how to use dialogue in creative writing

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Last updated on Sep 21, 2023

How to Write Fabulous Dialogue [9 Tips + Examples]

This post is written by author, editor, and bestselling ghostwriter Tom Bromley. He is the  instructor of Reedsy's 101-day course,  How to Write a Novel .

Good dialogue isn’t about quippy lines and dramatic pauses.

Good dialogue is about propelling the story forward, pulling the reader along, and fleshing out characters and their dynamics in front of readers. Well-written dialogue can take your story to a new level — you just have to unlock it.

In this article, I’ll break down the major steps of writing great dialogue, and provide exercises for you to practice your own dialogue on.

Here's how to write great dialogue in 9 steps:

1. Use quotation marks to signal speech

2. pace dialogue lines by three , 3. use action beats , 4. use ‘said’ as a dialogue tag  , 5. write scene-based dialogue, 6. model any talk on real life , 7. differentiate character voices, 8. "show, don't tell" information in conversation , 9. delete superfluous words, which dialogue tag are you.

Find out in just a minute.

Alfred Hitchcock once said, “Drama is life with all the boring bits cut out.”

Similarly, I could say that good dialogue in a novel is a real conversation without all the fluff — and with quotation marks. 

Imagine, for instance, if every scene with dialogue in your novel started out with:

'Hey, buddy! How are you doing?"

“Great! How are you?""

'Great! Long time no see! Parking was a nightmare, wasn’t it?"

Firstly, from a technical perspective, the quotation marks are inconsistent and incorrectly formatted. To learn about the mechanics of your dialogue and how to format it, we also wrote this full post on the topic that I recommend reading.

Secondly, from a novel perspective, such lines don’t add anything to the story. And finally, from a reading perspective, your readers will not want to sit through this over and over again. Readers are smart: they can infer that all these civilities occur. Which means that you can skip the small talk (unless it’s important to the story) to get to the heart of the dialogue from the get-go.  

For a more tangible example of this technique, check out the dialogue-driven opening to Barbara Kingsolver's novel, Unsheltered .

Screenwriter Cynthia Whitcomb once proposed an idea called the “Three-Beat Rule.” What this recommends, essentially, is to introduce a maximum of three dialogue “beats” (the short phrases in speech you can say without pausing for breath) at a time. Only after these three dialogue beats should you insert a dialogue tag, action beat, or another character’s speech.

Here’s an example from Jane Gardam’s short story, “Dangers”, in which the boy Jake is shooting an imaginary gun at his grandmother:

In theory, this sounds simple enough. In practice, however, it’s a bit more complicated than that, simply because dialogue conventions continue to change over time. There’s no way to condense “good dialogue” into a formula of three this, or two that. But if you’re just starting out and need a strict rule to help you along, then the Three-Beat Rule is a good place to begin experimenting.

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Let’s take a look at another kind of “beats” now — action beats.

Action beats are the descriptions of the expressions, movements, or even internal thoughts that accompany the speaker’s words. They’re always included in the same paragraph as the dialogue, so as to indicate that the person acting is also the person speaking.

On a technical level, action beats keep your writing varied, manage the pace of a dialogue-heavy scene, and break up the long list of lines ending in ‘he said’ or ‘she said’.

But on a character level, action beats are even more important because they can go a level deeper than dialogue and illustrate a character’s body language.

When we communicate, dialogue only forms a half of how we get across what we want to say. Body language is that missing half — which is why action beats are so important in visualizing a conversation, and can help you “show” rather than “tell” in writing.

Here’s a quick exercise to practice thinking about body language in the context of dialogue: imagine a short scene, where you are witnessing a conversation between two people from the opposite side of a restaurant or café. Because it’s noisy and you can’t hear what they are saying, describe the conversation through the use of body language only.

Remember, at the end of the day, action beats and spoken dialogue are partners in crime. These beats are a commonly used technique so you can find plenty of examples —  here’s one from  Never Let Me Go  by Kazuo Ishiguro . 

If there’s one golden rule in writing dialogue, it’s this: ‘said’ is your friend.

Yes, ‘said’ is nothing new. Yes, ‘said’ is used by all other authors out there already. But you know what? There’s a reason why ‘said’ is the king of dialogue tags: it works.

Pro-tip: While we cannot stress enough the importance of "said," sometimes you do need another dialogue tag. Download this free cheatsheet of 270+ other words for said to get yourself covered!

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Get our Dialogue Tag Cheatsheet

Upgrade your dialogue with our list of 270 alternatives to “said.”

The thinking goes that ‘said’ is so unpretentious, so unassuming that it focuses readers’ attention on what’s most important on the page: the dialogue itself. As writer Elmore Leonard puts it: 

“Never use a verb other than ‘said’ to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But ‘said’ is far less intrusive than ‘grumbled,’ ‘gasped,’ ‘cautioned,’ ‘lied.’”

It might be tempting at times to turn towards other words for ‘said’ such as ‘exclaimed,’ or ‘declared,’ but my general rule of thumb is that in 90% of scenarios, ‘said’ is going to be the most effective dialogue tag for you to use while writing dialogue.

So now that we have several guidelines in place, this is a good spot to pause, reflect, and say that there’s no wrong or right way to write dialogue. It depends on the demands of the scene, the characters, and the story. Great dialogue isn’t about following this or that rule — but rather learning what technique to use when . 

If you stick to one rule the whole time — i.e. if you only use ‘said,’ or you finish every dialogue line with an action beat — you’ll wear out readers. Let’s see how unnaturally it plays out in the example below with Sophie and Ethan: 

All of which is to say: don’t be afraid to make exceptions to the rule if the scene asks for it. The key is to know when to switch up your dialogue structure or use of dialogue tags or action beats throughout a scene — and by extension, throughout your book.

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Dialogue isn’t always about writing grammatically perfect prose. The way a person speaks reflects the way a person is — and not all people are straight-A honor students who speak in impeccable English. In real life, the way people talk is fragmented, and punctuated by pauses.

That’s something that you should also keep in mind when you’re aiming to write authentic dialogue.

It can be tempting to think to yourself, “ Oh, I’ll try and slip in some exposition into my dialogue here to reveal important background information.” But if that results in an info-dump such as this — “ I’m just going to the well, Mother — the well that my brother, your son, tragically fell down five years ago ” — then you’ll probably want to take a step back and find a more organic, timely, and digestible way to incorporate that into your story.

Kay Adams is Michael’s date at his sister’s wedding in this scene. Her interest in his family is natural enough that the expository conversation doesn’t feel shoehorned in. 

A distinctive voice for each character is perhaps the most important element to get right in dialogue. Just as no one person in the world talks the same as each other, no one person in your book should also talk similarly.

To get this part of writing dialogue down pat, you need to start out by knowing your characters inside out. How does your character talk? Do they come with verbal quirks? Non-verbal quirks?

Jay Gatsby’s “old sport,” for example, gives him a distinctive, recognizable voice. It stands out because no one else has something as memorable about their speech. But more than that, it reveals something valuable about Gatsby’s character: he’s trying to impersonates a gentleman in his speech and lifestyle.

Likewise, think carefully about your character’s voice, and use catchphrases and character quirks when they can say something about your character. 

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“Show, don’t tell” is one of the most oft-repeated rules in writing, and a conversation on the page can be a gold mine for “showing.”

Authors can use action beats and descriptions to provide clues for readers to read between the lines. Let’s revisit Sophie and Ethan in this example:

While Sophie claims she hasn’t been obsessing over this project all night, the actions in between her words indicate there’s nothing on her mind  but  work. The result is that you show , through the action beats vs. the dialogue, Sophie being hardworking—rather than telling it.

Show, Don't Tell

Master the golden rule of writing in 10 five-minute lessons.

As always when it comes to writing a novel: all roads lead back to The Edit, and the dialogue you’ve written is no exception.

So while you’re editing your novel at the end, you may find that a “less is more” mentality will be helpful. Remember to cut out the unnecessary bits of dialogue, so that you can focus on making sure the dialogue you  do  keep matters. Good writing is intentional and purposeful, always striving to keep the story going and readers engaged. The importance lies in quality rather than quantity. 

One point I haven’t addressed yet is repetition. If used well (i.e. with clear intention), repetition is a  literary device  that can help you build motifs in your writing. But when you find yourself repeating information in your dialogue, it might be a good time to revise your work. 

For instance, here’s a scene with Sophie and Ethan later on in the story: 

As I’ve mentioned before, good dialogue shows character — and dialogue itself is a playground where character dynamics play out. If you write and edit your dialogue with this in mind, then your dialogue will be sharper, cleaner, and more organic. 

I know that writing dialogue can be intimidating, especially if you don’t have much experience with it. But that should never keep you from including it in your work! Just remember that the more you practice — especially with the help of these tips — the better you’ll get.

And once you’re confident with the conversational content you can conjure up, follow along to the next part of our guide to see how you can punctuate and format your dialogue flawlessly .

As an editor and publisher, Tom has worked on several hundred titles, again including many prize-winners and international bestsellers. 

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Writing Dialogue [20 Best Examples + Formatting Guide]

Have you ever found yourself cringing at clunky dialogue while reading a book or watching a movie? I know I have.

It’s like nails on a chalkboard, completely ruining the experience. But on the flip side, well-written dialogue can transform a story. It’s the magic that makes characters leap off the page, immersing us in their world.

As a writer, I’m fascinated by the mechanics of great dialogue.

So here are 20 of the best examples of writing dialogue that brings your story to life.

Example 1: Dialogue that Reveals Character

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One of the most powerful functions of dialogue is to shed light on your characters’ personalities.

The way they speak – their word choice, tone, even their hesitations – can tell us so much about who they are. Check out this example:

“Look, I ain’t gonna sugarcoat this,” the detective growled, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the chair. “You were spotted leaving the scene, and the murder weapon’s got your prints all over it.”

Without any lengthy description, we get a sense of this detective as a no-nonsense, direct type of guy.

Example 2: Dialogue that Builds Tension

Dialogue can become this amazing tool to ratchet up the tension in a scene.

Short, clipped exchanges and carefully placed silences can leave the reader on the edge of their seat.

Here’s how it might play out:

“Do you hear that?” Sarah whispered. “Hear what?” A scratching noise echoed from the attic. Sarah’s eyes widened. “It’s coming back.”

The suspense is killing me just writing that!

Example 3: Dialogue that Drives the Plot

Conversations aren’t just about characters sitting around and chatting.

Great dialogue should actively push the story forward. It can set up a conflict, reveal key information, or change the course of events.

Take a look at this:

“I’ve made my decision,” the king declared, the crown heavy on his brow. “We go to war.”

A single line, and the whole trajectory of the story shifts.

Formatting Tips: The Basics

Now, before we get carried away, let’s cover some essential dialogue formatting rules.

Think of these as the grammar of a good conversation.

• Quotation Marks:  Yep, those little squiggles are your best friend. They signal to the reader: “Hey! Someone’s talking!”
• New Speaker, New Paragraph:  Whenever a different character starts talking, give them a new paragraph. It’s all about keeping things easy to follow.
• Dialogue Tags:  These are the little phrases like “he said” or “she replied.” Use them, but try not to overuse them. A well-placed action beat can often do a better job of showing who’s speaking.

Example 4: Dialogue that Creates Humor

Dialogue can be ridiculously funny when done well.

The key? Snappy exchanges, playful misunderstandings, and just a dash of absurdity. Consider this:

“I saw the weirdest thing at the grocery store today,” Tom said, “A woman arguing with a head of lettuce.” “Was she winning?” Lily asked, a grin playing on her lips.

You can almost hear the deadpan delivery, can’t you?

Example 5: Dialogue that Shows Relationships

The way characters speak to each other says a ton about the dynamics between them.

Is there warmth, hostility, an underlying power struggle? Dialogue can paint a crystal-clear picture. Imagine this exchange:

“You didn’t do the dishes again?” Sarah sighed, hands planted on her hips. “Aw, c’mon babe. I was busy,” Mike whined, avoiding her gaze.

We instantly sense the long-suffering tone from Sarah and the playful guilt from Mike.

Example 6: Dialogue with Subtext

The most interesting dialogue often has layers. What the characters say might not be exactly what they mean.

This is where subtext comes in – the unspoken thoughts and feelings bubbling beneath the surface.

Take this snippet:

“It’s a nice ring,” Emily said, her voice flat. “You don’t like it?” Mark’s brow furrowed. Emily shrugged. “It’s fine.”

Is Emily truly indifferent? Or is she masking disappointment, perhaps a sense of something not being quite right? Subtext makes us read between the lines.

Formatting Tips: Getting Fancy

Now, let’s spice things up with a few more advanced formatting tricks:

• Ellipses (…):  These little dots are perfect for showing a character trailing off, hesitating, or searching for words. Example: “I…I don’t know what to say.”
• Em Dashes (—):  These guys can interrupt a thought or indicate a sudden change in direction. Example: “I was going to apologize, but then — well, you’re still being a jerk.”
• Internal Dialogue:  Instead of quotation marks, sometimes you’ll want to italicize a character’s inner thoughts. Example:  Why did I say that? I’m such an idiot.

Cautionary Note

It’s important to remember: dialogue shouldn’t feel like an interrogation. Avoid rigid “question-answer, question-answer” patterns. Real conversations flow and meander naturally.

Example 7: Dialogue with Dialects and Accents

Regional dialects and accents can bring so much flavor to your characters, but it’s a delicate balance.

You want to add authenticity without it becoming a caricature or making it hard to understand.

Here’s a subtle example:

“Well, I’ll be darned,” drawled the farmer, squinting at the sky. “Looks like a storm’s brewin’.”

Notice how just a few word choices and a slight change in pronunciation hint at the speaker’s background.

Example 8: Dialogue in Groups

Writing conversations with more than two people can get chaotic fast. The key is clarity.

Here are a few tips:

• Strong Dialogue Tags:  Sometimes, you need to be more specific than just “he said” or “she said”. Example: “Don’t be ridiculous,” scoffed Sarah.
• Action Beats:  Break up chunks of dialogue with actions that show who’s speaking. Example: Tom slammed his fist on the table. “I won’t stand for this!”

Example 9: Dialogue Over the Phone (or Other Technology)

Conversations where characters aren’t physically together pose unique challenges.

You can’t rely on body language cues. Instead, focus on conveying tone and potential misunderstandings.

For instance:

“Hello?” Sarah’s voice crackled through the phone. A long pause. “Sarah, is that you?” “Mom? Why are you whispering?”

Instantly there’s a sense of distance and something not being quite right.

Example 10: Inner Monologue with a Twist

We often think of internal dialogue as a single character reflecting, but sometimes our inner voices can argue.

This can be a powerful way to showcase internal conflict.

Here’s how it might look:

You should just tell him how you feel, one voice chimed. Are you crazy? the other shrieked back. He’ll never feel the same way .

This creates a vivid picture of a character torn between opposing desires.

Example 11: Dialogue With a Manipulative Character

Manipulative characters often use language as a weapon.

They might use guilt trips, flattery, or veiled threats to get what they want.

Consider this:

“After everything I’ve done for you…” The old woman sighed, a flicker of disappointment in her eyes. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t expect gratitude.”

Notice how she doesn’t directly ask for anything, instead hinting at a debt, leaving the listener feeling uneasy and obligated.

Example 12: Dialogue Across Time Periods

If you’re writing historical fiction or anything with time travel elements, you’ll need to capture the distinct speech patterns of different eras.

