HOW TO

Fiction needs characters, and characters in fiction need to talk to each other. It’s one of the vital ways readers get to know the people in your story, and find out about them and the world you’ve created round them. This means that anyone who wants their fiction to read well needs to know how to write dialogue.

What does dialogue do?

Good dialogue engages the reader. Conversation between characters brings stories to life. Dialogue breaks up blocks of text and allows writers to change the pace of their narrative. Well-written dialogue informs readers about the character of the people speaking it, and it allows the writer to progress the story.

What dialogue should be

Good dialogue is an exchange between characters that adds to the reader’s enjoyment, tells them something about the characters and in some way progresses the narrative. Good dialogue drives a plot but it also allows readers to connect emotionally with the characters speaking it, which deepens their understanding and enjoyment of the fictional world you have created for them. Similarly to the way we get to know people by talking to them, readers get to know characters by engaging with their dialogue. Dialogue is a way for you, the writer, to show readers who your characters are without telling them through lengthy blocks of description.

What dialogue should not be

Bad dialogue is clunky, unrealistic and used by the author as a vehicle for info-dumping: