Your Characters Don't Talk Like That (And Readers Know It)

Dialogue can be absolutely propulsive to the reader. How many times, as a reader, have you flipped a few pages ahead, seen the short lines of dialogue, smiled a bit to yourself, and said, Just a few more pages?

Dialogue is great for story…unless it breaks reader immersion.

Photo by Sophia Richards on Unsplash

What kind of dialogue breaks that immersion?

Usually:

*Dialogue that’s generic, that could be spoken by any character in the book.

Or:

*Dialogue that sounds like the writer, not the character.

What does the best dialogue do?

Makes sure the speech matches the character. This means their geographic location, their age, their level of education. Now, a character who has less education than you, the writer, can still make very wise observations. We’ve all met, know, or love people just like that. People who maybe aren’t book smart but have a kind of common sense or experience-based logic that we wind up relying on. Just make sure those wise observations are made using the kind of phrasing and word choice that makes sense for that character.

Include subtext. None of us say exactly what we mean. For example, we would never say, “Yes, Sarah, I am angry with you for betraying my trust and telling Chad my secret.” Or, “I love you but I’m afraid of commitment because of my own parents’ divorce.”

Barf.

More realistically, a character might say, “Fine. I’m fine,” while clenching their jaw and slamming the kitchen cabinets.

Beyond simply maintaining immersion, that kind of dialogue often ratchets up the tension or increases a reader’s empathy for your character. Consider these examples: Jessica walks into the living room and announces, “I’m incredibly nervous about this date I’m about to go on.” Or, Jessica walks into the room tugging on her skirt. “Is this too short?” she asks. “What about the shirt? Too much?” Add in some fidgeting and some sweat around the fringes of the hair that she’s spent an hour styling, and your heart starts to go out to her. We’ve all been there. We get it. Jessica doesn’t have to tell us directly she’s nervous. We feel it.

Keep the dialogue consistent with the internal voice. If this character is narrating the book, your reader will be hearing them speak (silently) for about 400 pages. That’s what that narration is, really. The silent speech that runs through that main character’s head. So that voice should absolutely be the same voice they speak in when interacting with other characters.

Grab your own WIP

Identify 3 areas in your book that contain a heavy amount of dialogue, or maybe even a portion of dialogue in which something important is revealed. Are your characters speaking like themselves and only themselves? Or do those phrases seem as though they could be spoken by any character? Do those voices sound like you rather than the characters? If so, those are areas to target for revision.

Next week, we’ll be heading into a portion of dialogue that’s actually every bit as important as the actual words said: body language.