In creative writing, dialogue is a form of communication that is used to drive a plot, show character, or even tell the reader something they need to know. Dialogue involves two or more characters and is an important aspect of your story.
If the dialogue is horrible, then the story becomes less interesting. The dialogue lets the reader hear the characters speak and this makes the characters feel more real to them. The following tips will help you bring your characters to life through dialogue.
Ensure That Your Dialogue Serves a Clear Purpose
Dialogue does a combination of different things: drive the plot, show character, or give information. A dialogue that drives the plot will leave the story incomplete or decrease the level of suspense if it is absent. A dialogue that shows character will reveal a character’s traits, motivation, fears, and desires.
The dialogue that provides information is tricky, while you want to give your readers this important detail, you should do it in a way that does not seem fake or unrealistic.
Identifying Dialogue Purpose in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
In the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (by J. K. Rowling), the dialogue between Albus Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall primarily relays important information. Through this dialogue, readers learn the reason behind all the strange things that have been happening across Britain throughout the day.
This dialogue also drives the plot, as the story would be incomplete if readers went from the Dursleys going to bed to Hagrid arriving with Harry. This dialogue relayed some important backstories that add to the level of suspense, as the reader anticipates what might happen to Harry from here on, what happened between Harry and Voldemort, and where is Voldemort now.
The other secondary purpose of this dialogue is to show character. From this dialogue, readers learn quite a lot about Professor McGonagall and Albus Dumbledore.
Ensure That Your Dialogue Is Not Too Realistic or Too Fake
It is important to understand that though you want to give the impression that it is—dialogue is not transcribed speech. Therefore, you should strive to minimize or eliminate pleasantries, fillers, and small talk.
You should only create dialogue for important conversations. This means eradicating fake and redundant dialogue. This is when a character says something to someone that they should already know, or when you give too much information. This usually results in the conversation sounding unnatural.
For example, instead of saying: “As you know Kim, Pamela is at the festival.” Try showing that Pamela is at the festival in some other way, like allowing one of your characters to glimpse her in the crowd.
Avoid Using Adverbs
Adverbs are words that end with “ly” and usually come directly after a verb. They are known to distract readers from the dialogue when used as tags, so, you should try to avoid them.
Example
Instead of saying: “The cops are coming,” Jake whispered nervously.
Try saying: “The cops are coming,” Jake whispered.
Ensure That Your Characters Sound Unique
Your characters need to sound different. Each character should have a different body language, a different philosophy and perspective, and a different background. It is, therefore, within reason to expect that your characters will sound different. Readers should be able to learn a great deal about characters through the things that they say.
For instance, if you want to show that a character is excessively chatty, then you can have this character participate in constant redundant dialogue. You can also show a character’s education level through dialogue. A character that dropped out of school in fifth grade is less likely to use words like introspection.
Unique Character Voice in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
In chapter one Dumbledore is presented as a whimsical and empathetic character, through his dialogue with McGonagall.
Novel excerpt: “You can’t blame them,” said Dumbledore gently. “We’ve had precious little to celebrate for eleven years.”
While McGonagall is strict and has a deep sense of duty.
Novel excerpt: “I know that,” said Professor McGonagall irritably. “But that’s no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes.”
Ensure That You Alternate Between the Two Types of Narrative
One of the best ways to make your dialogue dynamic and keep your readers engaged is to create a balance between the two narrative types in your writing. The two narrative types in fiction are dialogue and exposition (or showing and telling). Though dialogue is important and sometimes required to make a story successful, too much dialogue can be exhausting for readers.
Therefore, you can aim to reserve your dialogue for showing important aspects of the plot. If you use dialogue to show everything that happens in your story, your dialogue will eventually show unimportant aspects of your plot that you can easily show through exposition.
Ensure That You Format Your Dialogue Correctly
There are a lot of things that you should consider when creating dialogue, formatting your dialogue correctly should be at the top of that list. Knowing how to format dialogue plays a pivotal role in creating powerful dialogue.
You should know where to put the tags, how to use punctuation marks, how to include action, and how to represent different speakers.
When the Tag Comes Before
If your sentence starts with a dialogue tag, place a comma before the dialogue and start the dialogue with a capital letter.
Example: She corrected, “No, it’s a p as in pastor.”
When the Tag Comes After
If a dialogue tag follows a quotation, a comma should end the quotation.
Example: “Wayne loves vanilla,” she said.
When the Tag Breaks the Dialogue
If you choose to interrupt dialogue with a tag, ensure that you place a comma after the first half of the dialogue, before the second half of the dialogue, and that the tag starts with a lowercase letter.
Example: “Possibly,” answered James, “but I don’t see it happening.”
When the Dialogue Includes Action
You should use a separate sentence to show an action that happens before or after a dialogue.
Example: Jess gasped. “You’re lying.”
Example: “Tell her they’re leaving at 5.” Dennis slams the door and storms off to the living room.
When the Dialogue Contains Inner Quotes
If the dialogue uses double quotes, then you should place the inner quote in single quotation marks and vice versa.
Example: Paul stared at the ground. “He looked at me and said, ‘You are not good enough to make the team.’ Then he chose Phil”
When Using Punctuation Marks
If your dialogue ends with a question mark or an exclamation point, the tags that follow should be in lowercase and the punctuation should still be inside the quotation marks.
Example: “Run for your life!” she said.
When Using Em Dashes
An em dash indicates an interruption.
Example: Stephon drawled, “That’s just how life is, you win—”
“Shut up already!” said Israel.
When Using Ellipses
When using ellipses, you should not add any punctuation.
Example: “Sometimes you just start to wonder…” he sighed.
When Using Different Speakers
Always use a new paragraph to indicate a new speaker.
Example:
“It’s such a wonderful day. You can almost feel the joy in the air,” said James.
“For you it is,” muttered Joe.
If a character speaks enough words to require more than one paragraph, ensure that each paragraph starts with a quotation mark but only the paragraph at the end of the speech should end with a quotation mark.
Final Thoughts
You can build great characters through the things that they say. Dialogue is much more than simply a few words in quotation marks. It allows you to show the reader what is happening instead of telling them. In a sense, dialogue is much like a superpower that you pull out for the important stuff.
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