Imagine this exchange:

“Gadzooks! What manner of contraption is this?” The Victorian gentleman exclaimed, staring in bewilderment at the smartphone. “It’s a phone,” the teenager replied, barely suppressing a laugh. “Let me show you.”

This little snippet highlights the potential for both humor and linguistic challenges when worlds collide.

Formatting Tip: Dialogue Without Tags

Sometimes, for a rapid-fire or dreamlike effect, you might want to ditch the “he said” or “she asked” altogether.

It’s a bold move, but it can be effective if done sparingly.

Check this out:

“Where are you going?” “Away.” “When will you be back?” “I don’t know.” “Please don’t leave me.”

This creates a sense of urgency, the raw exchange forcing us to focus solely on the words themselves.

Example 13: Dialogue that Shows Transformation

A great way to showcase how a character develops is through shifts in how they speak.

Maybe they become bolder, quieter, or their vocabulary changes.

Let’s see an example:

Scene 1: “I-I don’t know,” Emily whimpered, cowering in the corner. Scene 2 (Later in the story): “That’s it. I’m not taking this anymore!” Emily declared, her chin held high.

The dialogue itself reflects her transformation from victim to someone ready to stand up for herself.

Example 14: Dialogue that’s Just Plain Weird

It’s okay to get strange sometimes.

Absurdist humor or unsettling conversations can add a unique flavor to your story. Just be sure it fits the overall tone.

“Do you believe in cucumbers?” the man asked, his eyes wide and unblinking. “Excuse me?” “Cucumbers, my dear. Agents of the underground vegetable kingdom.”

This immediately creates a sense of oddness and perhaps a touch of unease. Is this guy crazy, or is there something more going on?

Example 15: Dialogue with a Purpose

Remember, good dialogue isn’t just about being entertaining.

It should move your story along. Here are some functions dialogue can serve:

• Providing Exposition:  Sometimes, you need to inform the reader of backstory or world-building details. Trickle information through natural conversation rather than an information dump.
• Foreshadowing:  Subtle hints within a conversation can foreshadow future events or create a sense of unease for the reader.
• Revealing a Twist:  A single line of dialogue can completely flip the script and reframe everything that came before.

Example 16: Dialogue with Non-Verbal Elements

So much of communication happens beyond just words.

Sighs, laughs, and gestures can add richness to dialogue on the page.

“I’m fine,” she said, crossing her arms and looking away.

Notice how the body language contradicts her words, hinting at inner turmoil.

Example 17: Silence as Dialogue

Sometimes, what isn’t said is the most powerful thing of all.

A pregnant pause or a character refusing to speak can convey volumes.

Imagine this:

“So, will you help me or not?” Tom pleaded. Sarah stared at him, her lips a thin line. Finally, she turned and walked away.

The lack of a verbal response speaks louder than any words could.

Example 18: Dialogue With Humorous Effect

A well-timed O.S. voice can deliver a funny remark or punchline, undercutting the seriousness of a scene or taking a moment in an unexpected comedic direction.

INT. CLASSROOM – DAY The teacher drones on about the causes of the American Revolution, his voice as dull as the worn textbook in front of him. KEVIN tries to stifle his yawns, failing miserably. STUDENT (O.S.) Is he ever going to stop talking? My brain just turned to mush. Snickers ripple through the class. The teacher pauses, a look of annoyance flickering across his face. Kevin shoots a desperate look towards the source of the O.S. voice.

• Timing is everything. The best comedic O.S. lines act as a witty reaction to something else happening in a scene. The student’s comment comes right as Kevin’s boredom peaks.
• Subverting expectations is funny. The audience expects the scene to continue with a stern reprimand for speaking out of turn, but the script doesn’t give us that. This leaves room for further humor.
• Consider the tone of the voice – sarcastic, matter-of-fact, or outright whiny? This adds to the comedic effect.

Example 19: Dialogue With Unexpected Reveals

Think of this as a surprise twist using O.S. dialogue.

The audience (and maybe even some characters) are led to believe one thing, only for an O.S. voice to reveal something completely unexpected, shifting the scene’s dynamic.

INT. POLICE INTERROGATION ROOM – NIGHTDETECTIVE HARRIS paces in front of a nervous SUSPECT. Photos of the crime scene are scattered on the table. HARRIS Don’t lie to me! We’ve got witnesses who saw you at the scene. SUSPECT I – I swear, I had nothing to do with it! I was… I was with my girlfriend. Harris leans in, a triumphant glint in her eyes. She claps her hands sharply, startling the suspect. WOMAN (O.S.) That’s a lie! He was nowhere near me last night! The suspect whips around. His face pales as we hear the sound of the interrogation room door swinging open…

• The power lies in the build-up. The initial dialogue and the characters’ reactions should lead the audience to believe one outcome, making the O.S. interruption all the more impactful.
• Consider who speaks the O.S. line. Is it someone the audience recognizes, or a totally new character whose identity becomes a new mystery?
• Play with the proximity of the voice. Is it right outside the room, adding to the dramatic reveal as the door opens, or is it more distant – perhaps a voice over an intercom – for an even more unsettling effect?

Example 20: Dialogue With a “Haunted” Feeling

Explanation: O.S. can be used to create an eerie or unsettling atmosphere, particularly in horror or psychological thrillers. This could be unexplained voices, creepy whispers, or sounds that hint at a supernatural (or simply unnerving) presence.

INT. OLD MANSION – NIGHTSARAH explores the abandoned mansion, flashlight cutting through the thick dust. Cobwebs cling to every surface. A faint WHISPER drifts through the air, seeming to come from everywhere at once. Sarah freezes. VOICE (O.S.) Get out… leave this place… Sarah’s breath catches in her throat. She hesitantly follows the direction of the voice, her flashlight beam trembling.

• Less is more. The vaguer and more inexplicable the O.S. voice, the more chilling it becomes.
• Layer sounds for a full creepy effect. Combine whispers with unexpected bangs, creaks, or the faint sound of footsteps following behind Sarah.
• Play with audience expectations. If the script initially leads the audience to think the house is merely abandoned, the O.S. voices become that much more terrifying.

Here is a good video about writing dialogue:

Additional Dialogue Tips & Tricks

• Read Your Dialogue Aloud:  This is the best way to catch awkward phrasing or unnatural rhythms. Our ears often pick up on what our eyes might miss.
• Less is More:  Don’t feel the need to have every single interaction be profound. Sometimes a simple “Hey” or “Thanks” can do the job just fine.
• Eavesdrop:  Paying attention to real-life conversations is fantastic research. Note the pauses, the filler words, the way people interrupt each other.

Final Thoughts: Writing Dialogue

Phew! We did it!

Does that feel like a solid collection of dialogue examples? We haven’t covered absolutely every scenario, but I hope these illustrate the vast potential within dialogue to bring your stories to life.

Read This Next:

• How To Use Action Tags in Dialogue: Ultimate Guide
• How Do Writers Fill a Natural Pause in Dialogue? [7 Crazy Effective Ways]
• Can You Start a Novel with Dialogue?
• How To Write A Southern Accent (17 Tips + Examples)
• How to Write a French Accent (13 Best Tips with Examples)

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How to Write Dialogue: 7 Great Tips for Writers (With Examples)

Hannah Yang

Great dialogue serves multiple purposes. It moves your plot forward. It develops your characters and it makes the story more engaging.

It’s not easy to do all these things at once, but when you master the art of writing dialogue, readers won’t be able to put your book down.

In this article, we will teach you the rules for writing dialogue and share our top dialogue tips that will make your story sing.

Dialogue Rules

How to format dialogue, 7 tips for writing dialogue in a story or book, dialogue examples.

Before we look at tips for writing powerful dialogue, let’s start with an overview of basic dialogue rules.

• Start a new paragraph each time there’s a new speaker. Whenever a new character begins to speak, you should give them their own paragraph. This rule makes it easier for the reader to follow the conversation.
• Keep all speech between quotation marks . Everything that a character says should go between quotation marks, including the final punctuation marks. For example, periods and commas should always come before the final quotation mark, not after.
• Don’t use end quotations for paragraphs within long speeches. If a single character speaks for such a long time that you break their speech up into multiple paragraphs, you should omit the quotation marks at the end of each paragraph until they stop talking. The final quotation mark indicates that their speech is over.
• Use single quotes when a character quotes someone else. Whenever you have a quote within a quote, you should use single quotation marks (e.g. She said, “He had me at ‘hello.’”)
• Dialogue tags are optional. A dialogue tag is anything that indicates which character is speaking and how, such as “she said,” “he whispered,” or “I shouted.” You can use dialogue tags if you want to give the reader more information about who’s speaking, but you can also choose to omit them if you want the dialogue to flow more naturally. We’ll be discussing more about this rule in our tips below.

Let’s walk through some examples of how to format dialogue .

The simplest formatting option is to write a line of speech without a dialogue tag. In this case, the entire line of speech goes within the quotation marks, including the period at the end.

• Example: “I think I need a nap.”

Another common formatting option is to write a single line of speech that ends with a dialogue tag.

Here, you should separate the speech from the dialogue tag with a comma, which should go inside the quotation marks.

• Example: “I think I need a nap,” Maria said.

You can also write a line of speech that starts with a dialogue tag. Again, you separate the dialogue tag with a comma, but this time, the comma goes outside the quotation marks.

• Example: Maria said, “I think I need a nap.”

As an alternative to a simple dialogue tag, you can write a line of speech accompanied by an action beat. In this case, you should use a period rather than a comma, because the action beat is a full sentence.

• Example: Maria sat down on the bed. “I think I need a nap.”

Finally, you can choose to include an action beat while the character is talking.

In this case, you would use em-dashes to separate the action from the dialogue, to indicate that the action happens without a pause in the speech.

• Example: “I think I need”—Maria sat down on the bed—“a nap.”

Now that we’ve covered the basics, we can move on to the more nuanced aspects of writing dialogue.

Here are our seven favorite tips for writing strong, powerful dialogue that will keep your readers engaged.

Tip #1: Create Character Voices

Dialogue is a great way to reveal your characters. What your characters say, and how they say it, can tell us so much about what kind of people they are.

Some characters are witty and gregarious. Others are timid and unobtrusive.

Speech patterns vary drastically from person to person.

To make someone stop talking to them, one character might say “I would rather not talk about this right now,” while another might say, “Shut your mouth before I shut it for you.”

When you’re writing dialogue, think about your character’s education level, personality, and interests.

• What kind of slang do they use?
• Do they prefer long or short sentences?
• Do they ask questions or make assertions?

Each character should have their own voice.

Ideally, you want to write dialogue that lets your reader identify the person speaking at any point in your story just by looking at what’s between the quotation marks.

Tip #2: Write Realistic Dialogue

Good dialogue should sound natural. Listen to how people talk in real life and try to replicate it on the page when you write dialogue.

Don’t be afraid to break the rules of grammar, or to use an occasional exclamation point to punctuate dialogue.

It’s okay to use contractions , sentence fragments , and run-on sentences , even if you wouldn’t use them in other parts of the story.

This doesn’t mean that realistic dialogue should sound exactly like the way people speak in the real world.

If you’ve ever read a court transcript, you know that real-life speech is riddled with “ums” and “ahs” and repeated words and phrases. A few paragraphs of this might put your readers to sleep.

Compelling dialogue should sound like a real conversation, while still being wittier, smoother, and better worded than real speech.

Tip #3: Simplify Your Dialogue Tags

A dialogue tag is anything that tells the reader which character is talking within that same paragraph, such as “she said” or “I asked.”

When you’re writing dialogue, remember that simple dialogue tags are the most effective .

Often, you can omit dialogue tags after the conversation has started flowing, especially if only two characters are participating.

The reader will be able to keep up with who’s speaking as long as you start a new paragraph each time the speaker changes.

When you do need to use a dialogue tag, a simple “he said” or “she said” will do the trick.

Our brains generally skip over the word “said” when we’re reading, while other dialogue tags are a distraction.

A common mistake beginner writers make is to avoid using the word “said.”

Characters in amateur novels tend to mutter, whisper, declare, or chuckle at every line of dialogue. This feels overblown and distracts from the actual story.

Another common mistake is to attach an adverb to the word “said.” Characters in amateur novels rarely just say things—they have to say things loudly, quietly, cheerfully, or angrily.

If you’re writing great dialogue, readers should be able to figure out whether your character is cheerful or angry from what’s within the quotation marks.

The only exception to this rule is if the dialogue tag contradicts the dialogue itself. For example, consider this sentence:

• “You’ve ruined my life,” she said angrily.

The word “angrily” is redundant here because the words inside the quotation marks already imply that the character is speaking angrily.

In contrast, consider this sentence:

• “You’ve ruined my life,” she said thoughtfully.

Here, the word “thoughtfully” is well-placed because it contrasts with what we might otherwise assume. It adds an additional nuance to the sentence inside the quotation marks.

You can use the ProWritingAid dialogue check when you write dialogue to make sure your dialogue tags are pulling their weight and aren’t distracting readers from the main storyline.

Sign up for your free ProWritingAid account to check your dialogue tags today.

Tip #4: Balance Speech with Action

When you’re writing dialogue, you can use action beats —descriptions of body language or physical action—to show what each character is doing throughout the conversation.

Learning how to write action beats is an important component of learning how to write dialogue.

Good dialogue becomes even more interesting when the characters are doing something active at the same time.

You can watch people in real life, or even characters in movies, to see what kinds of body language they have. Some pick at their fingernails. Some pace the room. Some tap their feet on the floor.

Including physical action when writing dialogue can have multiple benefits:

• It changes the pace of your dialogue and makes the rhythm more interesting
• It prevents “white room syndrome,” which is when a scene feels like it’s happening in a white room because it’s all dialogue and no description
• It shows the reader who’s speaking without using speaker tags

You can decide how often to include physical descriptions in each scene. All dialogue has an ebb and flow to it, and you can use beats to control the pace of your dialogue scenes.

If you want a lot of tension in your scene, you can use fewer action beats to let the dialogue ping-pong back and forth.

If you want a slower scene, you can write dialogue that includes long, detailed action beats to help the reader relax.

You should start a separate sentence, or even a new paragraph, for each of these longer beats.

Tip #5: Write Conversations with Subtext

Every conversation has subtext , because we rarely say exactly what we mean. The best dialogue should include both what is said and what is not said.

I once had a roommate who cared a lot about the tidiness of our apartment, but would never say it outright. We soon figured out that whenever she said something like “I might bring some friends over tonight,” what she meant was “Please wash your dishes, because there are no clean plates left for my friends to use.”

When you’re writing dialogue, it’s important to think about what’s not being said. Even pleasant conversations can hide a lot beneath the surface.

Is one character secretly mad at the other?

Is one secretly in love with the other?

Is one thinking about tomorrow’s math test and only pretending to pay attention to what the other person is saying?

Personally, I find it really hard to use subtext when I write dialogue from scratch.

In my first drafts I let my characters say what they really mean. Then, when I’m editing, I go back and figure out how to convey the same information through subtext instead.

Tip #6: Show, Don’t Tell

When I was in high school, I once wrote a story in which the protagonist’s mother tells her: “As you know, Susan, your dad left us when you were five.”

I’ve learned a lot about the writing craft since high school, but it doesn’t take a brilliant writer to figure out that this is not something any mother would say to her daughter in real life.

