One of the trickiest things for me as a writer—right up there with getting the grammar right—is dialogue. It sounds easy. You just make people talk, right? Wrong.
In real life, we speak with ums, pauses, and half-finished thoughts. We interrupt, we trail off, we contradict ourselves mid-sentence. Capturing that flavor without turning the page into chaos is part of the magic—and the madness—of writing good dialogue.
Here’s how I try to make that happen:
I read my dialogue out loud. If it sounds stiff to me, it’ll sound stiff to you. If I can’t imagine someone saying the line in a conversation—or if I laugh trying to say it myself—it goes in the trash.
Real people don’t give speeches. They hint. They imply. They dodge. That’s why, in my writing, I try to make dialogue do double duty—reveal personality, deliver plot, and still sound like something a real person might say while drinking coffee or staring someone down in a dark alley.
Sometimes what’s not said says the most. A pause, a shrug, or even a flat "okay" can hit harder than a paragraph of a monologue. In real conversations, we don’t always know what to say—or we choose not to. Letting your characters do the same can add depth.
Good dialogue is the heartbeat of a story. It brings your characters to life, gives them breath, and makes them believable—even when they’re doing unbelievable things. So if your character needs to shout, whisper, or, argue—let them. But make sure they sound like they mean it.