Authentic dialogue is one of the hardest but most satisfying parts of writing fiction.
Creating a world where your characters form their own dialogue is the writer’s dream. Luckily, crafting such dialogue can be achieved by understanding a few basic concepts.
Concept 1. Characters are NOT people
People that you talk to every day are riddled with flaws. Talking to another person doesn’t often have a beautifully articulate exploration of themes but rather each person is barely making sense whilst also being crippled by filler words like umm and ahh.
Your characters are NOT people.
They are characters that represent an idea or belief.
Once you understand this concept your dialogue becomes so much more authentic and flows easier.
You have to treat conversation in your writing as a conflict between two core truths, and whatever the results are come out in your dialogue.
Concept 2. Your dialogue MUST be Conflict
Anything that you consider entertaining is conflict.
No one wants to see two people agree completely about their ideas, it’s just not interesting.
Another way to think about it is something I was asked by this random guy on a school trip;
Isn’t every funny joke at someone’s expense?
The short answer is yes. Comedy comes from reverting expectations so when you talk about a scenario or an individual’s actions in a twisted way it is seen as comical.
This is conflict.
Where you mix a person’s actions with another person’s perception of what they should be doing is greatly interesting.
That’s why observational comedy is often hilarious because it has conflict.
Conflict is interesting.
Concept 3. Your Characters Should NEVER Say What They Think
No one knows exactly what they’re thinking.
By the time you understand what thought you were thinking you’ve thought of twelve more, it’s impossible.
So your dialogue should not be filled with deeply insightful developed thoughts.
Your characters should be as confused about their true intentions as you are.
Think of it like this, people are irrational creatures, when you have two irrational creatures undergoing conflict you’re not going to get a linear thought process.
An interesting way I’ve heard about approaching dialogue is that you first understand the basic truth about what your characters believe. The next step is in your dialogue, your conflict, between characters act as if your characters can say anything to get their truth across but under no circumstances are to actually state it.
Using this method screens your dialogue in a way that allows your characters to never say what they actually think. Try it out.
Concept 4. Dialogue is NOT just Discussion
A thing that easily stumps beginner writers is dialogue because they think it’s just two people talking.
In real life, it’s NEVER just two people talking.
Something like 70 percent of our communication is non-verbal, stuff such as body language.
Without body language description your dialogue will be feeling 70 percent weaker.
Who wants that?
Your dialogue NEEDS to have descriptions in it.
You need to be showing your reader how your characters are physically reacting to what is being said.
Of course, there needs to be a balance you can’t routinely shift from something spoken to a physical reaction.
But to have your characters breathe like real people, they need to react to the conversation.
A great way to do this I go over in my post about how to Show Not Tell.
Basically, you can’t be telling the reader how a character feels. That’s a big no-no.
Rather, you should show your character frowning, shifting, and balling up their fists.
They HAVE to react.
In Conclusion. . .
There are four major concepts to creating authentic dialogue;
- Characters are NOT people
- Dialogue MUST be conflict
- Your characters should NEVER say what they think
- Dialogue is NOT just a discussion
I hope these four ideas have resonated with you in some way, let me know if I’m missing anything important.
Take these ideas into your toolkit and get writing.
Nothing will get you better at writing than writing.
Thankyou so much for reading! Happy Writing 🙂
If you enjoyed this writing tips post I’m sure you’ll love this post about creating compelling characters;
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