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5 Tiny Tricks For Writing Better Dialogue
The keys to helping your audience forget it’s all made up
One of the most difficult things in writing is figuring out how your characters are supposed to talk.
Not only are you tasked as a storyteller with world-building, plot planning, and creating realistic characters, but you’re also expected to make them communicate in a way that makes sense and is realistic to the story and their own character.
“Dialogue is not just quotation. It is grimaces, pauses, adjustments of blouse buttons, doodles on a napkin, and crossings of legs.” — Jerome Stern
Dialogue is probably the thing I’ve struggled with most as a writer, especially when attempting to write plays and things written for the screen.
It’s easy to spot bad writing, and it's almost impossible to create something that seems seamless and real.
#1: Copy real life
One of the best ways to make dialogue realistic is to copy real life.
One of my favorite things about reading love stories in fiction now is realizing how realistic it actually can be. While I think that fiction is often a simplified and…
