SPEAKING OF DIALOGUE by Eric Beetner

     Writing good dialogue can be helped by a single word: listen. Listen to how people speak. Eavesdrop, lurk, spy and loiter around conversations from different walks of life. Pay attention to how people speak, not just what they say. “believable” dialogue in a book mostly means that the reader can hear it in their head and it sounds like overhearing a conversation. 

      Some keys to making that happen: 

      People don’t often come right out and say exactly what they’re trying to say. Bluntness and spright talk is a rare commodity and we rarely do it in our normal day-to-day conversation. By slightly hiding what your character has to say you will create more believable dialogue.                  Embrace filler words. Most of us start a sentence with little filler such as “well” or “look”. Not every Um and Uh needs to be on the page, but filler words can also be quick and easy ways to differentiate characters. If someone has a speech pattern that leans heavily on filler, i.e. the girl who says “like” all the time, then when that person speaks in their distinctive way it becomes easier to identify who is speaking without always having to add speech tags. Think about how often you or people you know end a sentence with the phrase, “y’know?” It’s unnecessary and therefore a copy editors nightmare, but if a character uses the phrase frequently in your book, you’ll set them apart and the reader will always know who is talking.        People often stop and start a sentence while they organize their thoughts. If someone is in a stressful situation, as often happens in crime novels, then their thoughts won’t always come out cleanly the first time. Real dialogue can have some false starts. 

      Embrace interruptions. People cut each other off quite often, especially in an argument. Don’t shy away from this messiness. 

      Listen for regionalisms. If you have someone from a specific region, a different country or some city with a distinctive accent – search up those words, phrases, pronunciations that make it unique. If a guy from Brooklyn is talking to a guy from Nashville, their dialogue should look and feel different on the page. 

       Sometimes the best answer is a non-answer. Moments in any conversation can often end in something as non-committal is “Huh.” or “Well, whatever.” These are perfectly legit uses of dialogue even if they don’t feel like they are “saying” anything. Real people don’t often speak in finely crafted gems of insight and truths. 

       I tend to lean heavily on dialogue in my books and I think you can learn about a character as they speak as well as push the story forward. There are dialogue heavy books like The Friends Of Eddie Coyle where probably 75% of that book is told in dialogue and it works brilliantly, often because the pattern of speech is so authentic. I know of at least one book, Barry Gifford’s Wyoming, which is nothing but dialogue. Hard to pull off, but I was never lost about the story. 

        The biggest pitfall in writing dialogue is to keep from having all the characters sound like the author. It’s easy to have a conversation with yourself in your head and just transcribe that, but it’s all going to be one voice. Find those little things, the unique quirk that makes that character unique.

        In the end, let your voice be heard and let your characters speak loud and proud!