Ninth Secret: Write believable dialogue
This is what people first notice about a book. If the dialogue rings true, it brings pace and energy to a story. It helps you “show”, rather than tell what your characters are like.
Dialogue should be the appearance of real speech. But if you’ve ever recorded people speaking, you’ll see they do a lot of repeating and um-ing and ah-ing. If you faithfully include all of this, your dialogue will become turgid and tedious.
The challenge for the writer is to give the appearance of real speech, without its drawbacks. Allow people to interrupt each other, have them not finish their sentences, but don’t let them go on long, circuitous repetitions.
Exercise:
Buy yourself a cappuccino as a reward for nearly finishing the first module of our Guide to Writing Romance(LINK). Seat yourself strategically, where you can hear what other patrons are saying without being too obvious. Take a small recording device or notebook with you and eavesdrop shamelessly.
Write down exact words or, if you’re recording, transcribe it faithfully when you get home. Don’t just write down the gist of what was said. Try to get the rhythms and the quirks of vocabulary.
See how people stop, start and talk in parallel without listening to each other. If you’re going to be a writer, do this often. It will help you develop a feel for the way real people use language.