The reason I wrote that line of dialogue was because I wanted to tell the reader when Susan last saw her father, but I didn’t do it in a realistic way.

Don’t shoehorn information into your characters’ conversations if they’re not likely to say it to each other.

One useful trick is to have your characters get into an argument.

You can convey a lot of information about a topic through their conflicting opinions, without making it sound like either of the characters is saying things for the reader’s benefit.

Here’s one way my high school self could have conveyed the same information in a more realistic way in just a few lines:

Susan: “Why didn’t you tell me Dad was leaving? Why didn’t you let me say goodbye?”

Mom: “You were only five. I wanted to protect you.”

Tip #7: Keep Your Dialogue Concise

Dialogue tends to flow out easily when you’re drafting your story, so in the editing process, you’ll need to be ruthless. Cut anything that doesn’t move the story forward.

Try not to write dialogue that feels like small talk.

You can eliminate most hellos and goodbyes, or summarize them instead of showing them. Readers don’t want to waste their time reading dialogue that they hear every day.

In addition, try not to write dialogue with too many trigger phrases, which are questions that trigger the next line of dialogue, such as:

• “And then what?”
• “What do you mean?”

It’s tempting to slip these in when you’re writing dialogue because they keep the conversation flowing. I still catch myself doing this from time to time.

Remember that you don’t need three lines of dialogue when one line could accomplish the same thing.

Let’s look at some dialogue examples from successful novels that follow each of our seven tips.

Dialogue Example #1: How to Create Character Voice

Let’s start with an example of a character with a distinct voice from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling.

“What happened, Harry? What happened? Is he ill? But you can cure him, can’t you?” Colin had run down from his seat and was now dancing alongside them as they left the field. Ron gave a huge heave and more slugs dribbled down his front. “Oooh,” said Colin, fascinated and raising his camera. “Can you hold him still, Harry?”

Most readers could figure out that this was Colin Creevey speaking, even if his name hadn’t been mentioned in the passage.

This is because Colin Creevey is the only character who speaks with such extreme enthusiasm, even at a time when Ron is belching slugs.

This snippet of written dialogue does a great job of showing us Colin’s personality and how much he worships his hero Harry.

Dialogue Example #2: How to Write Realistic Dialogue

Here’s an example of how to write dialogue that feels realistic from A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

“As much as I love this land, some days I think about leaving it,” Babi said. “Where to?” “Anyplace where it’s easy to forget. Pakistan first, I suppose. For a year, maybe two. Wait for our paperwork to get processed.” “And then?” “And then, well, it is a big world. Maybe America. Somewhere near the sea. Like California.”

Notice the punctuation and grammar that these two characters use when they speak.

There are many sentence fragments in this conversation like, “Anyplace where it’s easy to forget.” and “Somewhere near the sea.”

Babi often omits the verbs from his sentences, just like people do in real life. He speaks in short fragments instead of long, flowing paragraphs.

This dialogue shows who Babi is and feels similar to the way a real person would talk, while still remaining concise.

Dialogue Example #3: How to Simplify Your Dialogue Tags

Here’s an example of effective dialogue tags in Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

In this passage, the narrator’s been caught exploring the forbidden west wing of her new husband’s house, and she’s trying to make excuses for being there.

“I lost my way,” I said, “I was trying to find my room.” “You have come to the opposite side of the house,” she said; “this is the west wing.” “Yes, I know,” I said. “Did you go into any of the rooms?” she asked me. “No,” I said. “No, I just opened a door, I did not go in. Everything was dark, covered up in dust sheets. I’m sorry. I did not mean to disturb anything. I expect you like to keep all this shut up.” “If you wish to open up the rooms I will have it done,” she said; “you have only to tell me. The rooms are all furnished, and can be used.” “Oh, no,” I said. “No. I did not mean you to think that.”

In this passage, the only dialogue tags Du Maurier uses are “I said,” “she said,” and “she asked.”

Even so, you can feel the narrator’s dread and nervousness. Her emotions are conveyed through what she actually says, rather than through the dialogue tags.

This is a splendid example of evocative speech that doesn’t need fancy dialogue tags to make it come to life.

Dialogue Example #4: How to Balance Speech with Action

Let’s look at a passage from The Princess Bride by William Goldman, where dialogue is melded with physical action.

With a smile the hunchback pushed the knife harder against Buttercup’s throat. It was about to bring blood. “If you wish her dead, by all means keep moving," Vizzini said. The man in black froze. “Better,” Vizzini nodded. No sound now beneath the moonlight. “I understand completely what you are trying to do,” the Sicilian said finally, “and I want it quite clear that I resent your behavior. You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen, and I think it quite ungentlemanly.” “Let me explain,” the man in black began, starting to edge forward. “You’re killing her!” the Sicilian screamed, shoving harder with the knife. A drop of blood appeared now at Buttercup’s throat, red against white.

In this passage, William Goldman brings our attention seamlessly from the action to the dialogue and back again.

This makes the scene twice as interesting, because we’re paying attention not just to what Vizzini and the man in black are saying, but also to what they’re doing.

This is a great way to keep tension high and move the plot forward.

Dialogue Example #5: How to Write Conversations with Subtext

This example from Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card shows how to write dialogue with subtext.

Here is the scene when Ender and his sister Valentine are reunited for the first time, after Ender’s spent most of his childhood away from home training to be a soldier.

Ender didn’t wave when she walked down the hill toward him, didn’t smile when she stepped onto the floating boat slip. But she knew that he was glad to see her, knew it because of the way his eyes never left her face. “You’re bigger than I remembered,” she said stupidly. “You too,” he said. “I also remembered that you were beautiful.” “Memory does play tricks on us.” “No. Your face is the same, but I don’t remember what beautiful means anymore. Come on. Let’s go out into the lake.”

In this scene, we can tell that Valentine missed her brother terribly, and that Ender went through a lot of trauma at Battle School, without either of them saying it outright.

The conversation could have started with Valentine saying “I missed you,” but instead, she goes for a subtler opening: “You’re bigger than I remembered.”

Similarly, Ender could say “You have no idea what I’ve been through,” but instead he says, “I don’t remember what beautiful means anymore.”

We can deduce what each of these characters is thinking and feeling from what they say and from what they leave unsaid.

Dialogue Example #6: How to Show, Not Tell

Let’s look at an example from The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. This scene is the story’s first introduction of the ancient creatures called the Chandrian.

“I didn’t know the Chandrian were demons,” the boy said. “I’d heard—” “They ain’t demons,” Jake said firmly. “They were the first six people to refuse Tehlu’s choice of the path, and he cursed them to wander the corners—” “Are you telling this story, Jacob Walker?” Cob said sharply. “Cause if you are, I’ll just let you get on with it.” The two men glared at each other for a long moment. Eventually Jake looked away, muttering something that could, conceivably, have been an apology. Cob turned back to the boy. “That’s the mystery of the Chandrian,” he explained. “Where do they come from? Where do they go after they’ve done their bloody deeds? Are they men who sold their souls? Demons? Spirits? No one knows.” Cob shot Jake a profoundly disdainful look. “Though every half-wit claims he knows...”

The three characters taking part in this conversation all know what the Chandrian are.

Imagine if Cob had said “As we all know, the Chandrian are mysterious demon-spirits.” We would feel like he was talking to us, not to the two other characters.

Instead, Rothfuss has all three characters try to explain their own understanding of what the Chandrian are, and then shoot each other’s explanations down.

When Cob reprimands Jake for interrupting him and then calls him a half-wit for claiming to know what he’s talking about, it feels like a realistic interaction.

This is a clever way for Rothfuss to introduce the Chandrian in a believable way.

Dialogue Example #7: How to Keep Your Dialogue Concise

Here’s an example of concise dialogue from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

“Do you blame me for flunking you, boy?” he said. “No, sir! I certainly don’t,” I said. I wished to hell he’d stop calling me “boy” all the time. He tried chucking my exam paper on the bed when he was through with it. Only, he missed again, naturally. I had to get up again and pick it up and put it on top of the Atlantic Monthly. It’s boring to do that every two minutes. “What would you have done in my place?” he said. “Tell the truth, boy.” Well, you could see he really felt pretty lousy about flunking me. So I shot the bull for a while. I told him I was a real moron, and all that stuff. I told him how I would’ve done exactly the same thing if I’d been in his place, and how most people didn’t appreciate how tough it is being a teacher. That kind of stuff. The old bull.

Here, the last paragraph diverges from the prior ones. After the teacher says “Tell the truth, boy,” the rest of the conversation is summarized, rather than shown.

The summary of what the narrator says in the last paragraph—“I told him I was a real moron, and all that stuff”—serves to hammer home that this is the type of “old bull” that the narrator has fed to his teachers over and over before.

It doesn’t need to be shown because it’s not important to the narrator—it’s just “all that stuff.”

Salinger could have written out the entire conversation in dialogue, but instead he kept the dialogue concise.

Final Words

Now you know how to write clear, effective dialogue! Start with the basic rules for dialogue and try implementing the more advanced tips as you go.

What are your favorite dialogue tips? Let us know in the comments below.

Do you know how to craft memorable, compelling characters? Download this free book now:

Creating Legends: How to Craft Characters Readers Adore… or Despise!

This guide is for all the writers out there who want to create compelling, engaging, relatable characters that readers will adore… or despise., learn how to invent characters based on actions, motives, and their past..

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Hannah Yang is a speculative fiction writer who writes about all things strange and surreal. Her work has appeared in Analog Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, The Dark, and elsewhere, and two of her stories have been finalists for the Locus Award. Her favorite hobbies include watercolor painting, playing guitar, and rock climbing. You can follow her work on hannahyang.com, or subscribe to her newsletter for publication updates.

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How to Write Dialogue Like a Pro

You're invited to join our 8-week online course on how to write dialogue. Let's say you ask four different people how to make a cheese sandwich...

Person One responds: "You just take a piece of cheese and put it between two slices of bread."

Person Two: "Seriously? You don't know how to make a cheese sandwich?"

Person Three: "Personally, I would recommend goat cheese or perhaps a ripe Camembert, on a fresh baguette or perhaps brioche, lightly toasted, with caramelized onions or perhaps candied figs."

Person Four: "Sorry, I don't do dairy."

Different people speak differently. The differences are not only in what they say, but in the way they say it.

That's one reason why dialogue—presenting your characters' speech in their exact words—is such a powerful tool for your fiction.

Dialogue helps you show what your characters are like instead of just describing them to your reader.

It also draws readers into a scene and makes your writing a lot more fun to read!

How to Write Dialogue - Skip to Topic -  Getting great at dialogue -  Conversation versus written dialogue -  Dialogue and summary - Dialogue format -  Tags -  Descriptive beats -  Adding layers -  Tips on how to write dialogue

Getting Great at Dialogue

To get great at writing dialogue, listen to how different kinds of people talk. Pay attention to...

• What they say (of course).
• What they DON'T say. Are they beating around the bush? Are they intentionally avoiding something?
• The kinds of words they use. Do they use simple or sophisticated vocabulary? Do they use slang? Jargon? Profanity? Do they have a favorite word or expression?
• Their tone. Polite? Rude? Bossy? Self-effacing? Flirtatious? Blunt? Chatty?
• The rhythms of their speech. Do they use short choppy sentences, or long ones that wind on and on?
• What does the way these people speak express about who they are?

You can borrow their voices for your characters.

If you're struggling with dialogue, here's a shortcut. Just think of someone who speaks the way your character might. Then, whenever your character is speaking, try to hear that person's voice in your head.

When you're writing or revising dialogue, you might also find it helpful to say the lines out loud or even act them out.

During your first draft, you'll listen to your characters speaking in your imagination and write down what they say.

Later, during the revision, you'll probably end up trimming some of those conversations down...

Conversation Versus Written Dialogue

Dialogue on the page is not the same as the way people really talk.

You want to give the flavor of reality, but you're not imitating it exactly.

In real-life conversations, there's a lot of fluff and filler and repetition. If you included all that in a story, it would get boring fast.

You want to include just enough of that to make the conversation feel real. And cut the rest.

Let's say two people, Joan and Edgar, meet in a restaurant. The real conversation might begin like this...

ORIGINAL VERSION: "Hi," Joan said. "Hi." "Sorry I'm late." "Don't worry, I just got here too," Edgar said. "I couldn't find parking." "I couldn't either. I finally wound up parking behind that church." "Which church?" "The one on—what's that street called?" "Barry Street?" "No, further down." "I don't know..." "The one with that store—what's that store called?" "I don't know." "Like, the store that sells everything. You know?" "I'm not sure..." The waitress came over to their table. "Hi, I'm Kelsey! I'm going to be your server! How are we doing today?" "Fine, thanks," Joan said. "Not bad," Edgar said. "Can I get you folks something to drink?" the waitress asked. "I could really use a glass of wine," Joan said. "But I probably shouldn't." The waitress waited. "I'll have a diet Coke," Edgar said. "Great!" said the waitress. "And what can I get for you?" she asked, turning back to Joan. "I'd kill for a glass of wine." "We have a nice house red," the waitress offered. "But I shouldn't drink. I have to go back to work," Joan explained. The waitress waited. "Can I see a wine list?" Joan asked. "It's right here," Edgar said, handing it to her. "Okay, I'll be right back," the waitress said. "In the meantime, I'll bring some ice water for you." "And a diet Coke," Edgar reminded her. "Absolutely," the waitress said, walking off. "So," Joan said when she was gone, "I heard the police are looking at Duffy now." "Where'd you hear that?" Edgar asked. "McConnell. He says Duffy's their top suspect." "That's good," Edgar said. "Yeah." "Tell me everything." "Wait, I'm just going to look at the wine list real quick. I know I shouldn't be drinking wine, but..."

If you wanted to use this conversation in a story, you might write it like this...

REVISED VERSION: "Sorry I'm late," Joan said. "That's all right," Edgar said. The waitress came over, and Joan ordered a glass of wine. "So," she said when the waitress left again, "I heard the police suspect Duffy now." "Where'd you hear that?" Edgar asked. "McConnell. He says Duffy's their number one suspect." "That's good," Edgar said. "Yeah." "Tell me everything."

If you want to show more about what Joan is like, you might keep some of her dithering over the wine, but cut the small talk at the very beginning. But you won't transcribe every word that Joan and Edgar utter during their lunch together.

Every piece of dialogue should be serving a purpose in your story. Often, it will be accomplishing more than one task at a time (e.g., showing something about the character at the same time that it's moving the plot forward).

Keep in mind the purpose of the dialogue when you decide which parts to cut and which parts to leave in.

Dialogue and Summary

Here's an example of summary dialogue:

Myrna complained about the hotel her son had chosen.

Here's an example of direct dialogue:

"The hotel's a real dump," Myrna said. "The room's tiny, and there's hardly any closet space. And the soap dish in the shower? It has a hole in it, so the soap falls right through! Who designed that soap dish, and what in the world were they thinking? And there's no place to put your towels..."

In summary dialogue, the author TELLS the reader what Myrna said. In direct dialogue, the author SHOWS Myrna saying it by quoting her exact words.

Some advantages of direct dialogue:

• It's more specific (we find out exactly what Myrna didn't like about the hotel—and can form our own opinion about how serious her complaints are).
• It conveys character (we learn something about Myrna from the way she describes the hotel).
• It's more vivid (the reader feels like they're hearing the conversation firsthand).

A big advantage of summary...

