Chris Rogers, Author

Writers' Easy Guides: Dialogue

Story people reveal themselves through conversation, not merely by the words they choose but also in their tone of voice, their pauses, gestures, and body language. Characters boast, question and speculate. They rage and banter and share confidences. Give your story characters a chance to talk, and they will reveal themselves in ways that might amaze you.

"Say What?":
9 Common Dialogue Mistakes

For some writers, snappy dialogue comes naturally. Others struggle to make character conversations sound realistic and exciting—and struggle they should, because dialogue can quickly attract readers and draw them into your story.

Dialogue makes your story reader friendly. Readers eagerly scan a page for the white space and quotation marks that signal a conversation between characters. Dialogue is active, immediate, quick to grasp, whereas dense paragraphs of narrative indicate heavy reading and will often make readers put the book down.

Poorly written dialogue usually suffers from one or more of the following problems.

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A Variety of Voices:
Devise a Voice Profile for Each Character

Who can forget Eliza’s “oawoo!” from My Fair Lady or Yoda’s “stubborn you are” from Return of the Jedi? Distinctive characters not only come instantly alive and draw us deep into the story world, they also live on in our minds. We quote them. We admire them or fear them. We even refer to them as if they were real folks.

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