Dialogue is an essential ingredient in storytelling, breathing life into characters. Understanding how to write great dialogue can create captivating scenes and add depth to narratives. Conversations are an opportunity to explore your characters' emotions, motivations, and relationships. And dialogue gives the audience a front-row seat to witness the characters' evolution.
As much as it's a potent tool in any writer's arsenal, crafting authentic and engaging exchanges can be challenging. It's common for even seasoned authors to grapple with mastering this storytelling aspect.
Knowing how to write great dialogue takes plenty of practice—from constructing believable conversations to accurately portraying characters' personalities—and ensuring their words and expressions flow naturally. There's a delicate balance of incorporating subtext while avoiding over-explanation or redundant information (too much exposition).
This guide offers techniques for writing great dialogue and examples from one of the masters.
Role, Plot, and Description
Dialogue plays a pivotal role in character development, giving the audience insight into their personalities and idiosyncrasies. Great dialogue exposes your characters’ strengths, weaknesses, and conflicts, turning them into believable, realistic, and complex human beings.
Consider this scene from “Pulp Fiction.”
Dialogue as Action: In many films, dialogue is a way to move the plot forward. In this scene, the dialogue itself is the action. There's minimal physical movement, but the conversation keeps the scene dynamic and exciting.
Character Development: The conversation reveals a lot about the characters' personalities. Vincent is somewhat awkward, trying to navigate a clearly uncomfortable situation. On the other hand, Mia is more relaxed, confident, and in control of the conversation. This dynamic sets the stage for their relationship throughout the film.
Atmosphere and Tone: The dialogue contributes to the unique atmosphere of the scene. The way they talk about mundane things like a $5 milkshake or Mia's awkward joke brings a sense of normalcy to an otherwise tense situation, considering Vincent's underlying job to entertain his boss's wife without crossing any lines.
Building Tension: Despite the casual topics, their conversation has an underlying tension. Pauses, word choices, and the characters' body language add to the experience.
Foreshadowing: Some of the conversation subtly hints at future plot points. It builds anticipation and keeps the audience engaged, wondering how these seemingly trivial conversations will tie into the larger narrative.
Cultural References: The dialogue is peppered with pop culture references, a Tarantino trademark. This makes the characters more relatable and grounds the film in a specific cultural context.
A distinct voice helps you create characters your audience can empathize with, admire, or despise. It also serves as a powerful means of propelling the plot forward. By engaging in conversations, characters can disclose vital information, expose hidden secrets, or make crucial decisions directly impacting the storyline.
Writing conversations well allows the story to unfold organically and should help maintain a sense of unpredictability and excitement.
Make It Believable
Study real-life conversations to help you thoughtfully incorporate slang and dialect. Pay close attention to everyday interactions between friends, family, or strangers. Observe the tempo, flow, and how people interject or talk over one another.
Examine how real people convey emotions, use body language, and respond to various situations. Write down striking phrases or intriguing exchanges you come across. These inspire realistic dialogue and assist you in understanding how people communicate in diverse contexts.
Get familiar with the slang, dialect, or expressions particular to your characters' region, social group, or time. Pinpoint patterns in speech and distinctive communication styles. Determine what makes a conversation captivating or tedious. Then, apply these insights to make your fictional dialogue more engaging and genuine.
Focus on characters’ vocabulary, tone, and how they interact with others. Differentiating sentence construction, word choice, and pacing will create a unique voice. Additionally, you want to ensure that each character's voice remains consistent throughout your story.
"For all forms, writing dialogue is almost like writing music. I pay close attention to rhythms and tones." ~ Sefi Atta.
Understanding your characters' underlying motives and how they think will also help you craft their unique voice. That's why creating and developing comprehensive backstories encompassing your characters’ upbringing, education, and experiences is essential.
Humor, Wit, and Tension
Incorporating wit, humor, and tension into dialogue helps make your story entertaining and emotionally impactful. These techniques require careful planning and consideration.
One of the most effective ways to create tension or humor is to introduce conflict between the characters. You can do so by giving them opposing goals and viewpoints—or clashing personalities, ripe for misunderstandings.
Break It up With Action
Breaking up dialogue with action and description makes the story more dynamic. It not only breaks up long stretches of conversation but also enhances character development, reveals emotions, and conveys the atmosphere of a scene.
Start by considering the context of the conversation to effectively intersperse action with dialogue. Use character movements, facial expressions, and gestures to reflect their emotions and emphasize what they're saying.
For example, a character's clenched fists might indicate anger, while a nervous foot tapping can suggest anxiety.