• It's brief.

Imagine that Myrna continues complaining for several hours. The reader isn't going to want to hear all that.

So you can summarize:

Myrna spent the whole morning complaining about the hotel.

Or, you can mix dialogue with summary:

"I hardly slept last night," Myrna said. "That hotel room was so noisy. And the pillows were too fat." She continued complaining about the hotel all through breakfast and the long drive to David's house.

Mixing dialogue with summary allows you to give the flavor of the dialogue without taking up more space than you want to.

You decide how much direct dialogue to include, depending on your goals for the scene.

How to Write Dialogue: Format

Standard dialogue format varies a bit from country to country .

You can look at some published novels from your own country to see how the dialogue's formatted.

In the U.S., dialogue generally looks like this...

"I love you so much," Yolanda said. "Then why did you try to poison me?" Julian asked her.

Note that the punctuation of the speakers' words is inside the punctuation marks. And in Yolanda's sentence, the period (full stop) is changed into a comma.

RIGHT: "I love you so much," Yolanda said. WRONG: "I love you so much." Yolanda said.

When writing dialogue, it's common practice to start a new paragraph each time the speaker changes. This makes it easier for the reader to keep track of who says what.

How to Write Dialogue: Tags

You use dialogue tags to let the reader know who's speaking. Here are some examples of dialogue tags:

• Edgar asked
• the waitress told them

You don't necessarily have to use a dialogue tag in every line of dialogue. Sometimes it's perfectly clear without them who the speaker is. For example, take the following conversation between two characters.

"Will you marry me?" Yolanda asked. "Absolutely not," said Julian. "Why not? Why won't you marry me?" "Because you tried to poison me, Yolanda." "That was an accident!" Yolanda said. "How do you accidentally slip arsenic into somebody's drink?"

In this example, it's clear that Yolanda's the one who asks "Why won't you marry me?" so it's not necessary to use a dialogue tag there.

You're likely to need dialogue tags...

• at the beginning of a conversation, to establish who the participants are.
•  if there are more than two speakers.
• when you haven't used dialogue tags in a while (to remind readers who's saying what)

There are several uses for dialogue tags. The obvious one, the main use, is to prevent confusion about the speaker's identity. A second use is to create a little break or pause in the conversation. Compare two versions of another exchange between Yolanda and Julian.

VERSION 1: "Why did you try to poison me?" Julian asked. "Because I was jealous," Yolanda said.

VERSION 2: "Why did you try to poison me?" Julian asked. "Because," Yolanda said, "I was jealous."

Do you hear the difference? In the second version, the dialogue tag creates a little pause after the word "Because." Yolanda might be thinking about her answer, or she might be pausing for emphasis. But the placement of the dialogue tag subtly changes the rhythm of Yolanda's line.

The standard dialogue tags "said," "told," and "asked" are almost invisible to readers. In general, readers won't even notice they're there. They'll focus instead on the characters' words.

On the other hand, flashier dialogue tags like "wheedled", "sneered", "commanded," "whined," etc., can get distracting if they're overused...

"Please, please marry me," Yolanda wheedled. "You've got to be kidding," Julian sneered. "No one ever wants to marry me," Yolanda whined.

Generally, readers should be able to tell from the character's words if the character is wheedling or sneering.

It's okay to throw in a colorful dialogue tag here once in a while if it adds to the reader's experience. But don't go overboard with them.

And don't worry that you're "repeating yourself" because you're using the words "said" and "told" a lot in your dialogue tags. If the dialogue's interesting enough, the reader won't even notice those words.

How to Write Dialogue: Descriptive Beats

A descriptive beat is a small piece of action or description inserted into the dialogue. Here's an example of dialogue containing descriptive beats...

"I don't want it," Eva said, pushing the file back across the table. James raised his eyebrows. "Do you know what I went through to get that for you?" he said.

In this example, the descriptive beats are:

• pushing the file across the table
• He raised his eyebrows.

Here are some ways to use descriptive beats in your dialogue.

1) To create a pause.

We talked about using a dialogue tag to change the rhythm of a line of dialogue.

A descriptive beat is another way to insert a pause—and the longer the line of description, the longer the pause.

VERSION 1 "I don't want it," Eva said, pushing the file back across the table. James raised his eyebrows. "Do you know what I went through to get that for you?" he said.

VERSION 2 "I don't want it," Eva said. "Do you know what I went through to get that for you?" James said.

Do you feel the difference in the rhythm? In the version with descriptive beats, there's a pause between Eva's statement and James's answer. In the version without them, James seems to respond immediately.

If there's a long pause in the middle of a conversation, you can tell the reader that; e.g., "Neither of them spoke for several minutes." But if you want to make the reader *feel* the pause, the silence stretching on, you can spend a bit of time describing what else is going on with your main character and their surroundings: Eva's pounding headache, a fly buzzing around the table and briefly landing on Eva's sleeve, a car horn honking outside...

2) You can use descriptive beats instead of dialogue tags. Instead of 'Eva said' or 'James said', you can show who's talking with the descriptive beats. For example, here's Eva and James's conversation with only the descriptive beats to identify the speakers:

"I don't want it." Eva pushed the file back across the table. James raised his eyebrows. "Do you know what I went through to get that for you?"

3) You can use descriptive beats to help readers visualize the scene.

Particularly in long passages of dialogue, you want to avoid "Talking Head Syndrome", where the voices seem to be floating in space. Descriptive beats allow you to provide some visual details to keep readers grounded.

4) You can use descriptive beats to add emotional layers to the dialogue.

Your characters' body language hint at what the characters are feeling—which might not always match up with their words!

• "I love you too," she said, her face radiant.
• "I love you too," she said, but avoided his eyes.
• "I love you too," she said between clenched teeth.

How to Write Dialogue with Layers

In some cases, it makes sense to keep the dialogue very straightforward and to-the-point. But in other cases, this can feel a bit flat.

If your detective asks the suspect where she was during the time of the murder, the suspect might simply answer the question. "Eight o'clock this morning? I was at home." A simple exchange of information.

But dialogue is often more interesting if there's something else going on at the same time.

Going back to the example of the detective interviewing the suspect, here are some ways you might liven up their exchange:

• The suspect might be distracted by something else. Maybe her toddler is throwing a tantrum during the conversation.
• The suspect might attempt to flirt with the detective, or to intimidate him. Maybe she has a grudge against policemen and becomes very hostile.
• The suspect might be hiding something (relevant or irrelevant to the conversation).
• The suspect might have her own agenda. Maybe she's just interested in showing off how rich and important she is.
• The suspect might be trying to steer the conversation in another direction. Maybe she's a political activist, and she's trying to convince the detective to vote for her candidate.
• The suspect might be doing something else at the same time. Maybe she's making an ice sculpture for a wedding while they talk.

By adding another layer to the conversation, you can develop character or setting at the same time, and you can add dimension to the scene.

Tips on How to Write Dialogue

To recap some of what we've discussed, here are seven tips on how to write dialogue like a pro.

1) Give each of your characters a different voice. Try to hear their voices in your head as you're writing what they say. Your characters' unique ways of talking will depend on personality, age, cultural and educational background, as well as their relationships with the people they're talking to.

2) Know when to summarize . If a character talks for an hour about his golf technique, you can't include the whole speech in your story. Instead, you can summarize: "John went on for an hour about his golf technique."

3) Mix dialogue and summary. You can mix a few lines of dialogue into a dialogue summary to give readers the flavor of your character's voice. "'Been working on my swing,' John said, launching into an hour-long discourse on his golf technique."

4) Use indirection. Often, people don't express what's on their mind directly. Instead, they hint at it in other ways. If John is attracted to Marsha, he might not come out and say to her, "I'm attracted to you." Instead, he might become boastful around her, or steer the conversation around to whether she's married. The best dialogue often has two levels, what characters are saying on the surface, and what they really mean.

5) Use silences. Pauses in a conversation can be as expressive as what is said out loud. During a pause, you can describe the characters' body language, what they're doing (e.g., taking a sip of coffee), or what's happening around them.

6) Trim the fat. Real-life conversation contains a lot of filler, false starts, repetition, polite blah-blah-blah. If you include all of this in your written dialogue, it can get boring. Instead, you can include just enough to give the flavor of real life, then cut the rest.

7) Don't pile on distracting dialogue tags. Fancy dialogue tags such as "he whined," "she commanded," or "he queried" draw attention to themselves. The old standbys, "said," "told," and "asked" are less noticeable, letting readers focus on your characters' words.

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Writing dialogue: Complete guide to storied speech

Writing dialogue is an important skill to develop so that characters’ speech is imbued with voice and advances the story. Learn more in this complete guide to dialogue writing and formatting, with examples.

• Post author By Jordan
• 37 Comments on Writing dialogue: Complete guide to storied speech

This guide to writing dialogue is all about using speech and conversation in storytelling to make your characters’ voices drive plot, tension and drama. Use the links to jump to the dialogue-writing topic you want to learn more about right now.

What is dialogue? Key terms

Dialogue in writing is conversation between two or more people/animated voices (animated voices because it could be speech between a person and an inanimate object they personify, for example, an imaginary or supernatural voice, and so forth).

Dialogue can be compared to:

• A tennis or fencing match: Speakers may spar, score points, volley arguments or statements (and rebuttals to them) back and forth
• A dance: One speaker says one line, the other replies, and sometimes one person may lead, at other times, the other leads
• Pieces in a puzzle coming together: What different characters say may build up a gradual picture, for example an idea of the persona of a character who has not yet appeared in a story scene but has been spoken about by others
• Music: sometimes there is harmony (working together), other times discord (strife, heated conversation or disagreement)

Key terms in writing dialogue

There are several terms in dialogue worth knowing as they crop up often in discussing this element of writing craft:

Active listening: Dialogue is (usually) responsive

When somebody is engaged in ‘active listening’, they aren’t just waiting for their turn to speak. In a true conversation, people hear one another, respond.

There may be instances where your dialogue’s subtext or context (more on these below) calls for characters not to actively listen to one another, of course. There may be cause for them to interrupt, speak over, speak at cross purposes.

In these cases, it should be contextually or otherwise clear why characters aren’t properly responding to each other’s speech (the dialogue should not read or sound like random non sequiturs, each person’s utterances totally disconnected for no clear reason).

Context for dialogue

Effective dialogue involves its context. For example, in a frenzied car chase, the squeal of tires may drown out the exchange here or there. Speech and action in this context may reflect rapid decision-making, keeping pace.

In the middle of a bank heist, people may be curt, decisive (of course, inept thieves could wax lyrical and by talking too much make rookie mistakes).

Either way, context will inform how readers make sense of your dialogue, and helps to fill dialogue with tone and mood . Nobody whispers to each other standing next to Niagara falls (if they want to be heard).

Subtext and dialogue

Subtext in dialogue is the underlying meaning, motivation or feeling behind the words characters speak.

For example, a boss starts a casual conversation with a new employee but the subtext is that they’re having regrets at hiring the person and trying to come to a decision on whether to terminate in the trial period. The subtext will inform what language they will use (and this language would be different to someone ecstatic with their employee’s performance).

Subtext adds depth and complexity to dialogue, strata of the said and unsaid.

Purpose in dialogue

Why is the information you are writing in a scene given as dialogue? Knowing the purpose of dialogue (and writing dialogue that feels purpose-driven) is useful to ensure that every spoken line counts. In a stage play, dialogue and action are the two drivers of story.

In narrative fiction, you also get to use narration to convey meaning. A story where all character information is conveyed through narration may read oddly voiceless, impersonal. Dialogue makes your characters pause, take a breath, like real flesh and blood.

Recommended reading

Learn more about writing conversations that feel real and draw on cause and effect, call and response:

• Context and subtext in dialogue: Creating layered speech
• How to make dialogue in writing carry your story
• 7 dialogue rules for writing fantastic conversations

To the top ↑

I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting yourself. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation. Tom Stoppard

GET YOUR FREE GUIDE TO SCENE STRUCTURE

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Why dialogue matters

Why do most stories benefit from liberal use of dialogue?

1. Dialogue brings characters and their differences to life

In dialogue, you could show a character’s personality in a handful of words. Here, for example, Dostoyevsky creates the sense of a decisive doctor, used to dealing with uncertain, anxious patients in The Double :

‘Krestyan Ivanovich … I …’ ‘Hm,’ interrupted the doctor, ‘what I’m telling you is that you need to radically change your whole lifestyle and in a sense you must completely transform your character.’ (Krestyan Ivanovich particularly emphasized the word ‘transform’ and paused for a moment with an extremely significant look.) Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Double , trans. Ronald Wilks (1846, 2009), p. 11

There is an immediate sense of power dynamic (and differential) – the hesitating patient and his decisive doctor.

2. Dialogue splits up exposition into varied parts

If all the revelation of your characters and world is in long, wall-of-text narration, it becomes slightly draining to read.

Dialogue lifts us out of a ‘this happened, then that’ sense of explanation and throws us into the immediate – sound striking the eardrum. Tweet This

3. Dialogue advances a story

Characters may tell each other things that reveal – or shift – goals, motivations, conflicts. ‘But first, I must tell you Mr Bond…’ A villain may say too much, a lover, too little (or vice versa).

4. Conversation builds relationships

Some of the most beautiful relationships (or the most ugly) emerge through what people say to one another.

Ed’s note: As an undergraduate in English Literature, I attended a lecture on Pride and Prejudice where the lecturer illustrated how Lizzie and Darcy’s love is established through the grammar of their language and how it shifts. At one point, Darcy says, ‘You are loved by me’ – a different structure to the standard ‘I love you’ that places the subject first, in a way that reads as full of care.

We detect attraction and resentment in the language people use with one another. A conversation about the weather may imply feelings – it comes down to tone, address, mood, agreement and disagreement.

5. Dialogue brings humor, levity and persona to stories

Dialogue is often a vehicle for comedy. It’s a crucial part of how to write a funny story .

You can narrate that a character has grown wealthy and fallen out of touch with their humble origins. But in Dickens’ Great Expectations, when a character named ‘Trabb’s boy’, the tailor’s son, follows the main character Pip down the street mimicking him and saying, ‘Don’t know ya!’ after Pip is left wealth, it’s a brilliant and funny illustration of how people change (and perceive and react to changes in others).

Pip seems ‘too good for’ others now that he has wealth, and three words convey Trabb’s boy’s contempt with sly humor. Three words (paired with action, the following and mimicking) convey complex social dynamics and feelings.

Why else do you think dialogue matters? Tell us in the comments.

Learn more about writing dialogue that drives stories:

10 dialogue tips to hook readers

Hook readers into your story with dialogue that catches their attention.

• Writing movement and action in dialogue: 6 tips

How can movement and action make your dialogue more immersive? Find out.

Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real. Laini Taylor

How to format dialogue

Speech marks or quotation marks, and where do the line breaks go? Read on for how to format dialogue, common differences between UK and US formatting styles, and more:

Why do we format dialogue? Clarity, ease and flow

Try to write an exchange in dialogue all as block paragraph text and it becomes a nightmare trying to keep track of who says what:

“You’re late,” she said. “But I didn’t say what time I was coming.” “I don’t care, I’ve been waiting half an hour.” There was an awkward silence for a few seconds. “Well don’t say anything, whatever.”

It’s not clear from the above dialogue without line breaks and with no attribution for the last spoken sentence who says what at all times.

