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6 Ways to Better Dialogue
By Jeff Heisler
Question: What's wrong with this segment?
"Hey John!" Sam shouted. "Yeah, what?" John replied, puzzled. "Look at this," Sam implored to John. John replied, "Look at what?"
Answer: A lot. It needs some work in dialogue
mechanics.
So what are rules for dialogue in fiction?
Let's go through a few points in no particular order.
1) Simple dialogue tags work best. The most
effective tag in fiction is "he said" or "she said." No
"he uttered," "he stated," "he implored," or anything
similar.
2) You don't need a dialogue tag on every line.
Here's some examples for illustration:
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"Hello sweetheart," he said. "Hello honey," she said. "How was your day?" he said. "Fine, how was yours?" she said.
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Now- let's look at it again without so many
tags.
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"Hello Sweetheart," he said. "Hello honey." "How was your day?" "Fine, how was yours?"
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Ahh- that's better. In second example we
get dialogue without being distracted by tags.
3) You can also use to few tags. IF you have
long strings of dialogue, make sure you throw a tag in
now and then so reader doesn't lose their pace. A
good way to do this is to throw some action in there
with dialogue. For example, if you've had a long
exchange between husband and wife in eample
above you could throw in a line like this.
-------------------------------------
She sat down at kitchen table. "I went to
the bank today," she said.
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That exchange breaks monotony of simple
dialogue exchanges and places a touch of action, however
small, into scene. It also serves to keep
reader tuned to right speaker. It's easy to get
