Realism this, believable that. “Make dialogue sound realistic.” “Make it sound natural, like actual people talking.” Yeah, we know! If it was that easy, we wouldn’t seek out classes and articles on how to do it.

You’re likely familiar with the broadest strokes of that advice: read your story back to yourself, listen to and learn from real conversations There isn’t much else I can teach you about writing realistic dialogue except that it’s so easy to overdo. If we wrote dialogue the way people actually spoke, every scene would look something like this:.

Character A: “Hey, what’s up?”
Character B: “Not too much, you?”
Character A: “Yeah, you know, Friday stuff, can’t complain.”
Character B: “Yeah, same—ah, hey, you going through a tunnel or something? I can barely hear you.”
Character A: “What? Oh. Lemme—okay. New headphones are like. Acting up. Better now?”
Character B: “Hey, yeah, there you are. Much better. So what’s up?”
Character A: “You still coming over tonight?”
Character B: “Yeah, you bet. What’d we say? Eight o’clock?”

Real-life conversations are full of minutiae, filler words, and other flotsam that would be excruciating to read in every line. Think about how much we all lean on like (as an adverb, adjective, preposition, quotative, and so much more). Or how much we sprinkle in yeahs and other affirmatives like legit or totally or valid, dude. It would be utterly ludicrous to add “like” to our fictional dialogue every time someone might realistically use it.

So, if specificity is the soul of narrative and brevity is the soul of wit—that is, if we’re writing a novel—the entire exchange above could be distilled down to its most important parts in just two lines:

Character A: “Hey man, you still coming over tonight?”
Character B: “Yeah, you bet. Eight o’clock?”

That’s it. THAT’S IT. Everything the scene needs, in those two lines. It’s still realistic—people don’t always include every verb if it slows them down (see “you coming over” instead of “are you coming over”), and by the “hey man” and repeated use of “yeah” we can tell that the two characters have a casual relationship—but it’s realistic and efficient.

More importantly, it’s got purpose.

When I’m editing dialogue, I look for purpose even above realism. That is, I can forgive a lot of spoken sins as long as the dialogue doesn’t waste our time.

So how exactly does one instill purpose in their dialogue?

Thank frick you asked. I wouldn’t be writing this otherwise.

HOW TO INSTILL PURPOSE IN DIALOGUE

One should always check to make sure the dialogue does one or more of the following:

1. Moves the plot
2. Gives the reader information
3. Shows character/personality

Let’s break it down.

MOVE THE PLOT

This one’s simple but often tricky, especially when characters develop minds of their own: make sure they stay focused on the scene they’re actually in. If they’re discussing their battle plans for the upcoming showdown, their conversation should stick to the battle plans. If they’re discovering new information that changes what they thought they knew, don’t let them suddenly go on tangents.

In real life, we chase verbal larks all the time, so it might feel natural (realistic, we might say) to do so in prose. But straying too far for too long makes scenes feel confusing. It disrupts the flow and draws readers away from the moment, making us ask why we’re talking about something unrelated to the moment. It keeps the dialogue from serving its purpose, which is to keep the plot moving.

GIVE THE READER INFORMATION

Perhaps you’re familiar with the much-maligned infodump, where the story gives us paragraphs on paragraphs of information, usually without the context or perspective of our protagonist. Perhaps you’ve also heard the advice to shorten and spice up infodumps by trying to convey important information in dialogue. It’s good advice, and it infuses the dialogue with purpose, that purpose being you getting to share some of your meticulous worldbuilding.

To write dialogue that does still sound natural (yes, realistic) while fulfilling this purpose, make sure someone in the scene actually needs the information. That is, a sorcerer wouldn’t explain to another sorcerer how their magic works, because they both already know just by virtue of being sorcerers. But the sorcerer might explain how magic works to a magic-less friend, an investigator, a journalist, or someone else who may not know otherwise.

If you don’t have a character who needs things explained to them, sharing information in dialogue is a bit of a subtler art. Say you’re writing in a universe where the RMS Titanic never sank.

Meh example:

Character C: “Well, since the Titanic stayed afloat, we got all our gold out of the cargo bay.”