This is much easier to read because line breaks signal when the speaker changes:

It’s much easier to follow the back and forth (and because only two characters are present, the dialogue does not need excess attribution of who says what thanks to the line breaks clarifying this).

How to format dialogue in stories: 8 tips

To make sure it’s clear who’s speaking, when it changes, and when speech begins and ends (and narration or description interrupts):

1. Use quotation or speech marks to show when speech starts and stops

If a character is still speaking, don’t close speech marks prematurely.

2. Start a new line each time the speaker changes

Although it is common practice to use an indent for each change of speaker, make sure to use paragraph formatting in your word processor rather than the tab button as this can make indentation too large or wonky (using paragraph-wide settings is most precise).

3. Decide how you’ll format dialogue (and stick with it)

Speech marks with double quotations like the example from Colleen Hoover above (“) are more commonly used in the US, single quotation marks (‘) in books published in the UK.

Some contemporary novels don’t use speech marks at all, using an em dash at the start of a line or presenting dialogue another way. Whichever approach you use, consistency is key.

Example: Using single quotation marks to indicate speech

4. Always use a comma if there is an attributing tag

If dialogue is attributed using a tag such as ‘she said’ (read more on dialogue tags below), use a comma and not a period/full stop. For example:

“Writing dialogue is harder than I thought.” She said. ❌ “Writing dialogue is harder than I thought,” she said. ✔️

Remember: the tag continues the sentence.

5. Split long monologue over multiple paragraphs

What if the same character is speaking for a long time in dialogue?

To format this, the convention is to open speech marks for each new paragraph without closing speech marks for the previous one, until the speaker is finished talking.

Example: Dialogue where one speaker continues over paragraphs

“First I want to thank you all for being here on our special day. It does take a village (but you can put down the pitchforks, take off the creepy masks, and relax a little, guys, it’s not that kind of village) … Er eheh… OK I’m firing my joke writers.

“But in all seriousness, I couldn’t have chosen a better bride…zilla.”

6. Use the appropriate dialogue punctuation

If a speaker pauses, put it in with a comma or something longer such as a semicolon. This is where it helps to read dialogue out loud as you will hear where there is a natural pause that needs punctuating. Colons have an announcing effect. Example: “OK, here’s the kicker: The guard changes every forty-five minutes.”

If there is a question or exclamation, use the appropriate speech mark (that includes the occasional special effect, such as an interrobang (!?).

7. Write interruption or other changes in dialogue’s flow clearly

Ellipses are effective in showing a character trailing off or pausing to think for longer, mid-dialogue.

“Oh yes, I remember, it was … whatshername.”

There are several ways to show interruption. You could:

• Use an em-dash just after cut-off speech. Example: “If you’d just let me fini—”
• Use parentheses to show self-interruption. Example: “If you’d just let me finish what I was (actually, it’s fine, carry on).”

8. Format narration interrupting dialogue clearly

If you want to describe a character’s manner, movement, expression mid-dialogue, remember to use a comma before and resume dialogue without capitalization (unless the word is a proper noun):

“I can’t believe you said that,” John said, shaking his head, “and with absolutely zero remorse, too.”

Read more on how to ensure your dialogue reads clearly, including how to write ensemble dialogue with multiple characters present:

• Writing dialogue between multiple characters

Nothing teaches you as much about dialogue as listening to it. Judy Blume

Effective vs weak dialogue

Why does some dialogue scintillate, stir interest, while other dialogue reads like talking heads saying nothing of great impact in an inky void? There are several hallmarks of effective and less effective dialogue:

What makes dialogue effective:

• An authentic sense of voice. Do characters sound like cipher’s for an author’s pretension (this may be true to a specific stylistic choice, though) or like real people talking?
• Purpose-driven dialogue. Each line of dialogue should have identifiable purpose, whether it’s establishing character, advancing the story, building tone and mood, or dialogue serves another purpose.
• Aptness for type (or explicable ‘against type’ voice). Avoid confusing your reader by having a five-year old speak like a fifty-year-old (unless there’s a plot-given or other explicable reason for this anomaly).
• Varied structure. If every sentence is clipped or brusque, or every sentence is long and meandering, the eye (and ear) may tire. Switch it up if possible.
• Natural language. Contractions (e.g. ‘it’s’ for ‘it is’) and other ways people naturally speak (colloquial language or slang) lend further authenticity to voice.
• Conflict and tension . ‘As you know, Bob’ info dumps and happy people in happy land don’t make dialogue exciting (but tension, disagreement, doubt – sparks of contradiction – do).
• Movement and gesture. A gesture may change the entire meaning of a spoken phrase (a shrug, turn, sitting down, standing up, waving arms, and so on).
• Subtext and inference. What a character is truly thinking or feeling might not match up perfectly with what they’re saying. People lie, omit, embellish, and so forth.

What can weaken dialogue in fiction?

Dialogue in stories may feel bland or confusing (or too over the top and melodramatic) when:

• It’s all one note. If every utterance is an exclamation (with an exclamation mark), that gets old fast. Use special effects like salt – just enough to enhance the conversation.
• Connection is absent. Your reader may be confused if what characters reply to each other seems as though they’re having two different conversations (unless there is contextual explanation, e.g. both are hard of hearing).
• The scenery stays outside. If your characters are having an argument in the kitchen, does someone bang a pot, slam a drawer? Bring in surrounds.
• There is no differentiation. If everyone has the exact same vocabulary, mannerisms, and pattern of speech, characters start to become clone-like, like so many Agent Smiths.
• Excessive or bizarre tags. Characters shouldn’t honk or trumpet speech too often. Favor tags that you can say or express (no, “What!” she flabbergasted’). Leave out tags entirely if context tells your reader who speaks (and content of speech gives tone/mood).
• Excessive dialect or accent. At best excessive dialect or accent may read distracting, at worst, like hurtful stereotype or caricature.
• Adverbs clutter speech. Instead of overusing ‘she says softly’, leave space for the silence to come through.
• Dialogue dumps information. ‘As you know, Bob’ is a phrase used for dialogue where characters tell each other things both already know solely for the reader’s benefit. Find ways to make the retelling new/fresh, find what Bob doesn’t yet know and needs to be told.

Keep reading about ways to make dialogue characterful and engaging:

• Dialogue words: Other words for ‘said’ (and what to avoid)
• How to write accents and dialects: 6 tips
• Realistic dialogue: Creating characters’ speech patterns

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Dialogue devices for characterful speech

There are several dialogue devices that help to advance stories and create a sense of movement, tension and change:

Dialogue tags and action tags

What are dialogue tags and action tags?

Dialogue tag: The words added after dialogue that attribute who has spoken (and often the mood, emotion, or volume of speech).

“You might want that tattoo, but I know all your secrets and your twenty-first is coming up and don’t think for a second I’m above making an awkward speech,” mom warned.

“Shh!” he hissed in a half-whisper. “This freaking place is haunted.”

Action tag: Indicates the speaker’s movements or gestures in dialogue. This can be used to attribute speech and make dialogue livelier.

“You might want that tattoo, but …” Mom leaned over theatrically as though to confide something important. “I know all your secrets and […]’

Movement and gesture

Movement and gesture may punctuate dialogue, immersing the reader in a scene further.

‘Then go,’ said Mrs Williams, handing him the buckets and the coil of rope. ‘Swim,’ she said maliciously. She knew he was afraid of the sea. He carried his fear coiled and tangled in him like other boys carry twine and string in their crumb-filled pockets. Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda (1988), p. 16

Interruption

Interruption is a useful device in dialogue for argument, dramatic scenes with high stakes where characters are speaking over one another, and so forth.

“I could have killed you.” “Or I could have killed you,” Percy said. Jason shrugged. “If there’d been an ocean in Kansas, maybe.” “I don’t need an ocean—” “Boys,” Annabeth interrupted, “I’m sure you both would’ve been wonderful at killing each other. But right now, you need some rest.” Rick Riordan, The Mark of Athena (2012).

Conflict and suspense

Conflict and suspense in dialogue keep the reader intrigued. Characters may argue, refuse to speak, tell a fib the reader may know to be untrue, or otherwise stir tension.

“What’s this for?” Tessie asked suspiciously. “What do you mean, what is it for?” “It’s not my birthday. It’s not our anniversary. So why are you giving me a present?” “Do I have to have a reason to give you a present? Go on, open it.” Tessie crumpled up one corner of her mouth, unconvinced. Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (2002), p. 10.

Read more on devices in dialogue, including dialogue tags vs action tags and how to create tension:

• 421 ways to say said? Simplify dialogue instead
• Dialogue 101: Using dialogue tags vs action tags
• Writing tense dialogue: 5 ways to add arresting tension

I never say ‘She says softly.’ If it’s not already soft, you know, I have to leave a lot of space around it so a reader can hear that it’s soft. Toni Morrison

Dialogue examples that work

Read examples of dialogue that works from a cross-selection of genres including fantasy, romance, science fiction, thriller, historical, contemporary and more:

1. Fantasy dialogue example ( A Game of Thrones )

Note how George R. R. Martin weaves in setting to create mood between utterances in this exchange from the prologue to A Game of Thrones :

“We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. “The wildlings are dead.” “Do the dead frighten you?” Ser Waymar Royce asked with just the hint of a smile. Gared did not rise to the bait. He was an old man, past fifty, and he had seen the lordlings come and go. “Dead is dead,” he said. “We have no business with the dead.” George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones (1996).

2. Historical romance dialogue example ( The Duke and I )

Julia Quinn begins the first chapter in the first of her popular Regency-set romance novels with a typical Regency setting – a drawing room (and drama in letters):

“Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhh!” Violet Bridgerton crumped the single-page newspaper into a ball and hurled it across the elegant drawing room. Her daughter Daphne wisely made no comment and pretended to be engrossed in her embroidery. “Did you read what she said?” Violet demanded. “Did you?” Julia Quinn, The Duke and I (2000).

3. Mystery dialogue example ( The Murder of Roger Ackroyd )

Dame Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is often voted one of her best detective novels. In the first chapter already, conversation turns to death and the topic of who knows what about whom (and how):

My sister’s nose, which is long and thin, quivered a little at the tip, as it always does when she is interested or excited over anything. “Well?” she demanded. “A bad business. Nothing to be done. Must have died in her sleep.” “I know, said my sister again. This time I was annoyed. “You can’t know,” I snapped. “I didn’t know myself until I got there and I haven’t mentioned it to a soul yet. If that girl Annie knows, she must be a clairvoyant.” Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)

4. Science fiction dialogue example ( Hyperion )

Dan Simmons’ Hyperion which won a Hugo Award was hailed as ‘The book that reinvented Space Opera’. Note the weaving in of dialogue between human and machine in the prologue:

‘We need your help,’ said Meina Gladstone. ‘It is essential that the secrets of the Time Tombs and Shrike be uncovered. This pilgrimage may be our last chance. If the Ousters conquer Hyperion, their agent must be eliminated and the Time Tombs sealed at all cost. The fate of the Hegemony may depend upon it.’ The transmission ended except for the pulse of rendezvous coordinates. ‘Response?’ asked the ship’s computer. Dan Simmons, Hyperion (1989).

5. Psychological thriller dialogue example ( Sharp Objects )

Notice how in Gillian Flynn’s debut Sharp Objects how even a simple conversation between reporter Camille Preaker and her editor at the St. Louis Chronicle who sends her back to her hometown on assignment is laced with a sense of tension and avoidance:

“Tell me about Wind Gap.” Curry held the tip of a ballpoint pen at his grizzled chin. I could picture the tiny prick of blue it would leave among the stubble. “It’s at the very bottom of Missouri, in the boot heel. Spitting distance from Tennessee and Arkansas,” I said, hustling for my facts. Curry loved to drill reporters on any topics he deemed pertinent – the number of murders in Chicago last year, the demographics for Cook County, or, for some reason, the story of my hometown, a topic I preferred to avoid. Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects (2006).

6. Humor dialogue example ( Lessons in Chemistry )

See here how Bonnie Garmus weaves together humorous dialogue and character description to create the portrait of a man who does not have much luck in love:

“I can’t believe you’re having trouble,” his Cambridge teammates would tell him. “Girls love rowers.” Which wasn’t true. “And even though you’re an American, you’re not bad looking.” Which was also not true. Part of the problem was Calvin’s posture. He was six feet four inches tall, lanky and long, but he slouched to the right – probably a by-product of always rowing stroke side. Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry (2022).

7. Historical/fantasy dialogue example ( The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue )

V.E. Schwab creates a sense of early, 17th Century times in this conversation about prayer and witches’ fates in her historical fantasy novel that involves immortality and contemporary romance:

“How do you talk to them?” she asks. “The old gods. Do you call them by name?” Estele straightens, joints cracking like dry sticks. If she’s surprised by the question, it doesn’t show. “They have no names.” “Is there a spell?” Estele gives her a pointed look. “Spells are for witches, and witches are too often burned.” V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).

8. Literary fiction dialogue example ( Home )

Toni Morrison is a master of capturing the authentic ring of a real human voice. See the difference between the Reverend and his wife who dismisses his jaundiced view of the world as ‘foolishness’ in this dialogue example:

“You from down the street? At that hospital?” Frank nodded while stamping his feet and trying to rub life back into his fingers. Reverend Locke grunted. “Have a seat,” he said, then, shaking his head, added, “You lucky, Mr. Money. They sell a lot of bodies out of there.” “Bodies?” Frank sank down on the sofa, only vaguely caring or wondering what the man was talking about. “Uh-huh. To the medical school.” “They sell dead bodies? What for?” “Well, you know, doctors need to work on the dead poor so they can help the live rich.” “John, stop.” Jean Locke came down the stairs, tightening the belt of her robe. “That’s just foolishness.” Toni Morrison, Home (2012).

What is a favorite section of dialogue from a book in your favorite genre? Share in the comments below.

Join The Process for weekly feedback on dialogue and other writing, webinars on dialogue writing and other writing craft topic, and structured writing tools to brainstorm and develop your story.

Now Novel has been invaluable in helping me learn about the craft of novel writing. The feedback has been encouraging, insightful and useful. I’m sure I wouldn’t have got as far as I have without the support of Jordan and the writers in the groups. Highly recommend to anyone seeking help, support or encouragement with their first or next novel. – Oliver

Recommended Reading

Read further examples of effective dialogue:

• Dialogue writing examples from top books vs AI (2023)
• Writing conversations using setting (examples)
• 5 types of dialogue your novel needs

Related Posts:

• Realistic dialogue: Creating characters' speech patterns
• Writing process: From discovery to done (complete guide)
• Tags dialogue examples , dialogue tags , how to write dialogue

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

37 replies on “Writing dialogue: Complete guide to storied speech”

Thank you for this! I notice these are all first person narratives; could you do something also with stories told in third person?

It’s a pleasure! Happily. While not on dialogue specifically, you might find this post on starting a story in third person helpful: https://www.nownovel.com/blog/how-to-start-a-novel-in-third-person/

“Very illuminating,” I said.

Thanks, Rob!

thanks this really helped

I’m thrilled to hear that, Randolyn. Thank you for the feedback.

As Rob said, very illuminating!

Do you have any recommendations on books with similar dialogue? Or should I give Tartt’s whole bibliography a go?

Thanks for the insight! Dialogue is one of my worker points in writing and I aim to correct that.

