Using Dialogue

Dialogue is a conversation between two or more characters.

It’s essential to every story. It helps carry the story ahead.

Communication is an important tool for characters to be able to express themselves. A reader can learn a lot about a character just from reading how they talk and treat other people.

An example is found below:

“Tank, I can’t believe you did this to me.” Tony a scrawny dock worker fumed. He was pacing back and forth in a dive of a bar.

A large man sitting in the back corner booth shrugged his broad shoulders. “Shouldn’t have trusted me than. Serves you right, no one trusts no one in the swamps.”

The woman sitting beside Tank giggled. “Yeah Reggie, I can’t believe you fell for the old Suzy swap.”

Tony stared at the couple in disgust for a few moments. “I can’t believe after knowing you for three weeks you’re going to leave me hanging. You’re going to feed me to the dogs.” He scrunched his fists up in anger. “Well I’m not going down like this, uh-uh, wait and see.”

“What are you going to do?” The large man said and laughed. “You think I’m afraid of you? I could snuff you out with one hand.”

“I don’t care. I’m not letting you make me go down like this. Uh-uh, you’re coming down too. Wait and see, once the cops show up I’ll tell them what I know…”

“You do and you’re a deadman!” The man hissed and banged the table with his giant fist. “You think I don’t know where your ex-wife and daughter live? Think about that.”

In the example above there are three different characters. Notice that whenever a character speaks, the words are incased in quotes. Also keep in mind that a comma or period is always put first before closing a quote.

Another rule to remember is whenever a new character speaks, a new paragraph is needed. In the above example whenever I switched from one character to the other, I used a new paragraph.

This is to help the reader understand who is talking, and to make it easier to read.

Using dialogue tags is another technique to help the reader understand who is talking.

See the example below:


“You are.”
“No you are.”
“I hate you.”
“I hate you more.”
“I wish I never met you.”
If left like this, the dialogue can get a bit confusing as to who is doing the speaking, but if you add in some dialogue tags, it makes it much easier to follow.

“You are.”
“No you are.”
“I hate you.”
“I hate you more.” He shouted.
She shouted back, “I wish I never met you.”

In this example the dialogue tag is the he shouted, she shouted it helps the reader identify who is speaking and who is listening.

The last rule I’m going to discuss is when a character has a lot to tell. You require a certain character to do a lot of talking, to get important points across to the reader. Often this means dialogue with several paragraphs.

See below

“Mike!" The woman sobbed hysterical. "For the love of God, I cannot believe you quit. You know that our family depends on that money for food, shelter; you know that I’m pregnant, and soon I’ll be off work.

”How can I continue on knowing that in less than a week we’ll be out of our home? How can I tell my mother? Our kids? Tell me!

"What did I ever do to deserve this? Did I not donate enough money in church? Did I judge someone I shouldn't have...why me?

“Do you even think of anyone but yourself? No I suppose not. I guess that's obvious. Stupid me for trustig you.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kick you out of my house and out of my life.” The woman snarled at her husband.

In the above example, notice that whenever it's a new paragraph it only has the opening quote. The end of the quote is only needed once she is finished speaking. By not using the end quotes for paragraph changes, the reader understands that it is still the same speaker.

With dialogue remember it needs to serve a purpose to your story. Dialogue should flow fast. It should also be used to help make your characters more real to the reader.

If you'd like more help with dialogue, check out this great video. Holly Lisle's The Writing Craft: Dialogue and Subtext.