10 Tips for Writing Dialogue
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ส.ค. 2024
- How do you write good dialogue? I'm sharing 10 tips that might help you write more organic, purposeful dialogue with natural patter. These are pretty basic--I can perhaps do a 201 version with in-depth examples in a future video! Juggling multiple speakers is one specific thing that bears further examination (and something I've had to teach myself and I still struggle!).
00:00 Introduction
00:43 Eavesdrop
01:26 Study successful authors
02:30 Enter late, leave early
03:50 Everyone is individual
05:30 Write around feelings
07:07 Skip some dialog tags
09:18 Avoid redundancy
10:27 Interrupting is okay
12:17 Organic character reaction
15:05 Feedback
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I love the complexity of writing dialogue. One important cheat in my process is to "reserve" some words or phrases for certain characters. I don't mean trying to use them all the time when they're talking, but rather blocking certain expressions from other characters' speech. Because I know we all have our favorite expressions or ways of saying things, and I don't want to rub them on all my characters. So I distribute how much of my speech is embedded into each character, and that way I'm able to differentiate them a bit better.
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oh this is smart
Yea honestly that’s what I was thinking lol then u move on to ur family and the homies then ur comic or in u guys cases movies or books it’s filled wi the ppl u kno well I’ve noticed some of the characters we love the most are based on actual known ppl or personal relationships of the author
Exactly, give them personality in the dialogue
Would love that, but I find problems when using it on people who talk to each other everyday. That is because their manner of speaking leech to each other and with enough time they will share the same traits in speaking.
Agatha Christie is a great writer to study for dialogue. In dialogue her characters reveal themselves, leave clues wonderfully disguised by tangents and red herrings and provide sneaky humor...it's brilliant.
Any specific book recommendations for her? I've heard of her before, but haven't read anything.
@@SysterYster Then There Were None is the ultimate classic of hers and quite brilliant. My personal favorite, and it's a bit different form her usual books, is The Man in the Brown Suit. All of her earlier books are great. As she got older she lost some of the tightness to her writing, but I still enjoy it.
@@alaskau9175 Thanx for the suggestions! :) What genres are they? I'm mostly used to reading fantasy, horror and sci-fi. lol. Though I do try other stuff now and then.
@SysterYster it's a detective mystery! :)
Another helpful source (since going to restaurant’s can be difficult for some right now 😅) is “the listening project” by the bbc. It’s basically a whole library of actual conversations that have been recorded for anyone to listen to. They’re also super varied too so it’s good to have a look through them 😊
That's so cool!! Thank you for sharing :)
dId the people know their conversations were being recorded?
@@firstnamelastname-oi3cp they would have to, else the bbc would be sued
@@veslarkinson not necessarily, no. Depends where the conversation took place and if there was a reasonable expectation of privacy
I like to take a turn-of-phrase used regularly by one character and have it eventually picked up and used by another character as they become friends over the course of the book. It feels authentic since people do that in real life.
Writing a dialogue scene as a screenplay without any tags at first is a great excersize to have a more emphasized 'character's voice' and it will turn out way more natural too.
Also Six of crows is a perfect example of different character's different approaches to a conversation and agenda
Writing dialog comes a little more naturally to me. The characters' personalities and speaking style usually falls into place, and it's honestly so much fun to write. One thing that I definitely need to work on is a reflection moment. Could you do a video on tips to do it. Mine are usually just "the room fell silent." 😂😂
"There was a pause."
"Awkward silence took over them"
Idk much but I think you can change that line like this
I think "Reflection moment" means reaction + introspection, so using a very basic example it would be more like:
"I'm pregnant"
I inhaled sharply. Surely she was mistaken? Stay calm...