Hi Marco! It’s a pleasure. Tartt’s writing is very punchy, but there are many authors who write fantastic dialogue. Another great one is Toni Morrison – she’s a great master of every element of story, from exposition to dialogue to description and more.

Good luck, with focus I’m sure it’ll improve to the level you want it to be quickly.

This was immensely helpful. I’ve always handed dialogue fairly well, I think, but these tips will help me clean it up and use it to move the story forward, rather than just using it as page filler.

That’s great to hear, Brianna. I hope your current WIP is coming along well 🙂

yes helpfull

Hi Umer, thank you for the feedback. Good luck with your story!

Hello this is a nice example…….

Thanks, Joel!

This is truly helpful. Thanks!

I’m glad to hear that, April. It’s a pleasure! I hope you’re writing great dialogue.

I am doing a class project on figurative language and i need examples but short ones do you have any i could use

This was surprisingly helpful. I’m so glad I came across this website. Writing dialogue has always been something I’ve had difficulty doing, but these tips have significantly improved my dialogue writing. Thank you so much.

We’re glad to hear that, Prakhar! Keep writing 🙂

it is really usefull to me madam thank u so much

I’m glad to hear that, Manjunatha. Have a great weekend!

Thanks, Nathan, I’m glad to hear that.

kinda helpful to me 😀

I got my 18,5 mark from this Amazing ?

Fantastic, Chihab – do give yourself some of the credit! Well done.

Very useful to me… Thanks !!☺☺

It’s a pleasure, thank you for reading our articles and taking the time to share your feedback ?

[…] some dialogue writing tips at the following blog and evaluate them with some fellow […]

I want to know about the rule of using open quotation mark at the end of the dialogue 1 ‘We are not allowed to-‘

Hi Jagadishkk, thank you for sharing your question. From the example you’ve written, do you mean using interruption at the end of a line of dialogue? The way you’ve written that example is correct, you would usually use a dash with the interrupting person’s dialogue appearing immediately below on a new line (with indentation if indenting changes of speaker as is a common formatting style choice).

Hi I want you to help me with dialogue first draft

Hi Peggy, you can get constructive feedback from our community in our writing groups, they’re free to join. You can sign up here .

What is a favorite section of dialogue from a book in your favorite genre? Here is one of mine from “Bring up the bodies” by H. Mantel.

“Majesty, the Muscovites has taken three hundred miles of Polish territory. They say fifty thousand men are dead.” “Oh,” Henry says. “I hope they spare the libraries. The scholars. There are very fine scholars in Poland.” “Mm? Hope so too.”

Tells us something about Henry VIII — he “doesn’t give a hoot” about libraries and scholars in Poland or dead men.

Hi Nara, thanks so much for sharing that dialogue example. I like that Henry VIII seems preoccupied or disinterested in his responses, the simplicity of monosyllabic words and even how Mantel has him drop the subject ‘I’ to make it read more cursory, saying the bare minimum. He was probably too busy marrying and remarrying (and beheading) 🙂

Hey Jordan,

fantastic article, thank you very much – it helped me a lot, especially because i am translating my German Novel into English right now! However there is still an open question to me:



Here is an example/ little excerpt of my novel, which I already translated but kept the original German Formatting. I am asking myself if the colon can stay like this ( Then she said: ) or do I have to replace it with a comma ( Then she said, ) and begin with the dialogue in the next line. 
Here is the example ->>

After my mother echoed Michael’s exact words, she looked at me with a fixed gaze for several seconds. Then she said: “Do you understand now, Jordan, why I opened my eyes so wide just now?” “Yes… I feel as if he is here right now, Mother. I know him, but I don‘t know where…” “But now I really want to ask you, were you aware of his words, Jordan?”

I really hope you can help me with this little question. Thank you in advance 🙂



Greetings from Germany
 Yannic

Hi Yannic, thank you for your kind feedback, I’m glad you found this guide to dialogue helpful. One can use a colon or a comma to precede quoted speech. Technically, it is usual to only use a colon if the introductory words form an independent clause or the quotation is a complete sentence. Because the mother’s words fit this rule, a colon is totally acceptable in this case.

Good luck with your translation, that is quite the undertaking.

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How to Write Dialogue: Rules, Examples, and 8 Tips for Engaging Dialogue

by Fija Callaghan

You’ll often hear fiction writers talking about “character-driven stories”—stories where the strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations of the central cast of characters stay with us long after the book is closed. But what drives character, and how do we create characters that leave long-lasting impressions?

The answer lies in dialogue : the device used by our characters to communicate with each other. Powerful dialogue can elevate a story and subtly reveal important information, but poorly written dialogue can send your work straight to the slush bin. Let’s look at what dialogue is in writing, how to properly format dialogue, and how to make your characters’ dialogue the best it can be.

What is dialogue in a story?

Dialogue is the verbal exchange between two or more characters. In most fiction, the exchange is in the form of a spoken conversation. However, conversations in a story can also be things like letters, text messages, telepathy, or even sign language. Any moment where two characters speak or connect with each other through their choice of words, they’re engaging in dialogue.

Why does dialogue matter in a story?

We use dialogue in a story to reveal new information about the plot, characters, and story world. Great dialogue is essential to character development and helps move the plot forward in a story.

Writing good dialogue is a great way to sneak exposition into your story without stating it overtly to the reader; you can also use tools like dialect and diction in your dialogue to communicate more detail about your characters.

Through a character’s dialogue, we can learn about their motivations, relationships, and understanding of the world around them.

A character won’t always say what they mean (more on dialogue subtext below), but everything they say will serve some larger purpose in the story. If your dialogue is well-written, the reader will absorb this information without even realizing it. If your dialogue is clunky, however, it will stand out and pull your reader away from your story.

Rules for writing dialogue

Before we get into how to make your dialogue realistic and engaging, let’s make sure you’ve got the basics down: how to properly format dialogue in a story. We’ll look at how to punctuate dialogue, how to write dialogue correctly when using a question mark or exclamation point, and some helpful dialogue writing examples.

Here are the need-to-know rules for formatting dialogue in writing.

Enclose lines of dialogue in double quotation marks

This is the most essential rule in basic dialogue punctuation. When you write dialogue in North American English, a spoken line will have a set of double quotation marks around it. Here’s a simple dialogue example:

“Were you at the party last night?”

Any punctuation such as periods, question marks, and exclamation marks will also go inside the quotation marks. The quotation marks give a visual clue to the reader that this line is spoken out loud.

In European or British English, however, you’ll often see single quotation marks being used instead of double quotation marks. All the other rules stay the same.

Enclose nested dialogue in single quotation marks

Nested dialogue is when one line of dialogue happens inside another line of dialogue—when someone is verbally quoting someone else. In North American English, you’d use single quotation marks to identify where the new dialogue line starts and stops, like this:

“And then, do you know what he said to me? Right to my face, he said, ‘I stayed home all night.’ As if I didn’t even see him.”

The double and single quotation marks give the reader clues as to who’s speaking. In European or British English, the quotation marks would be reversed; you’d use single quotation marks on the outside, and double quotation marks on the inside.

Every speaker gets a new paragraph

Every time you switch to a new speaker, you end the line where it is and start a new line. Here are some dialogue examples to show you how it looks:

“Were you at the party last night?” “No, I stayed home all night.”

The same is true if the new “speaker” is only in focus because of their action. You can think of the paragraphs like camera angles, each one focusing on a different person:

“Were you at the party last night?” “No, I stayed home all night.” She raised a single, threatening eyebrow. “Yeah, I wasn’t feeling that well, so I just stayed in and watched Netflix instead.”

If you kept the action on the same line as the dialogue, it would get confusing and make it look like she was the one saying it. Giving each character a new paragraph keeps the speakers clear and distinct.

Use em-dashes when dialogue gets cut short

If your character begins to speak but is interrupted, you’ll break off their line of dialogue with an em-dash, like this:

“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling that well, so I just stayed in and—” “Is that really what happened?”

Be careful with this one, because many word processors will treat your em-dash like the beginning of a new sentence and attach your closing quotation marks backwards:

“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling that well, so I just stayed in and—“

You may need to keep an eye out and adjust as you go along.

In this dialogue example, the new speaker doesn’t lead with an em-dash; they just start speaking like normal. The only time you’ll ever open a line of dialogue with an em-dash is if the speaker who’s been cut off continues with what they were saying:

“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling that well, so I just stayed in and—” “Is that really what happened?” “—watched Netflix instead. Yes, that’s what happened.”

This shows the reader that there’s actually only one line of dialogue, but it’s been cut in the middle by another speaker.

Each line of dialogue is indented

Every time you give your speaker a new paragraph, it’s indented from the left-hand side. Many word processors will do this automatically. The only exception is if your dialogue is opening your story or a new section of your story, such as a chapter; these will always start at the far left margin of the page, whether they’re dialogue or narration.

Long speeches don’t use use closing quotation marks until the end

Most writers favor shorter lines of dialogue in their writing, but sometimes you might need to give your character a longer one—for instance, if the character speaking is giving a speech or telling a story. In these cases, you might choose to break up their speech into shorter paragraphs the way you would if you were writing regular narrative.

However, here the punctuation gets a bit weird. You’ll begin the character’s dialogue with a double quotation mark, like normal. But you won’t use a double quotation mark at the end of the paragraph, because they haven’t finished speaking yet. But! You’ll use another opening quotation mark at the beginning of the subsequent paragraph. This means that you may use several opening double quotation marks for your character’s speech, but only ever one closing quotation mark.

If your character is telling a story that involves people talking, remember to use single quotation marks for your dialogue-within-dialogue as we looked at above.

Sometimes these dialogue formatting rules are easier to catch later on, during the editing process. When you’re writing, worry less about using the exact dialogue punctuation and more about writing great dialogue that supports your character development and moves the story forward.

How to use dialogue tags

Dialogue tags help identify the speaker. They’re especially important if you have a group of people all talking together, and it can get pretty confusing for the reader trying to keep everybody straight. If you’re using a speech tag after your line of dialogue—he said, she said, and so forth—you’ll end your sentence with a comma, like this:

“No, I stayed home all night,” he said.

But if you’re using an action to identify the person speaking instead, you’ll punctuate the sentence like normal and start a new sentence to describe the action taking place:

“No, I stayed home all night.” He looked down at his feet.

The dialogue tags and action tags always follow in the same paragraph. When you move your story lens to a new person, you’ll switch to a new paragraph. Each line where a new person speaks propels the story forward.

When to use capitals in dialogue tags

You may have noticed in the two examples above that one dialogue tag begins with a lowercase letter, and one—which is technically called an action tag—begins with a capital letter. Confusing? The rules are simple once you get a little practice.

When you use a dialogue tag like “he said,” “she said,” “he whispered,” or “she shouted,” you’re using these as modifiers to your sentence—dressing it up with a little clarity. They’re an extension of the sentence the person was speaking. That’s why you separate them with a comma and keep going.

With an action tag , you’re ending one sentence and beginning a whole new one. Each sentence represents two distinct moments in the story. That’s why you end the first sentence with a period, and then open the next one with a capital letter.

If you’re not sure, try reading them out loud:

“No, I stayed home all night,” he said. “No, I stayed home all night.” He looked down at his feet.

Since you can’t hear quotation marks out loud, the way you say them will show you if they’re one sentence or two. In the first example, you can hear how the sentence keeps going after the dialogue ends. In the second example, you can hear how one sentence comes to a full stop and another one begins.

But what if your dialogue tag comes before the dialogue, instead of after? In this case, the dialogue is always capitalized because the speaker is beginning a new sentence:

He said, “No, I stayed home all night.” He looked down at his feet. “No, I stayed home all night.”

You’ll still use a comma after the dialogue tag and a period after the action tag, just like if you’d separate them if you were putting your tag at the end.

If you’re not sure, ask yourself if your leading tag sounds like a full sentence or a partial sentence. If it sounds like a partial sentence, it gets a comma. If it reads like a full sentence that stands on its own, it gets a period.

External vs. internal dialogue

All of the dialogue we’ve looked at so far is external dialogue, which is directed from one character to another. The other type of dialogue is internal dialogue, or inner dialogue, where a character is talking to themselves. You’ll use this when you want to show what a character is thinking, but other characters can’t hear.

Usually, internal dialogue will be written in italics to distinguish it from the rest of the text. That shows the reader that the line is happening inside the character’s head. For example:

It’s not a big deal, she thought. It’s just a new school. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.

Here you can see that the dialogue tag is used in the same way, just as if it was a line of external dialogue. However, “she thought” is written in regular text because it’s not a part of what the character is thinking. This helps keep everything clear for the reader.

In your story, you can play with using contrasting internal and external dialogue to show that what your characters say isn’t always what they mean. You may also choose to use this internal dialogue formatting if you’re writing dialogue between two or more characters that isn’t spoken out loud—for instance, telepathically or by sign language.

8 tips for creating engaging dialogue in a story

Now that you’ve mastered the mechanics of how to write dialogue, let’s look at how to create convincing, compelling dialogue that will elevate your story.

1. Listen to people talk

To write convincingly about people, you’ll first need to know something about them. The work of great writers is often characterized by their insight into humanity; you read them and think, “Yes, this is exactly what people are like.” You can begin accumulating your own insight by listening to what real people say to each other.

You can go to any public place where people are likely to gather and converse: cafés, art galleries, political events, dimly lit pubs, bookshops. Record snippets of conversation, pay attention to how people’s voices change as they move from speaking to one person to another, try to imagine what it is they’re not saying, the words simmering just under the surface.

By listening to stories unfold in real time, you’ll have a better idea of how to recreate them in your writing—and inspiration for some new stories, too.

2. Give each spoken line a purpose

Here is something that actors have drilled into their heads from their first day at drama school, and writers would do well to remember it too: every single line of dialogue has a hidden motivation. Every time your character speaks, they’re trying to achieve something, either overtly or covertly.

Small talk is rare in fiction, because it doesn’t advance the plot or reveal something about your characters. The exception is when your characters are using their small talk for a specific purpose, such as to put off talking about the real issue, to disarm someone, or to pretend they belong somewhere they don’t.

When writing your own dialogue, ask yourself what the line accomplishes in the story. If you come up blank, it probably doesn’t need to be there. Words need to earn their place on the page.

3. Embrace subtext

In real life, we rarely say exactly what we really mean. The reality of polite society is that we’ve evolved to speak in circles around our true intentions, afraid of the consequences of speaking our mind. Your characters will be no different. If your protagonist is trying to tell their best friend they’re in love with them, for instance, they’ll come up with about fifty different ways to say it before speaking the deceptively simple words themselves.

To write better dialogue, try exploring different ways of moving your characters around what’s really being said, layering text and subtext side by side. The reader will love picking apart the conversation between your characters and deducing what’s really happening underneath (incidentally, this is also the place where fan fiction is born).

4. Keep names to a minimum

You may notice that on television, in moments of great upheaval, the characters will communicate exactly how important the moment is by saying each other’s names in dramatic bursts of anger/passion/fear/heartbreak/shock. In real life, we say each other’s names very rarely; saying someone’s name out loud can actually be a surprisingly intimate experience.

Names may be a necessary evil right at the beginning of your story so your reader knows who’s who, but after you’ve established your cast, try to include names in dialogue only when it makes sense to do so. If you’re not sure, try reading the dialogue out loud to see if it sounds like something someone would actually say (we’ll talk more about reading out loud below).

