The Key to Improving the Dialogue in Your Fiction

Take Notes from Theatre

I was halfway through my 400-level college writing seminar when the professor said, “Dialogue is the most difficult part of writing for me.” She went on to explain that when she’s writing her (successful, published) novels, she skips over the dialogue during her first drafts and then returns to it later on. The rest of the workshop, sitting around our circular table, nodded and let out little vocalizations of agreement, except for me. The professor had mentioned this in the context of a compliment, noting how my short story was dominated by good, authentic dialogue. I almost felt bad getting such positive feedback because, for me, dialogue has always been the easy part. Frankly, I was surprised to find out it was any different for anybody else.

I don’t say this to boast. The reasoning is very simple, and it’s not a matter of skill, it’s a matter of background. First and foremost, I’m an actor and a playwright. Not only that, I’m a narrative improvisor, meaning I am literally trained to come up with lines of authentic dialogue in split seconds. Narration on the other hand does not come so easily to me, and I won’t even try to give tips about that, but if you want my advice on writing dialogue, here it is:

Read some plays. Write some plays. Take an acting class. Take an improv class! Research human psychology.

Dialogue is just the stuff people say. You say stuff all the time. You hear people say stuff all the time. Analyze the speech patterns of the people around you. Analyze the speech patterns of the characters in movies you watch. And I’ll repeat: READ SOME PLAYS. Plays are literally just books full of dialogue that you can analyze on the page. Read Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel, Lynn Nottage, August Wilson, Oscar Wilde, Caryl Churchill, Tom Stoppard, Wendy Wasserstein, Tennessee Williams, George Bernard Shaw — these people, and so many more, are MASTERS of dialogue. It’s their whole gig. If you’re trying to write better scenes between your characters and you’re not taking notes from the works of brilliant playwrights, I don’t even know what you’re doing. I really can’t emphasize this enough. Read. Plays. Please.

Then, you can take it a step further. Try writing plays. If dialogue is where you struggle, limit yourself to telling stories ONLY through dialogue, just as an exercise. Get some people together to read your plays out loud and listen to it. Where do your readers get tripped up? What feels unnatural to them as they try to say it? As always, filter any critique through your own understanding of what makes good art, but be careful never to argue with it as its being given. Constructive criticism is a gift (in art and life), and you can always learn from it even if you don’t agree with it. When people are reading your dialogue out loud, they may hear issues with it that you never would have noticed. Hear it, and learn.

I wish I could give you a bulleted list of tips for great dialogue that you could immediately incorporate into your writing, but I can’t. There are little things here and there that can be useful reminders, but none of them are a substitute for a deep study of the craft.

Something the theatre knows well that it may be easier for lone fiction writers to forget is that art thrives in community. Lean on the masters and lean on your peers.

There is no limit to the height you can grow.

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Thank you for reading! Wanna see me put my money where my mouth is? My primary project is the serialized novel The Legend of Leanna Page with Cedar Flyte. New chapters are released every week. Please go check it out and subscribe to keep up with the story.