One Tip for Better Dialogue

I struggle with dialogue. In fact, a professor once read my story out loud to the class to demonstrate how bad it could be. I wanted to crawl out of the room when he held up my paper and said, "Listen up. This is what you don't want to do."

If I can save anyone this kind of humiliation, I've done my job on this planet. So here goes.

Good Dialogue

Characters aren't just giving the reader information when they speak. Good dialogue moves the story forward and communicates everything from character development to plot points.

There are all kinds of tips for improving your dialogue:

• listen to other people talking

• understand your character's background

• don't make lengthy speeches and make it brief.

• etc., etc.

My question always was . . . but HOW do I make my already terrible dialogue better?

Speak Up

What ended up helping most was reading it out loud.

If you want to be adventurous, you can get your friends to take different characters and have them read it out loud. This is really effective for screenwriters.

But you don't need buddies. Just belt it out and see what your characters sound like. If it's bad you'll be glad you did it solo. My dialogue has been so bad at times I thought I would get craps from so much cringing.

Listen Up

When you're speaking, listen to yourself closely. Do the conversations sizzle, push the plot forward and expand the characters? Or do the characters sound off? Stilted? Similar? Are they saying things you've never heard another human being say?

If you're a natural, that's awesome (and we'd prefer you not rub in our dialogue-challenged faces). If you're like the rest of us dialogue dorks, just keep talking. It might take a while, but you'll start hearing a difference. The dialogue will become smoother and the characters will start to sound more natural.

It may take a while . . . but what do you have to lose. It beats having your professor read your paper in front of the class.