I like the line 'character a contemplated this. "speech"' bx it tells u that the character needs to take a moment to digest the information received before responding. it comes across as very self-contained
I think another key aspect of good dialogue is subtext. That sometimes the whole dialogue scene is about something that isn't said, or character tensions that are never worded but felt through either word choice, punctuation or action tags. Subtext can really level up good dialogue and also prevent melodrama
I'm not sure how universal this is, but I need to make sure I've eaten before I start writing or else the characters start to get grumpy in their dialogue. Almost like I'm projecting a little... :')
What’s fun with me is that I realized something about one of my characters recently. His name is Fritz and I had realized that something he never does in dialogue is stutter. He’d never go, “I-I’m not sure.” He is always direct and level headed. Now I’m hoping to have a moment where Fritz does stutter in a moment where for once he is unsure, not in control, and afraid. Hopefully readers caught onto his never stuttering, at least sub consciously, and that moment will be impactful.
Im not even a novel writter, i write comics and videos, but this channel is so helpfull! I love studying the craft of story telling as a whole and i love the way you teach Alexa! So thank you fore everything!
I'm just now realizing how much working as an audio transcriptionist probably helped my writing. Thousands of hours listening to how real people (and doctors) talk, and editing it for readability.
I really... really like action tags and describing what a person is doing while they talk. It makes them feel more real and sometimes I'll purposefully add in oh, um, ah to give them a little more life sometimes. It's not necessary but for a bumbling character it adds more to them lol
ohs, ums, and ahs definitely have their place in dialogue! They're excellent for showing when a character is flustered or startled. :D
FIRST ONE YES MESS WITH ME IM COMPETITIVE
Does 111 count?
@@tanishjain7851 course it does!
When I'm struggling with a scene, I like to go for a drive and talk out loud as the characters. Like I'm acting out a scene in a movie or something. I get really authentic dialogue that way, and when I get home, I write down all the dialogue first, before I forget. Then I go back and fill in the narrative. Either that, or I use a dictation app just for the dialogue as I'm driving, so I don't forget anything
Okay, so I'm not the only one who does this. I always thought I was a little strange because I bicker back and forth as different characters on my drive from work to figure out scenes. (I have a 30 mile drive to and from work each day. It's how I kill time haha.)
@@ShammyKat lol I definitely do that all the time. Unfortunately now that my husband works with me, I can't use my drive time at work to do this anymore. :( but I'll just take a random drive whenever I feel the need to get the creative juices flowing.
I do this in the shower or when I can’t sleep, like I go through a characters internal monologue about some random thing to get used to their voice. I also jsut do this to get used to speaking as an npc for dnd.
I have found my background in acting very helpful in writing dialogue. While drafting, I would walk around my room and improvise converstaions in-character. It helped me keep distinct voice and helped with pacing. I am in revisions now so of course I am tweaking and improving it, but I still use this "hack" and it is so helpful. I look a little funny talking to myself, but it seriously helped!
I’m trying to write my first book right now and you don’t know how much I NEEDED this. I keep getting stuck at parts where I need dialogue and I obviously can’t progress the story without it. Sooo thank you!!😊
Oh my gosh, thank you so much! I was just struggling with writing dialog last night! The pages always turn into a movie script with major white room syndrome!
I was struggling too!
Me too, Alexa definitely knows her viewers well! ❤️
alexa i don’t know if i can express in words how much i appreciate your videos! they’re super clear, concise, and super helpful
Exactly
I really needed a video about this. Perfect timing, Alexa. Thank you!
I really need this right now!
Love this, I've been working on a lot of dialogue this weekend this is just what I needed to hear.
The characters having a mind of their own can be so true - it’s so funny and sometimes amazing to see how interactions and scenes unfold. I literally outlined that my main character would meet Character A first and yet here comes Character B smacking right into her. It’s like whenever I’m looking for one outcome to happen, Character B was actually the better choice to get the characters there.
So happy you're back!!!!
I do love it when I hear a tip and I've already used it in my book. One gold star for Laura.
Thank for these tips - helpful as always, Miss Donne!!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I really needed this! Time to revise and make each character more unique.
Your videos are so helpful, thank you! Trying to level up my fanfiction.
