In fiction writing, believable and compelling dialogue is one of the most important, yet often most challenging, skills to hone.  It’s integral to developing characterization, ‘showing’ instead of ‘telling,’ and organically pushing the action forward. Dialogue allows readers to get to know your characters. It provides a chance to see how the characters interact with each other and the plot devices you’ve developed.  It also allows you to avoid information dumping. You can convey exposition, setting description, and even action scenes through character’s exchanges with one another.  At its best, dialogue helps keep fiction work engaging and immersive.  At its worst, it can distract or even remove your reader from the writing, so here are some tips for writing compelling dialogue that rings true to readers.

Components such as your characters’ ages, time period, settings, and emotions play roles in writing realistic dialogue. Therefore, a good first step for developing believable fictional conversations is research.  For example,  if you’re writing a historical fiction novel set in Victorian England, you’ll want to include speech patterns reflective of the time. Employing modern-day or even Medieval English speech patterns removes your characters from their own timeline and subsequently disrupts the believability of your dialogue.

Research could also include brushing up on commonplace words your character may use based on their background. This can be as simple as a midwestern American character using ‘pop’ versus an East Coast American character using ‘soda.’ Subtle word choices like these can relay your characters’ histories without having to write them through direct exposition.  

Another good way to improve your dialogue is to pay attention to how other conversations flow. Whether it’s in real life or other works of fiction, you’ll likely be able to pick up on conversational patterns that you can apply to your writing. Attention to conversations is a great way to understand how aspects such as age and emotion interact with organic speech. A teenager will likely use more slang and less formality than an older character, and a character experiencing heightened emotions will likely speak less coherently than they would when they are calm. However, be aware that actual conversations are often riddled with filler words such as ‘like’ and ‘uh,’ which, while realistic, don’t translate well into writing. You can definitely still have characters use filler words, but only occasionally and when narratively significant.

Most of all, remember that writing dialogue is fun! It brings your writing and characters to life, amplifying your audience’s experience with your work.