t worry about getting things perfect right away. The writing journey is a process that takes time and lots of practice. The important thing to remember is that it is a skill that can be learned. So, enjoy the process. Keep striving toward your goals. And above all, keep writing!
Until next time,