Hi Alexa! I just recently found your channel and think you are AMAZING! You have so much insight into writing and publishing and I have really been enjoying learning a lot from your videos!
My queen!!! I'm in such deep slumber right now, I won't write a single word, but still your videos are so great, as always! Love you!
Super helpful! Love this kind of stuff. :)
I love action tags because nobody is standing still when they're having a conversation and it makes things flow naturally between dialogue tags, action tags and just untagged lines
Working on editing my book...and by that I mean writing the second draft and changing so much stuff!!! Love these videos.
Also, my characters will start arguing with each other in my head while I'm trying to write and they sometimes change the story.....
I [heart emoji] writing dialog! It enables me to simultaneously (or at least compactly) present the characters' backgrounds, sneak in info so I don't have to dump it, and reveal the different levels of knowledge and awareness that each char has (of the Suspenseful Thing).
Another tip might be that not everything shoul be put in a dialogue, sometimes body language can be waaay more affective than words
(Sorry if the sentece is not perfect, english is not my first language and I’m still learning💖)
Awesome video! My readers always say they lose track of time reading my dialogues, so I'm pretty confident on them!
All of these were great, but also girl your eye makeup is so good
oh my you are soooooo helpful thank you!!
This sound advice was nicely put. Thank you Alexa Donne for these 10 beneficial tips for dialogue writing. :)
For me, dialouge is pain. I do struggle with description sometimes, but I don't feel lost doing it. Though thanks to you, this video and other great authortubers I'm getting there. Reading and seeing it also helps a lot
I've avoided dialogue my entire life but I've just started a WIP that dialogue-heavy. This was very helpful thank you!
These are excellent tips, Alexa! Dialogue is definitely something everyone struggles with. In fact, when I used to read on wattpad, it was obvious that many newer writers did not understand dialogue at all.
I've made a video on dialogue writing too. It deals with the technical aspects of it: the punctuation and the formatting, basically the stuff you need to know after watching Alexa's video! Bonus: to illustrate my points, I've taken dialogue examples from the Hunger Games series! Have a look, it might bring your attention to things you didn't notice before. I've tried to cover everything in that video :)
Thank you for this video! You are younger than me but I look up to you.
Omg thanks for making this video I was having extreme trouble with my diolage!
I always like it when someone says a line to show a change in a character or a switch to their perspective, and the other person would react to it, "If I didn't know better, that sounded like a compliment."
ive always lvoed writing dialogue, and this was so helpful. i also have a mute character which makes it that much more fun and funky
I have to remember to read dialogue aloud! That seems like such an obvious and great tip! Haha
This isn't so much help for dialogue as it is characterization in general, but one tip my bff gave me for writing different characters is to write out an actual interview with your own character, that way you can get a feel for both personality AND how they would talk.
Nice video!!!
i love writing internal dialogue to get in the mind of my mc during conversations they have with other characters, but I never let that internalization last too long in my dialogue sequence because I find it breaks the pacing of the conversation. I find that the reader is sort of taken out of the moment for too long and then it's awkward to jump back into the external dialogue. I learned this first just by reading. Sometimes when I read a book I find that the internal feelings of the mc go on for too long and then when we are taken back to the conversation I have to rewind and figure out where the characters left off in their conversation. It's normally not a huge problem but it does makes for some slight confusion. But I think most of the time all of the important details to the internalization can still remain if you just figure out a way to make your writing clear and concise, so that it doesnt run on forever
On tip 1, I did that with coworkers back when the factory I work at was still partially under construction, and we were trying to launch a new car model at the same time. It helped immensely in making interactions among my fictional pirates more believable.
When I was in high school, I wrote some "companion novels" and that taught me how writing a scene from multiple POVs could help improve the dialogue. I would reach scenes I had written from one POV and now had the full context of the other character. It helps me fully get into the POV of every character, instead of having the non-POV character just speak to serve the POV character. And most of the time, it makes the dialogue more interesting and also makes the character dynamics more textured, rather than having other characters just be plot devices or exist to serve character arcs.