5. Prune unnecessary words

This is one area where reality and story differ. In life, dialogue is full of filler words: “Um, uh, well, so yeah, then I was like, erm, huh?” You may have noticed this when you practiced listening to dialogue, above. We won’t say there’s never a place for these words in fiction, but like all words in storytelling, they need to earn their place. You might find filler words an effective tool for showing something about one particular character, or about one particular moment, but you’ll generally find that you use them a lot less than people really do in everyday speech.

When you’re reviewing your characters’ dialogue, remember the hint above: each line needs a purpose. It’s the same for each word. Keep only the ones that contribute something to the story.

6. Vary word choices and rhythms

The greatest dialogue examples in writing use distinctive character voices; each character sounds a little bit different, because they have their own personality.

This can be tricky to master, but an easy way to get started is to look at the word choice and rhythm for each character. You might have one character use longer words and run-on sentences, while another uses smaller words and simple, single-clause sentences. You might have one lean on colloquial regional dialect, where another sounds more cosmopolitan. Play around with different ways to develop characters and give each one their own voice.

7. Be consistent for each character

When you do find a solid, believable voice for your character, make sure that it stays consistent throughout your entire story. It’s easy to set a story aside for a while, then return to it and forget some of the work you did in distinguishing your characters’ dialogue. You might find it helpful to write down some notes about the way each character speaks so you can refer back to it later.

The exception, of course, is if your character’s speech pattern goes through a transformation over the course of the story, like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady . In this case, you can use your character’s distinctive voice to communicate a major change. But as with all things in writing, make sure that it comes from intention and not from forgetfulness.

8. Read your dialogue out loud

After you’ve written a scene between two or more characters, you can take the dialogue for a trial run by speaking it out loud. Ask yourself, does the dialogue sound realistic? Are there any moments where it drags or feels forced? Does the voice feel natural for each character? You’ll often find there are snags you miss in your writing that only become apparent when read out loud. Bonus: this is great practice for when you become rich and famous and do live readings at bookshops.

3 mistakes to avoid when writing dialogue

Easy, right? But there are also a few pitfalls that new writers often encounter when writing dialogue that can drag down an otherwise compelling story. Here are the things to watch out for when crafting your story dialogue.

1. Too much exposition

Exposition is one of the more demanding literary devices , and one of the ones most likely to trip up new writers. Dialogue is a good place to sneak in some information about your story—but subtlety is essential. This is one place where the adage “show, don’t tell” really shines.

Consider these dialogue examples:

“How is she, Doctor?” “Well Mr. Stuffington, I don’t have to remind you that your daughter, the sole heiress to your estate and currently engaged to the Baron of Flippingshire, has suffered a grievous injury when she fell from her horse last Sunday. We don’t need to discuss right now whether or not you think her jealous maid was responsible; what matters is your daughter’s well being. As to your question, I’m afraid it’s very unlikely that she’ll ever walk again.” Can’t you just feel your arm aching to throw the poor book across the room? There’s a lot of important information here, but you can find subtler ways to work it into your story. Let’s try again: “How is she, Doctor?” “Well Mr. Stuffington, your daughter took quite a blow from that horse—worse than we initially thought. I’m afraid it’s very unlikely that she’ll ever walk again.” “And what am I supposed to say to Flippingshire?” “The Baron? I suppose you’ll have to tell him that his future wife has lost the use of her legs.”

And so forth. To create good dialogue exposition, look for little ways to work in the details of your story, instead of piling it up in one great clump.

2. Too much small talk

We looked at how each line of dialogue needs a specific purpose above. Very often small talk in a story happens because the writer doesn’t know what the scene is about. Small talk doesn’t move the scene along unless it’s there for a reason. If you’re not sure, ask yourself what each character wants in this moment.

For example, imagine you’re in an office, and two characters are talking by the water cooler. How was your weekend, what did you think of the game, how’s your wife doing, are those new shoes, etc etc. Can’t you just feel the reader’s will to live slipping away?

But what about this: your characters are talking by the water cooler—Character A and Character B. Character A knows that his friend is inside Character B’s office looking for evidence of corporate espionage, so A is doing everything he can to stop B from going in. How was your weekend, what did you think of the game, how’s your wife doing, are those new shoes, literally anything just to keep him talking. Suddenly these benign little phrases have a purpose.

If you find your characters slipping into small talk, double check that it’s there for a purpose, and not just a crutch to keep you from moving forward in your scene. When writing dialogue, Make each line of dialogue earn its place.

3. Too much repetition

Variation is the spice of a good story. To keep your readers engaged, avoid using the same sentence structure and the same dialogue tags over and over again. Using “he said” and “she said” is effective and clear cut, but only for about three beats. After that, try switching to an action tag instead or letting the line of dialogue stand on its own.

You can also experiment with varying the length of your sentences or groupings of sentences. By changing up the rhythm of your story regularly, you’ll keep it feeling fresh and present for the reader.

Effective dialogue examples from literature

With all of these tips and tricks in mind, let’s look at how other writers have used good dialogue to elevate their stories.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine , by Gail Honeyman

“I’m going to pick up a carryout and head round to my mate Andy’s. A few of us usually hang out there on Saturday nights, fire up the playstation, have a smoke and a few beers.” “Sounds utterly delightful,” I said. “What about you?” he asked. I was going home, of course, to watch a television program or read a book. What else would I be doing? “I shall return to my flat,” I said. “I think there might be a documentary about komodo dragons on BBC4 later this evening.”

In this dialogue example, the author gives her characters two very distinctive voices. From just a few words we can begin to see these people very clearly in our minds—and with this distinction comes the tension that drives the story. Dialogue is an excellent place to show your character dynamics using speech patterns and word choices.

Pride and Prejudice , by Jane Austen

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?” Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. “But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.” Mr. Bennet made no answer. “Do you not want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently. “You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.” This was invitation enough. “Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.”

In this famous dialogue example, the author illustrates the relationship between these two characters clearly and succinctly. Their dialogue shows Mr. B’s stalwart, tolerant love for his wife and Mrs. B’s excitement and propensity for gossip. The author shows us everything we need to know about these people in just a few lines.

Dinner in Donnybrook , by Maeve Binchy

“Look, I thought you ought to know, we’ve had a very odd letter from Carmel.” “A what… from Carmel?” “A letter. Yes, I know it’s sort of out of character, I thought maybe something might be wrong and you’d need to know…” “Yes, well, what did she say, what’s the matter with her?” “Nothing, that’s the problem, she’s inviting us to dinner.” “To dinner?” “Yes, it’s sort of funny, isn’t it? As if she wasn’t well or something. I thought you should know in case she got in touch with you.” “Did you really drag me all the way down here, third years are at the top of the house you know, I thought the house had burned down! God, wait till I come home to you. I’ll murder you.” “The dinner’s in a month’s time, and she says she’s invited Ruth O’Donnell.” “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

This dialogue example is a telephone conversation between two people. The lack of dialogue tags or action tags allows the words to come to the forefront and immerses us in their back-and-forth conversation. Even though there are no tags to indicate the speakers, the language is simple and straightforward enough that the reader always knows who’s talking. Through this conversation the author slowly builds the tension from the benign to the catastrophic within a domestic setting.

Compelling dialogue is the key to a good story

A writer has a lot riding on their characters’ dialogue, and learning how to write dialogue is a critical skill for any writer. When done well, it can leaves a lasting impact on the reader. But when dialogue is clumsy and awkward, it can drag your story down and make your reader feel like they’re wasting their time.

But if you keep these tips in mind, listen to dialogue in your everyday life, and practice , you’ll be sure to create realistic dialogue that brings your story to life.

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How To Write Dialogue In A Story (With Examples)

One of the biggest mistakes made by writers is how they use dialogue in their stories. Today, we are going to teach you how to write dialogue in a story using some easy and effective techniques. So, get ready to learn some of the best techniques and tips for writing dialogue!

There are two main reasons why good dialogue is so important in works of fiction. First, good dialogue helps keep the reader interested and engaged in the story. Second, it makes your work easier to write, read and understand. So, if you want to write dialogue that is interesting, engaging and easy to read, keep on reading. We will be teaching you the best techniques and tips for writing dialogue in a story.

Internal vs External Dialogue

Direct vs indirect dialogue, 20 tips for formatting dialogue in stories, step 1: use a dialogue outline, step 2: write down a script, step 3: edit & review your script, step 4: sprinkle in some narrative, step 5: format your dialogue, what is dialogue .

Dialogue is the spoken words that are spoken between the characters of a story. It is also known as the conversation between the characters. Dialogue is a vital part of a story. It is the vehicle of the characters’ thoughts and emotions. Good dialogue helps show the reader how the characters think and feel. It also helps the reader better understand what is happening in the story. Good dialogue should be interesting, informative and natural. 

In a story, dialogue can be expressed internally as thoughts, or externally through conversations between characters. A character thinking to themself would be considered internal dialogue. Here there is no one else, just one character thinking or speaking to themselves:

Mary thought to herself, “what if I can do better…”

While two or more characters talking to each other in a scene would be an external dialogue:

“Watch out!” cried Sam. “What’s wrong with you?” laughed Kate.

In most cases, the words spoken by your character will be inside quotation marks. This is called direct dialogue. And then everything outside the quotation marks is called narrative:

“What do you want?” shrieked Penelope as she grabbed her notebooks. “Oh, nothing… Just checking if you needed anything,” sneered Peter as he tried to peek over at her notes.

Indirect dialogue is a summary of your dialogue. It lets the reader know that a conversation happened without repeating it exactly. For example:

She was still fuming from last night’s argument. After being called a liar and a thief, she had no choice but to leave home for good.

Direct dialogue is useful for quick conversations, while indirect dialogue is useful for summarising long pieces of dialogue. Which otherwise can get boring for the reader. Writers can combine both types of dialogue to increase tension and add drama to their stories.

Now you know some of the different types of dialogue in stories, let’s learn how to write dialogue in a story.

Here are the main tips to remember when formatting dialogue in stories or works of fiction:

• Always use quotation marks: All direct dialogue is written inside quotation marks, along with any punctuation relating to that dialogue.

• Don’t forget about dialogue tags: Dialogue tags are used to explain how a character said something.  Each tag has at least one noun or pronoun, and one verb indicating how the dialogue is spoken. For example, he said, she cried, they laughed and so on.

• Dialogue before tags: Dialogue before the dialogue tags should start with an uppercase. The dialogue tag itself begins with a lowercase.

• Dialogue after tags: Both the dialogue and dialogue tags start with an uppercase to signify the start of a conversation. The dialogue tags also have a comma afterwards, before the first set of quotation marks.

• Lowercase for continued dialogue: If the same character continues to speak after the dialogue tags or action, then this dialogue continues with a lowercase.

• Action after complete dialogue: Any action or narrative text after completed dialogue starts with an uppercase as a new sentence.

• Action interrupting dialogue: If the same character pauses their dialogue to do an action, then this action starts with a lowercase.

• Interruptions by other characters: If another character Interrupts a character’s dialogue, then their action starts with an uppercase on a new line. And an em dash (-) is used inside the quotation marks of the dialogue that was interrupted. 

• Use single quotes correctly: Single quotes mean that a character is quoting someone else.

• New paragraphs equal new speaker: When a new character starts speaking, it should be written in a new paragraph. 

• Use question marks correctly: If the dialogue ends with a question mark, then the part after the dialogue should begin with a lowercase.

• Exclamation marks: Similar to question marks, the next sentence should begin with a lowercase. 

• Em dashes equal being cut off: When a character has been interrupted or cut off in the middle of their speech, use an em dash (-).

• Ellipses mean trailing speech: When a character is trailing off in their speech or going on and on about something use ellipses (…). This is also good to use when a character does not know what to say.

• Spilt long dialogue into paragraphs: If a character is giving a long speech, then you can split this dialogue into multiple paragraphs. 

• Use commas appropriately: If it is not the end of the sentence then end the dialogue with a comma.

• Full stops to end dialogue: Dialogue ending with a full stop means it is the end of the entire sentence. 

• Avoid fancy dialogue tags: For example, ‘he moderated’ or ‘she articulated’. As this can distract the reader from what your characters are actually saying and the content of your story. It’s better to keep things simple, such as using he said or she said.
• No need for names: Avoid repeating your character’s name too many times. You could use pronouns or even nicknames. 
• Keep it informal: Think about how real conversations happen. Do people use technical or fancy language when speaking? Think about your character’s tone of voice and personality, what would they say in a given situation? 

Remember these rules, and you’ll be able to master dialogue writing in no time!

How to Write Dialogue in 5 Steps

Dialogue is tricky. Follow these easy steps to write effective dialogue in your stories or works of fiction:

A dialogue outline is a draft of what your characters will say before you actually write the dialogue down. This draft can be in the form of notes or any scribblings about your planned dialogue. Using your overall book outline , you can pinpoint the areas where you expect to see the most dialogue used in your story. You can then plan out the conversation between characters in these areas. 

A good thing about using a dialogue outline is that you can avoid your characters saying the same thing over and over again. You can also skim out any unnecessary dialogue scenes if you think they are unnecessary or pointless. 

Here is an example of a dialogue outline for a story:

You even use a spreadsheet to outline your story’s dialogue scenes.

In this step, you will just write down what the characters are saying in full. Don’t worry too much about punctuation and the correct formatting of dialogue. The purpose of this step is to determine what the characters will actually say in the scene and whether this provides any interesting information to your readers.

Start by writing down the full script of your character’s conversations for each major dialogue scene in your story. Here is an example of a dialogue script for a story:

Review your script from the previous step, and think about how it can be shortened or made more interesting. You might think about changing a few words that the characters use to make it sound more natural. Normally the use of slang words and informal language is a great way to make dialogue between characters sound more natural. You might also think about replacing any names with nicknames that characters in a close relationship would use. 

The script might also be too long with plenty of unnecessary details that can be removed or summarised as part of the narration in your story (or as indirect dialogue). Remember the purpose of dialogue is to give your story emotion and make your characters more realistic. At this point you might also want to refer back to your character profiles , to see if the script of each character matches their personality. 

Once your script has been perfected, you can add some actions to make your dialogue feel more believable to readers. Action or narrative is the stuff that your characters are actually doing throughout or in between dialogue. For example, a character might be packing up their suitcase, as they are talking about their holiday plans. This ‘narrative’ is a great way to break up a long piece of dialogue which otherwise could become boring and tedious for readers. 

You have now planned your dialogue for your story. The final step is to incorporate these dialogue scenes into your story. Remember to follow our formatting dialogue formatting rules explained above to create effective dialogue for your stories!

That’s all for today! We hope this post has taught you how to write dialogue in a story effectively. If you have any questions, please let us know in the comments below!

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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How to Write Interesting and Effective Dialogue

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Writing verbal conversations or dialogue is often one of the trickiest parts of creative writing. Crafting effective dialogue within the context of a narrative requires much more than following one quote with another. With practice, though, you can learn how to write natural-sounding dialogue that is creative and compelling.

The Purpose of Dialogue

Put simply, dialogue is narrative conveyed through speech by two or more characters. Effective dialogue should do many things at once, not just convey information. It should set the scene, advance action, give insight into each character, and foreshadow future dramatic action.

Dialogue doesn't have to be grammatically correct; it should read like actual speech. However, there must be a balance between realistic speech and readability. Dialogue is also a tool for character development. Word choice tells a reader a lot about a person: their appearance, ethnicity, sexuality, background, even morality. It can also tell the reader how the writer feels about a certain character.

