Dialogue

Dialogue occurs between two or more characters, representing what people say.

Interesting Dialogue

You want your dialogue to be interesting, not dry and boring.

What Not to Do

Don’t use dialogue to inform the reader of background; this creates boring dialogue. Besides, I taught you better than that.

Attributive Tags

Use simple dialogue tags and don’t worry about overusing “she said”; it keeps the focus on the dialogue and not on the characters’ ejaculations and spews!

Conversation

You can show dialogue with formatting: begin a new indented paragraph when the dialogue switches in a conversation

Keep it Real

Keep dialogue realistic by using slang and incomplete sentences. We don’t speak in proper English, so don’t write proper dialogue!

Dialogue Beats

Dialogue beats are short, descriptive lines in between the dialogue that create interest: “Nah, I don’t mind,” Dan shrugged his shoulders and grinned as he wiped a dirty bandana across his forehead, “Let’s do this thing.”

Internal Dialogue

Save the quotation marks for spoken words, and use italics for thoughts or internal dialogues.