Thank u Alexa 😊
I think having other people read and analyze the dialogue is the best way to check your authenticity and clarity of the dialogue. ❤
Cool!!!
One of my biggest issues is keeping in mind my characters age. I'm in highschool, so when I wrote short story based in highschool with lots of banter last year, I was pretty pleased with how the dialogue came out because I was pretty close in age. But now, I'm writing a more somber story about a young fostering dad and a young teenage girl and because I am neither age, I'm constantly having to remind myself a 26 year old man is not going to speak the same as a 14 year old girl. Since I'm 17 and am not around older men often nor go out to listen around, I find that TH-cam and Twitch are my best friends when looking for guys around the age I need to understand. The girl I can just study my younger sister and her friends.
Also the time your characters are in; a 16 year old in 2023 is not going to talk the same as a 16 year old in the 50's.
Amazing tips.
This is college level stuff right here.
Thanks for the tips Alexa
I'm definitely more into action tags, like "he place his head on her lap", but in polish you have more than one option for "said", so it is easier
Sapkowski and Tolken are two of my favories. I love to read and write fantasy. They are amazing with different types of characters and races speach. For example i am never confused when getalt is speaking in the witcher. He speaks with a lot of action and a man of few words. Compared to dandelion who doesnt know when to quit.
Dialogue is my Achilles heel! I avoid dialogue like a plague. Thx for the video Alexa.
Thanks Alexa.
Dialog looks like it's sooo misspelt! :-)
Yay for the -ue!
This video is very helpful! Thankfully my agent is willing to work with me despite my horrible dialog.... I have a lot of work ahead of me😔
Lubię cię słuchać.
Great video! Also your makeup is gorgeous, what foundation do you use?
Right now I'm mostly wearing Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Foundation, and I top it off with Laura Mercier powder.
@@AlexaDonne thanks ❤ it looks stunning!
I was just writing dialogue! Whoaaa
I don't know if my dialogue is any good, but it is the thing that comes easiest to me. A potential issue for me is, in an effort to avoid 'talking heads' (and also because I always feel like I'm underwriting) I always end up interpolating not just action tags but sections of description (of tone, facial expressions, stances, movements, etc.) until lines that were originally on top of each other might end up being paragraphs apart. Which loses the momentum of the exchange.
Hi!I really want to start writing, but I don't know where I can publish whaterver I write.Can you please suggest an app or whatever that I can use(except Wattpad, already tried it and it doesn't seem to work well)?Thank you!
Before I started to use Windows-10 U used a text to voice software to hear what material sounds. This also caught typos and repetitions of words. Now, since that software won't run on my machine under 10 I use the similar function in Microsoft Word, a reader which has equally well trapped typos, comma goofs and run on sentences.
I'm just curious. I know you mention that it's important to give every character a distinctive voice so they don't all sound same, and I agree that it is very important to do that, but what about characters who, for example, are younger, children, or grew up in an area, where everyone sounds similar, even if individuals characters think differently? Like a child who wants to appease their parent/sibling, or a person in an institution who, in one way or another is parroting the message of their institution/peers? In that case, would it still be upsetting to read the character sound so similar to the others around them, or could it be used to creep out the MC or assert something about the character/institution/group? And if so, how do you think that's done best? (A famous character that comes to mind for this is Team Avatar's guide in Ba Sing Se in A:TLA, as well as the hesitant citizens of Ba Sing Se in providing information to Aang about Appa and the war.)
i'm not really sure if this question makes sense, but in my book it's a bit of a plot point that my character is going back to 'sophisticated life' which includes to him a lot of boring dialogue that i want to weave that in without actually making it boring. any tips?
One of my biggest things about dialogue is avoiding a certain type of redundancy. If someone yells "I fucking hate you!" then it's entirely unnecessary/redundant to add 'he said angrily.' The dialogue shows the anger, you don't need to tell us. But you DO need to tell us if the subtext is different from the text. "I fucking hate you!" she said with a giggle. - lets the reader know that the speaker is only teasing (as will the surrounding context, typically). Directly naming any emotion should be an extremely rare thing, and that applies to dialogue tags as well.