Writing action also serves as a tool to reveal character traits and habits. A character who constantly fidgets with their clothes could be insecure. On the other hand—a character who maintains intense eye contact comes across as confident.
What's more, integrating action into dialogue can advance the plot by showcasing events happening simultaneously. This technique adds a sense of realism and keeps the story's pace flowing smoothly. For instance, if two characters are discussing a plan while preparing for a heist, their actions can convey the urgency and tension of the situation.
Remember to maintain a natural flow when interspersing action with dialogue. Too much action can distract from the conversation, while too little can lead to a flat and monotonous scene. Make it a goal to strike the right balance, ensuring that the action complements the dialogue and contributes to the overall experience.
Show, Don’t Tell
Tarantino exemplifies the "show, don't tell" principle, revealing character traits and settings through actions, dialogue, and interactions rather than direct descriptions. This method immerses the audience in the narrative, allowing them to experience it through the characters' perspectives.
Instead of telling us that Mia Wallace is enigmatic and alluring, Tarantino shows us through her confident walk, playful dance moves, and cryptic conversations with Vincent Vega. Similarly, his powerful monologues and reactions during critical moments reveal Jules Winnfield's intensity and philosophical nature.
Interaction with the surroundings is key to enhancing the experience. We don't just hear about the boxing ring where Butch fights; we see him sweating, panting, and exchanging brutal blows, feeling the grit and tension of the place.
Tarantino uses active voice to make descriptions more engaging and dynamic. For instance, he doesn't just describe a diner; he shows Pumpkin and Honey Bunny's intense discussion and sudden decision to rob it. In this way, he makes the setting come to life.
Sensory language creates vivid images. Rather than vaguely describing Marsellus Wallace's bar as intimidating, the tense atmosphere is palpable through the dim lighting, the murmurs of tough-looking patrons, and the heavy scent of cigar smoke.
"Pulp Fiction" holds up over time with this rich, multi-dimensional world where every character and location is experienced rather than simply described.
Honing Your Dialogue to Serve the Story
As you experiment with how to write great dialogue, remember that it requires diligent editing and revising. You work towards clarity, brevity, and authenticity when you polish your prose.
Ensure each spoken word serves a distinct purpose—whether it reveals character traits, advances the plot, or provides vital information. Dialogue shouldn't be a filler.
Characters should communicate clearly and concisely. Factor in the context and their personality. Consider whether characters are direct or indirect and if they use informal or formal language. Strive for a consistent voice that reflects the character's background and motivations.
Recognize that dialogue encompasses both spoken words and unspoken implications. Subtext enhances conversations by allowing readers to deduce emotions and motivations. Scrutinize your dialogue to ensure meaningful subtext.
Remove Repetitive and Unproductive Dialogue
Identify and remove repetitive or redundant lines that neither contribute to the story nor develop characters. Aim to convey information efficiently and avoid over-explaining.
Minimizing small talk. Reduce irrelevant chatter that fails to contribute to the story or character dynamics.
Ensure conversations are dynamic and engaging. Delete unnecessary back-and-forths that decelerate the pace or appear unnatural.
Read Aloud To Check Flow and Authenticity
Read your words aloud to determine if your dialogue sounds authentic and believable. Ensure pacing, rhythm, and phrasing align with real-life speech patterns.
Verify that each character's dialogue aligns with their established voice, background, and personality. While reading aloud, listen for deviations or inconsistencies.
Focus on the dialogue's emotional impact while reading. Does it evoke the intended emotions? Adjust as needed to expand the emotional resonance of the scene.
A trick I like to use is to record my reading. It makes it easier to go back and listen for discrepancies.
Read and Write and Write Some More
Practice is crucial in achieving excellence in any discipline, and writing dialogue is no exception. The more you engage in writing dialogue, the more you will comprehend the impact of words in shaping character and mood.
Read books and screenplays, and watch movies and TV shows to enhance your dialogue writing skills. Observe how the characters in these works interact, and note how dialogue contributes to the story and character growth.
Aside from consuming different forms of media, actively writing dialogue is also essential. There are no strict guidelines to follow when it comes to writing sparkling dialogue. The objective is to create a character voice that is both believable and engaging. And the only way to achieve this is through experimentation and exploration.
You can embrace the opportunity to explore different styles and techniques. Practice writing in various characters' voices. Attempt to write dialogue from varying perspectives or diverse backgrounds and personalities. The more you experiment, the more you'll understand what works and what doesn't.
Read Tarantino’s script, Pulp Fiction