Character D: “I suppose they were right when they said the ship is unsinkable.”

The characters presumably have no idea that there is a universe in which the Titanic sank, so alluding to its existence feels awkward. Like they’re turning to look directly at us, the reader, and winking. So because they’re speaking to us, not the other characters, it breaks the immersion and knocks us out of the story, right back into our lives. Ew!

Better example:

Character C: “I had my manservant meet Charles when he disembarked, and damn, Titanic’s porters must be new. Gave Charles a hell of a time at customs.”

Character D: “That’s not the Titanic porters. That’s just New York customs. What happened, did Charles bring your gold?”

Character C: “Yes, after an eternity.”

Having the characters discuss their cargo and the ship’s docking in New York automatically tells the readers that in this universe, the Titanic is still around. It’s so around that it’s docked in New York harbor and going through all the rigamarole of a disembarkation. The dialogue accomplishes this without referring to a universe we’re already familiar with, and therefore without speaking directly to the reader.

But notice also how it’s sharing pertinent information instead of meandering off into how many icebergs they dodged on the way, or then the whole story of how Charles and the manservant dealt with the customs officers. It’s full of purpose because it keeps us on track by sharing just enough information we need to keep reading.

SHOW CHARACTER/PERSONALITY

In Empire Strikes Back, we’re treated to some of the most iconic scenes in the entire franchise: Luke’s sweaty swamp training with Jedi Master Yoda. Some of the most memorable lines in all Star Wars come from these scenes—but you could make the argument that none of them move the plot! Luke backflipping through Dagobah and whining about his lack of proficiency doesn’t do anything to fight the Empire’s invasion of Hoth or protect his friends from an asteroid field.

But it does build character.  

We learn more about Luke. We learn more about Yoda. We learn who they are, what they believe. We learn what’s still holding Luke back (and he should be held back, since we’re only halfway through the trilogy). We see the enormous challenges ahead of him through his eyes, colored with the context of who he is and what he’s been through, just like I’ve been hammering on all year. No, the dialogue doesn’t move the plot, but in showing us who Luke is, it invites us closer to him. It makes us give a damn.

That’s a kind of important plot business all its own.

So there it is. If your dialogue doesn’t move the plot, share important information, or give us a deeper look at the characters, it’s time to consider whether or not that dialogue is serving the story.

A FINAL NOTE ON REALISM

I won’t deny that realism in dialogue is important—simply that it’s well-trod territory for anyone snuffling after those particular truffles of wisdom. But let me share a few things about realism I haven’t seen elsewhere, because realism isn’t just the words people use; It can also be the way they sound. Here’s what I recommend:

• Ellipses are for when people trail off. Em-dashes are for when they get cut off. It’s the difference between “Well…” and “Watch out for the—”
• Unless your characters are uber-posh, are emphasizing something important, or are mimicking older dialects, human beings speak in contractions. Don’t use “I do not know” when “I don’t know” works.
• Do not—notice me emphasizing—DO NOT write out the phonetic spelling of regional or cultural dialect. At best, it’ll make the dialogue distracting to read; at worst, it’ll sound discriminatory against the members of whatever region or culture you’re referencing. If you’re a member of that region or culture, you’ve got more leeway, but the phonetic text can still be distracting. If you want to indicate an accent, simply tell the reader about that accent, or even pick out occasional words. Now’s a good time to tell rather than show! Try lines like these:
  • His Southern drawl was as thick as frozen marshmallow fluff.
  • He spoke with the lilting accent of the Northern Plateaus.
  • “Hotter than hell out here.” He said hell in two long halves: hey-ull.
• If you want to indicate a manner of speaking where words run together, accented or otherwise, treat them like a contraction. Used intentionally, they can add flavor without being distracting:
  • Hotter’n hell to mean hotter than hell.
  • M’sorry to indicate a mumbled I’m sorry.
  • Mac’n cheese to indicate mac and cheese.

Cool? Cool.

That’s all for this time. In November, I’ll be back with our catch-all workshop for every element of dialogue I’ve missed this year. (I promise it won’t entirely be about grammar.) Got questions I haven’t yet answered? That’s what comment sections are for!

See you in November!