Writing dynamic dialogue

You’ve written a really crucial dialogue that will end your characters’ marriage. It should be dramatic and poignant, but instead it seems flat, unreal or, worst of all, dreary.

What’s wrong with it? It will change your characters’ lives. Why doesn’t it affect the lives of your readers?

Here are a couple of quick hints that will lift a plain or dreary dialogue and give it dynamism:

* Give your characters real business, real emotion. Give it dynamism. It’s not just a couple of talking heads. People don’t exist in a vacuum when they’re having a conversation. What are they doing? How does it affect what they’re doing? Do they stop? Do they suddenly sit down? How do they show their emotion? Understated is always better, but imagine she is preparing dinner. What does she do? Does she chop carrots savagely until they appear pureed? Does she emphasise the points she’s making with a particularly vicious-looking knife?
* Don’t go mad on the accent or ethnic line. Just a hint of accent is fine, otherwise it begins to irritate. This works together with tics and action. Some people pace, others twist their hair or bite their nails. These quirks can help you build emotion, and the sense of real characters. But too much will also irritate your readers.
* Don’t put too many “he saids” and “he averreds”. If there are two people speaking, we often know who is who after the first utterances. And if you need to say who is speaking for clarity, “he said” often works best. Our eyes are used to passing over it without being brought up short. And don’t forget, if he hisses, there must be sibilance. Use s’s. If he barks, his words will come out in short, sharp bursts.
* The rhythm of speech changes according to our emotions. An angry person will be short and sharp. A person in love will be long and languid.
* Never forget the subtext. Dialogue is often a mask for unexpressed feelings. Or even for lying. People frequently don’t say what they mean, for whatever reason. It makes for interesting dialogue if the reader knows that someone isn’t saying what they mean, or is lying. It creates tension.

For more about dialogue and how to make it better, see our online writing courses.

Jo-Anne Richards is the author of four novels. Her latest is My Brother’s Book, published by Picador. Order it from Kalahari.net

Her first novel, The Innocence of Roast Chicken, was published by Headline in London, shortlisted for the M-Net Book Prize and nominated for the Impac International Dublin Award. The book was chosen as a Dillon’s Debut in the UK, to be showcased as “an outstanding first novel”. She has published short stories in five collections.

She lectures in journalism and writing skills at Wits University, besides running workshops in literary skills, narrative journalism and Romance writing. She supervises Masters students in the Creative Writing Masters programme at Wits.

She is co-founder of allaboutlove.net, a website dedicated to good reading and writing. The site publishes novels and short stories, and runs interactive online writing courses in romance writing. It includes a basic lesbian romance writing course – thought to be unique.