Writing dialogue is a tricky business. We want it to ‘sound genuine’ and not stilted, but we need realism without the everyday ums, ahs and errs. We want it to convey emotion, relay information, show character, move the story on…
Poor old dialogue! We ask a lot of it. And that’s without the scary task of indicating dialects or speech impediments, and ensuring that our characters sound different….aargh! Luckily some writers share their words of wisdom on how we can tackle these problems, so out with the notebook and see whose offerings ‘speak’ to you (all puns intended).
A light hearted look at how to make dialogue sound real from Hugo and Nebula award winner Robert J. Sawyer.
Novelist Janet Fitch’s views include the idea that you only need dialogue in your story if it’s showing conflict between characters. It’s a fair bet not everybody will agree with that one, but the post is well worth a read.
A PDF guide to writing dialogue from NaNoWriMo, complete with exercises to try.
A-Z of Writing – D is for Dialogue
Light-hearted advice from the delightful Sally Quilford, writer of novels, columns and short stories.
Dialogue Techniques and Dialogue Tags
Essential info from the Crabbit Old Bat (her words, not mine!) Nicola Morgan
This is from author Holly Lisle. Well worth trying this on days when your brain is blank and you want someone to give you a random starting point, too (what do you mean, you don’t get those?).