It's surprising how much I see this in aspiring author's work, even published books. Things like -"Ugh, you always do this," she sighed with frustrated.- are all over some books. Unfortunately, once you notice it you can't unsee it. 👀
I like the idea of listening to other people's conversations. A little creepy, but still sounds interesting and good for a new perspective.
For 1, transcribe for awhile. You get paid to learn just how often we break even basic grammatical rules when talking, and why it's a good thing dialogue in books doesn't perfectly replicate dialogue irl.
Something I wanna know, say you're having a character say something and they're doing something at the same time, like squeezing, for example.
The character's fist is already clenched, and while they're saying what they're saying, there's a word or two that they squeeze tighter as they say them.
(sorry, best I can describe it)
How would that look on a page?
For me, until now, the difficult part when writing dialogue is that it takes me some time to distinguish the lines. Is my character saying too much ? Is it realistic? If my fmc says this how is my mmc gonna comprehend it ? How is he gonna take it ?
Does this even makes sense ?
Finally, it's good to know how Amazon Alexa looks like 🤣😂🤣😂
I have a question about tense and dialogue. So, every book I pick up has dialogue tags and action around dialogue in past tense . But regular narration is present tense... WTF why do we do this? haha I had one writer say no everything is in present tense, even tags/action, but my bookshelf is different.
I consider myself to be a quite good dialog-writer. But especially at dialogs with more than two characters involving, to me the characters sound to similar. That I just randomly picked a name for the dialog tag. But nobody had sayed something to me ever. Even when I asked for that. And those where fanfiction-writers like me. Sure, I improved over the years, but the many reading had no real effect.
I literally don't think i have ever snooped or listened in on someone ever, it just doesn't appeal to me. If someone seems like they're discussing something personal I go the other way because I don't want to hear.... sometimes I wonder if I've lived enough to write convincing fiction....
does watching reality shows help? i don't really go out often these days (can't eavesdrop lol) and I don't often hang around with many people so I don't know much about different personalities from real people than fictional characters I've read.
You'll certainly learn all about drama that way! 😂
In all seriousness, you could watch reality TV or even regular TV, or even read and make note of what you hear/see. Things you like, don't like, immerses you or rips you out of the story. If you're creating media, consuming it in many forms can really help in rounding out your tool box
In my opinion the idea is to make interesting, natural and believable dialogue, but not recreate 100% realistic conversations. When you talk with someone, 90% of the conversation is not "interesting", messy, may have too much informal expressions and they don't go to the point. Even in relaxed situations, your dialogues must serve a purpose, move the plot or giving to the readers interesting information about the characters/world/story, etc.
4:29: Aaron Sorkin feels attacked. :)
Me being a shut in and only leaving my house for college and to go shopping once every two months
I fall into the habit of repeating myself when I write. Especially in narration, not dialogue so much. But yikes, it's sooooo annoying! XD
I was just having trouble with this last night...are you psychic?
oop, is that a cat-bump or mini-earthquake at 1:51?
Can you pls write me one
dia-loog
i hate when I read "realistic" dialogue; why bother read books, if I can just sit at a cafe and eavesdrop? ( Edward St Aubyn)
Make that 'how material sounds'... I couldn't use that function on this comment. Oops.
Listened to people talk. Now I know women have periods that last longer than 3 days. xD
The first tip, I must admit, is really terrible advice. Never write your dialogue in the way real people talk, because it's really boring and it drags. How many times have you heard the word "like" be used a dozen times in the same sentence when someone's talking? My point exactly.
yt tip: Just get to the point
This is the worst part of writing for me as an autistic person because I HATE implication so much. It makes it so hard to write non-autistic characters bcuz "show don't tell" is such an annoying thing in conversation as a human for me. This was great thanks.