6 Ways to Better Dialogue

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6 Ways to Better Dialogue

By Jeff Heisler

Question: What's wrong with this segment?

"Hey John!" Sam shouted.
"Yeah, what?" John replied, puzzled.
"Look at this," Sam implored to John.
John replied, "Look at what?"

Answer: A lot. It needs some work in dialogue

mechanics.

So what are the rules for dialogue in fiction?

Let's go through a few points in no particular order.

1) Simple dialogue tags work best. The most

effective tag in fiction is "he said" or "she said." No

"he uttered," "he stated," "he implored," or anything

similar.

2) You don't need a dialogue tag on every line.

Here's some examples for illustration:

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"Hello sweetheart," he said.
"Hello honey," she said.
"How was your day?" he said.
"Fine, how was yours?" she said.

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Now- let's look at it again without so many

tags.

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"Hello Sweetheart," he said.
"Hello honey."
"How was your day?"
"Fine, how was yours?"

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Ahh- that's better. In the second example we

get the dialogue without being distracted by the tags.

3) You can also use to few tags. IF you have

long strings of dialogue, make sure you throw a tag in

now and then so the reader doesn't lose their pace. A

good way to do this is to throw some action in there

with the dialogue. For example, if you've had a long

exchange between the husband and wife in the eample

above you could throw in a line like this.

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She sat down at the kitchen table. "I went to

the bank today," she said.

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That exchange breaks the monotony of the simple

dialogue exchanges and places a touch of action, however

small, into the scene. It also serves to keep the

reader tuned to the right speaker. It's easy to get

lost in long lines of dialogue. This technique helps

readers keep their place.

4) Leave exposition out of dialogue.

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"Come on in the car," Frank said.
Sam hopped in.
Frank started down the road. "This car is

great," he said. "It has a 255 horsepower engine,

sunroof, and a great stero system."

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Let's try this instead.

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"Hop in," Frank said.
Sam hopped in and sank back into the passanger

seat.
Frank turned on the radio and opened the sunroof

before they started off down the road. The engine

roared and pushed Sam back in his seat. He smiled at

Frank. "Nice car."

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5) Compress dialogue that contains needless or

repetitive details.
For example, let's say a character who we'll

call John has just been told an amazing story by another

character named Mike. Now John needs to share that

story with Betty. Instead of repeating the dialague the

reader has already heard, just do something like this:

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"Wait till you hear this," John said. He told

Betty the whole story.
"Wow," said Betty.

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There, now you're ready to move on with the

story.

6) Use dialect sparingly. It's too taxing on

the reader's mind. If you have a character from Texas

with a thick southern accent, instead of this:

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"Y'all ain't see nothin' like dis here messa

trouble."

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Use this:
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Kip spoke in his thick Texas drawl, "You all ain't seen

nothing like this here mess of trouble."

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That's it. Use those rules and your dialogue will show

that professional style you've been looking for. Good

luck.

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Jeff Heisler is a freelance writer and editor of Write

Away.
Read more of Jeff's writing articles at

http://www.heislerink.com/writeaway.asp.
You may also write to Jeff at jheisler@heislerink.com
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