Remember dialogue isn’t random but reflects your characters’ emotional lives….Anger, fear, lust or loneliness bubbling beneath the surface is more interesting than full-throttle emotional outbursts. Jewell Parker Rhodes.

When writing dialogue, think about not only what your characters say to each other but what they don’t say. These slips and hesitations, lies and unfinished sentences, missteps and unspoken longings are what give your characters depth and resonance. In real life, we don’t always say what’s on our minds. Notice when you bite your own tongue, and think too about the things you wish you could say to those you love.

Keeping this in mind, consider when you write dialogue whether there’s enough tension to make it worth the space it takes on the page. Look at this example.

“I’m going out, Mom.”

“Okay, love.”

“Do you need anything from the store?”

“Eggs. Hang on, let me see. I think that’s it.”

“See you soon.”

“Thanks. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Okay, so, there’s a small amount of narrative movement because one of the two characters is leaving the room to go to the store, but there’s nothing really happening.

Look at the same scene again.

“I’m going out, Mom.”

“Don’t you even-“

“What? Now I can’t go get eggs? We’ve run out. I’m trying to be helpful.”

“Grounded means grounded.”

“You think after last night I’m going to listen to you?”

“If you open that door-“

“You can’t stop me. I’m sixteen.”

“Stop pretending this isn’t your fault, Emma.”

Here the two characters are in opposition. One is still about to leave the room to go and get eggs, but there are hints to the hidden back story (what happened last night? what is she hiding? what is her mom accusing her of?) and huge tension with each added line of dialogue as they fight and block each other from getting what they want.

Ask yourself: What do your characters want and how are they being prevented from getting it? What are your characters hiding?

Now look at the quotation I started with this week. Anger, fear, lust or loneliness bubbling beneath the surface is more interesting than full-throttle emotional outbursts.

In our second version of the conversation, there were full-throttle emotional outbursts. What if we changed that? See this version:

“Where are you going, Emma?”

I didn’t answer. What was the point?

“Grounded means grounded.”

I opened the front door. Paused. After what I’d heard last night, I couldn’t even look at her.

She said quietly, “Stop pretending this isn’t your fault.”

Those words played over in my head as I slammed the door.

You might prefer the second version. I prefer the third. Even though Emma doesn’t speak, her actions say volumes. What is not said is as important as what is said.

This week’s writing prompt:

This week, we’re looking at the lies and secrets characters hide from each other. Write a scene mainly in dialogue between two characters. One has a secret and the other has discovered it. Write up to 300 words.

To get to the heart of what our characters sound like, this week we’re going to look at monologues. By focusing your attention on a long piece of speech from one character, you can improve and enhance that character’s voice, which will, in turn, enhance that character’s dialogue all the way through your work.

Quick definition: a monologue is a speech where one character addresses another character or characters. So why is it useful when we’re trying to write better dialogue?

Nearly every time my agent reads through a draft of one of my manuscripts, she comments that ‘so and so character has inconsistencies in their dialogue, times when they don’t sound like themselves.’ To fix this problem (and I know I should have learned by now!) I write a monologue from the character in question so I really get to hear their voice. It makes it harder for me to get my characters voices mixed up in my head.

See, the really difficult thing about writing dialogue is making everyone sound distinct, something we talked about in the first workshop on dialogue. By having each of our characters sound like themselves rather than like you or me, the author, we’re helping create a believable world for our readers.

Three tips to improve your monologues:

1- Spend a moment before you start writing actually listening in your mind for your character’s voice.

2- Read your monologue aloud when it’s done – you’ll hear the voice far more clearly.

3- Look for obvious words or groups of words that you’re reusing. CUT THESE OUT or MAKE SURE YOU USE THEM FOR ONLY THAT CHARACTER.

Monologues help us practice getting to know our character. You may never use the monologue in your final text, or you may find that it is perfect for some scene or other. Whatever you do with your final monologue, I recommend trying the following exercise.

This week’s writing prompt:

Write two MONOLOGUES. Each character has witnessed the same accident and they are describing to the police what they saw. Each character has no more than 150 words.

The nitty-gritty of writing dialogue comes down to punctuation and effective speech tagging. Please don’t think this is boring, it really doesn’t have to be. It’s an essential tool for you as a writer. If the idea of grammar has you rolling your eyes, remind yourself that if you were an athlete, you’d be expected to do sit ups, and if you were a chef you’d have to chop onions. Likewise, as a writer, it’s your responsibility to perfect your written dialogue.

By the way, MANY WRITERS GET THIS WRONG. It must drive editors crazy because so many good, talented writers haven’t taught themselves the art of good grammar in written speech. Trust me, your writing will shine if you make the time to teach yourself how to write dialogue.

So here goes:

These are correct:

“It’s because I love you,” she said.

She said, “It’s because I love you.”

These are ALL incorrect:

“It’s because I love you.” She said. [That first period should be a comma. That capital S of She shouldn’t be capitalized.]

“It’s because I love you”. she said. [The period is just plain wrong here.]

“It’s because I love you,” She said. [The capitalization of She is incorrect.]

“it’s because I love you,” she said. [The opening word in quotation marks should be capitalized, unless the speech is interrupted.]

This is the correct way to write interrupted speech: “It’s because,” she said, “it’s because I love you.”

“It’s because I love you,” she grinned. [This mistake is very common. Words such as grinned, nodded, laughed, shrugged are NOT speech verbs and so can’t be used in place of said.]

The punctuation of that line should read: “It’s because I love you.” She grinned.

Using speech verbs requires care. Words like gasped, murmured, screamed, yelled, argued, agreed, squalled, squawked, whispered, explained, admonished, questioned, cried, yodeled, and so on, tend to get in a reader’s way. If your dialogue is strong enough, the tag he said/she said is normally enough for a reader. The words within the quotation marks should show us what the character is saying. The speech tag shouldn’t have to tell us.

I know all this seems nitpicky, but it actually HELPS you as a writer to write speech well. Speech reveals your characters’ character, propels your story and transports your reader into the scene.

There are terrific books on grammar if you want to work harder on this (I read grammar books for fun, such as Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss, but I’m a pretty geeky writer deep down).

For today we’re going to move onto the writing prompt.

This week’s writing prompt:

Two strangers start to argue on the street. Write the dialogue of their argument, up to 250 words, with perfect punctuation! Think about keeping the voices distinct and using moments where things are not said to convey emotion, as we’ve been looking at over the last few weeks.