How to Write Direct Dialogue

Speech, also known as direct dialogue, can be an effective means of conveying information quickly. But most real-life conversations are not that interesting to read. An exchange between two friends may go something like this:

"Hi, Tony," said Katy.

"Hey," Tony answered.

"What's wrong?" Katy asked.

"Nothing," Tony said.

"Really? You're not acting like nothing's wrong."

Pretty tiresome dialogue, right? By including nonverbal details in your dialogue, you can articulate emotion through action. This adds dramatic tension and is more engaging to read. Consider this revision:

"Hi, Tony."

Tony looked down at his shoe, dug in his toe and pushed around a pile of dust.

"Hey," he replied.

Katy could tell something was wrong.

Sometimes saying nothing or saying the opposite of what we know a character feels is the best way to create dramatic tension. If a character wants to say "I love you," but his actions or words say "I don't care," the reader will cringe at the missed opportunity.

How to Write Indirect Dialogue

Indirect dialogue doesn't rely on speech. Instead, it uses thoughts, memories, or recollections of past conversations to reveal important narrative details. Often, a writer will combine direct and indirect dialogue to increase dramatic tension, as in this example:

Katy braced herself. Something was wrong.

Formatting and Style

To write dialogue that is effective, you must also pay attention to formatting and style. Correct use of tags, punctuation , and paragraphs can be as important as the words themselves.

Remember that punctuation goes inside quotations. This keeps the dialogue clear and separate from the rest of the narrative. For example: "I can't believe you just did that!"

Start a new paragraph each time the speaker changes. If there is action involved with a speaking character, keep the description of the action within the same paragraph as the character's dialogue.

Dialogue tags other than "said" are best used sparingly, if at all. Often a writer uses them to try to convey a certain emotion. For example:

"But I don't want to go to sleep yet," he whined.

Instead of telling the reader that the boy whined, a good writer will describe the scene in a way that conjures the image of a whining little boy:

He stood in the doorway with his hands balled into little fists at his sides. His red, tear-rimmed eyes glared up at his mother. "But I don't want to go to sleep yet."

Practice Makes Perfect

Writing dialogue is like any other skill. It requires constant practice if you want to improve as a writer. Here are a few tips to help you prepare to write effective dialogue.

• Start a dialogue diary. Practice speech patterns and vocabulary that may be foreign to you. This will give you the opportunity to really get to know your characters.
• Listen and take notes. Carry a small notebook with you and write down phrases, words, or whole conversations verbatim to help develop your ear.
• Read. Reading will hone your creative abilities. It will help familiarize you with the form and flow of narration and dialogue until it becomes more natural in your own writing.
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Your Guide to Writing Better Dialogue

Writing dialogue is hard work.

You’re tasked with capturing the natural cadence of language and the reflexive dynamic of human conversation. That ain’t easy. And I’m sad to say that most writers don’t get it right.

You see, most writers fall into one of two groups: either they hate writing dialogue and try to avoid it as much as humanly possible or they love writing dialogue and fill their entire novel with mostly useless exchanges.

But there’s a third group that few writers join. It’s the group of writers who understand the importance of dialogue in a story. They know how to use dialogue as a tool to enhance their storytelling. That’s the group that you want to be a part of, and in this post, I’m showing you exactly how to join them.

Let’s get started.

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Why Use Dialogue?

Most novels can benefit from well-written dialogue.

Dialogue is a useful tool for developing your characters and moving your plot forward. Dialogue can help you establish the backstory, and it can reveal important plot details that the reader may not know about yet.

Dialogue is great for ratcheting up the tension between characters.

Dialogue can also establish the mood. By playing off characters’ verbal exchanges, you can set an atmosphere for each scene. Remember that there’s tension in what’s spoken, and especially in what’s not spoken.

All dialogue should pass the following criteria:

• It must move the story forward. After each conversation or exchange, the reader should be one step closer to either the climax or the conclusion of your story.
• It should reveal relevant information about the character. The right dialogue will give the reader insight into how the character feels, and what motivates him or her to act.
• It must help the reader understand the relationship between the characters.

If your dialogue doesn’t accomplish all of the above, it is a waste of words.

Now, let’s take a look at how to write the best dialogue for your story.

Top Tips for Better Dialogue

Here’s what you need to know to write forward-focused dialogue:

Keep it brief

Dialogue shouldn’t go over for pages and pages. If that happens, you should probably be writing a play, and not a novel.

The best dialogue is brief. It’s a slice and not the whole pizza. You don’t need to go into lengthy exchanges to reveal an important truth about the characters, their motivations, and how they view the world.

Plus, dialogue that goes on for too long can start to feel like a tennis match with the reader switching back and forth between characters. Lengthy dialogue can be exhausting for the reader. Pair the dialogue down to the minimum that you need for the characters to say to each other.

Avoid small talk

Oh, this one is music to my introvert ears.

In your novel, never ever waste your dialogue with small talk.

In the real world, small talk fills in the awkward silence, but in the world of your novel, the only dialogue to include is the kind that reveals something necessary about the character and/or plot.

How’s the weather? doesn’t move the plot.

If you’d like to show that your character doesn’t like awkward pauses, work on characterization and scene description. Instead of using mind-numbingly long exchanges, show the character’s discomfort by describing how she taps her fingers against the window pane, or takes a series of sharp sighs.

Don’t try to make your dialogue sound too “real” by including small talk. Small talk can water down the effectiveness of your scene. Instead, pick exchanges that capture the essence of the moment, and bypass small talk altogether. Let that be an understood nod between you and the reader, and dive right into the action.

So, instead of starting with “Hey, how are you?” “I’m fine, how are you?”, start with the action: “I can’t believe you’re showing your face around here after what you did to Papa.”

Don’t info dump

While you can certainly use dialogue to learn more about your characters, you shouldn’t use it to dump a whole lot of information on the reader.

It’s cringeworthy to read a dialogue exchange that starts with:

“As you know…”

If the character already knows, then why is the other character repeating it? I also hate when characters (especially villains) go into lengthy reasons why they did or are doing X, Y, Z.

No one talks like that. No one interacts like that.

If you must info dump, don’t do it in dialogue. Info dump slows dialogue to a grinding halt. It sounds awkward. And it actually insults the reader.

So, what’s the difference between info dumping and revealing relevant information? Info dump is a large amount of exposition given all at once, and left for the reader to sort out. Relevant information is more subtle, and it’s dispensed a little at a time.

Give your characters a unique way of speaking

Every character, just like every person you know, will have a unique way of speaking and delivering their thoughts.

Some people are more forceful and deliberate. Others are more passive and meandering. You can honor these (and other) different styles without rambling. My preferred method is to focus on word choice.

For example, to show that someone is rather gruff or abrupt, go towards single syllable or somewhat quick words, like “yeah.”

But, if I were looking for words for a charming character, I’d choose more graceful phrasing, like “of course.”

Same basic concept but different delivery, based on character.

Of course, word choice alone can’t dictate character. You’ll do most of this through characterization, but word choice should subtly support and reinforce characterization.

Along with word choice, I also like establishing a pattern of speech. Does the character speak in a sharp staccato, or a deliberate, flowy manner? By knowing how the character (especially the protagonist) speaks, you can create consistency whenever the character dialogues with others.

Be consistent

Remember to be consistent with your characters. Someone who speaks in a self-depreciating and shy demeanor won’t automatically become bold and acerbic.

When your characters speak, they should stay true to who they are. Even without character tags, the reader should be able to figure out who’s talking.

Create suspense

Use dialogue to increase the suspense between characters.

It’s human nature for people to withhold what they’re truly thinking or feeling. People leave a lot unsaid, and this is also true for the characters in your novel. To create a realistic interaction between your characters, you must honor the fact that most people leave a lot of things unsaid.

But that doesn’t mean that the reader can’t be privy to what’s being left unsaid. As a writer, you can build the scene, show the characters’ motivations and desires before the scene, and let it play out, with the reader wanting a resolution that doesn’t quite happen.

Answer the following questions to setup your scene for suspense:

• Does one character have the upper hand in the scene?
• Is the other character seething just under the surface?
• What does the reader find out through the exchange?

You can control all of this through dialogue.

Honor the relationship

Characters tend to speak differently based on who they’re speaking to. A character will speak to his mother differently than he does to his best friend. That’s not a shift in consistency. It actually gives more depth and realness to the character.

You can still stay true to the personality you’ve created by using the same speech pattern.

Show, don’t tell

“Show, don’t tell” is the writer’s mantra. When writing dialogue, it’s easy to start “telling” what the characters are feeling instead of showing it.

Instead of your character saying, “I’m angry, Jan!” describe how the character’s body is closed-- tight lips, narrow eyes, deep breaths.

Don’t underestimate your reader. The reader likes to see the scene, pick up the cues and come to the conclusion, instead of being told what to think.

Your dialogue shouldn’t be completely on the nose, and explain exactly what the character is feeling. Most people-- including your characters-- aren’t always aware of how they feel. And sometimes, what they say they feel is different from what they truly feel.

So, don’t get lazy with your dialogue. Use it to reveal characters, but not directly.

By the way, body language is an important part of dialogue, and should be written into every scene. It gives the reader important clues that they’ll use to recreate the scene in their mind.

Minimize identifying tags

“He said, she said” gets boring after a while. And the answer isn’t to switch out those “said” tags with other words like “enthused” or “shouted”. (By the way, when it doubt, “said” wins out.)

Not only is it boring for the reader to constantly see “he said” or “said she”, it’s also disruptive. Identifiers take the reader out of the immersive world of your story and reminds them that you, the author, are relaying a story. That can be pretty jarring, and it can happen if you use identifiers too often.

Of course, you can’t not use identifiers. They’re vital for establishing who’s speaking, but can be minimized by doing the following:

• Creating a unique pattern of speech, as we discussed above.
• Using descriptive follow ups. (i.e. “That’s not what I said.” Vincent reached for the rock.)

I love the second option. You can show what the characters are doing to further emphasize their words, or add context to the scene.

Greetings and goodbyes aren’t always necessary

While it’s only polite to say hello and bid adieu, it’s not necessary in novel dialogue to document these courtesies. You can use exposition for salutations, but do avoid writing a blow-by-blow. Instead, set up the scene by describing how the character enters or leaves the scene.

Avoid speeches and soliloquies

Most people, in conversation form, do not have the privilege of extended speech. They’re almost always interrupted because who wants to listen to someone natter on and on?

Read it aloud

During the editing process, you should always read your manuscript aloud, but do pay special attention to your dialogue.

If the dialogue doesn’t seem to flow, or you’re tripping over your words, it’s not going to sound right to the reader.

Even though you’re not capturing every part of a conversation in your dialogue, everything that’s written should sound like an actual person said it. If not, it’s time to erase and try again.

Additional Resources

Before you go, check out these related posts:

• How to Set the Mood in Your Novel
• Are Your Characters Under-Developed? Here's a Helpful Guide to Find Out
• Tension! What It Is & How to Develop It In Your Novel

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• What is Dialogue? Elements of Creative Writing
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People usually have a doubt what is dialogue? Dialogue is an artful expression in the literature that brings characters to life through spoken words. It serves as a medium of communication, unveiling their deepest thoughts, emotions, and motivations. With its power to advance the plot, establish relationships, and create tension, dialogue adds a dimension of reality to the narrative. 

Dialogue can be written in several styles, including direct speech, indirect speech, or free indirect speech, and can be a mixture of them. It also varies in the form of the speech given by the characters, such as monologue, soliloquy, dialect, interior dialogue, and subtextual dialogue.

There are several types of dialogues that can be used in creative writing. Here are some examples:

• Direct dialogue : This is the most common type of dialogue, in which characters speak directly to each other, usually using quotation marks. For example: “I can’t believe you did that,” she said.
• Indirect dialogue : In this type of dialogue, the writer summarizes what was said instead of using direct quotes. For example: She told him that she couldn’t believe he did that.
• Interior dialogue : This is also known as internal monologue, where a character’s thoughts are revealed to the reader. For example: “I can’t believe I did that,” she thought.
• Monologue : In a monologue, one character speaks at length, usually to an audience within the story or to themselves. For example: “To be or not to be, that is the question,” said Hamlet.
• Soliloquy : Similar to a monologue, a soliloquy is a speech given by a character alone on stage, revealing their innermost thoughts and feelings. For example: “Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” said Juliet.
• Dialect : This is a type of dialogue in which characters speak in a particular regional or cultural accent or dialect. For example: “Y’all come back now, ya hear?” said the Southern farmer.
• Subtextual dialogue : This type of dialogue implies meaning beneath the surface and often has a hidden agenda. For example: “I’m sure you didn’t mean to hurt my feelings,” she said, with a sharp edge to her voice.

Writing effective dialogue is crucial to creating engaging and memorable characters and stories. Here are some tips for writing effective dialogue:

• Make it sound natural : Dialogue should sound like a real conversation, with pauses, interruptions, and changes in tone and tempo. Use contractions, sentence fragments, and filler words to make it sound natural.
• Show, don’t tell : Use dialogue to show the reader what is happening and how the characters are feeling instead of telling them. For example, instead of saying “he was angry,” show the character’s anger through their words and actions.
• Use subtext : Effective dialogue often has a deeper meaning beneath the surface. Use subtext to create tension and conflict between characters and to reveal their true motivations and emotions.
• Avoid exposition : Dialogue should not be used as a way to provide backstory or exposition. Instead, find other ways to reveal important information to the reader.
• Use tags sparingly : Dialogue tags like “he said” or “she replied” can become repetitive and distracting. Use them sparingly and opt for actions or gestures to indicate who is speaking.
• Vary sentence length and structure : Mix up the length and structure of your dialogue to keep it interesting and avoid monotony.
• Read it out loud : Reading your dialogue out loud can help you identify areas that sound awkward or unnatural and make necessary revisions.

By following these tips, you can write dialogue that is engaging, and realistic, and advances the plot and characterization of your story. Here are a few examples of well-written dialogues:

"Here's looking at you, kid." - Casablanca (1942)

This iconic line, spoken by Humphrey Bogart’s character Rick Blaine to Ingrid Bergman’s character Ilsa Lund in the classic film Casablanca, is an example of how dialogue can convey emotion and meaning through simple, memorable phrases. The line has become a cultural touchstone, representing the romantic tension between the two characters and the bittersweet nostalgia of the film’s wartime setting.

"You can't handle the truth!" - A Few Good Men (1992)

This famous line, spoken by Jack Nicholson’s character Colonel Nathan Jessup in the courtroom drama A Few Good Men, is an example of how dialogue can create tension and conflict. The line represents the character’s stubborn refusal to admit wrongdoing, and the confrontation that follows becomes a pivotal moment in the film’s plot.

"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse." - The Godfather (1972)

This line, spoken by Renee Zellweger’s character Dorothy Boyd to Tom Cruise’s character Jerry Maguire in the romantic comedy-drama Jerry Maguire, is an example of how dialogue can create emotional connection and vulnerability. The line represents the character’s openness and willingness to take a chance on love, and it becomes a turning point in the film’s central relationship.

"You had me at hello." - Jerry Maguire (1996)

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In conclusion, these examples show how effective dialogue can contribute to a film or story’s themes, tone, and characterization. They demonstrate the importance of using dialogue to convey emotion, meaning, and conflict, and how memorable phrases can become cultural touchstones.

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