12 Exercises for Improving Dialogue
October 23, 2004
Dialogue is one of the most difficult aspects of writing to master. There are many pitfalls you must try to avoid, such as:
- Stilted language
- Dialogue that does not sound like natural speech.
- Filler
- Dialogue that does not further the scene and does not deepen your
understanding of the characters. - Exposition
- Dialogue that has the character explain the plot or repeat information
for the benefit of the audience. - Naming
- Having one character use another character’s name to establish identity.
People almost never say other people’s names back to them, and if they do it
is a character trait typical of a used car salesman. - Overuse of Modifiers
- Too many dialogue modifiers such as shouted, exclaimed,
cried, whispered, stammered, opined, insinuated,
hedged and a million others. Modifiers such as this can sometimes be
useful, but are often annoying and used as a crutch for poorly designed
dialogue.
Here are a few exercises to help you master dialogue as a tool for writing:
- Write down the things you say over the course of the day. Examine your own speech patterns. You don’t have to get every word, but you may find that you say less than you think and that your statements are surprisingly short. You might also find that you rarely speak in complete sentences.
- Find a crowded place such as a restaurant, a bar, or a shopping mall and write down snippets of the conversations you hear. Avoid trying to record whole conversations, just follow along for a brief exchange and then listen for your next target. If you are worried about looking suspicious, you might want to purchase a Palm Pilot, Handspring Visor or other hand-held PDA device. These handy spy tools make it look like you are conducting business or playing with your favorite electronic toy rather than eavesdropping.
- Test responses to the same question. Think of a question that will require at least a little thought, and ask it of several different people. Compare their responses. Remember that you are focused on their words. Write them down as soon as you can.
- Record several different TV shows. Some choices include: sitcom, news, drama, talk show, infomercial, sporting event, etc.). Write down a transcript using just the dialogue and people’s names. If you don’t know the names, just use a description such as announcer or redheaded woman. You can also transcribe two shows of the same genre, using one show you like and one you dislike. Compare dialogue between the fiction and non-fiction programming you recorded. Look for such things as greetings, descriptions of physical actions, complete sentences, slang, verbal ticks (Such as like, you know, uhhhh, well, etc.). Compare how these dialogue crutches change according to the show format and quality.
- Rewrite one or more of the shows in exercise 4 as prose, trying to recreate the show as accurately as possible. Note how easy or difficult it is to work in the entire dialogue from the show. Does it seem to flow naturally and read well or does it get in your way. Rewrite again eliminating any dialogue you feel is unnecessary. Try not to change any dialogue though until your final draft. Work with what you have. Remember that you don’t necessarily have to rewrite the whole show. Do enough to be sure you have the feeling for it.
- Rewrite one of the the transcripts from exercise 4 using as much of the dialogue as possible, but changing the scene in as many ways as possible. Change the setting, change the people’s intent, and change the tone. See how easy or difficult it is to give the same words a different intent. Again, do enough to be sure you have the feeling for it.
- Write the dialogue for a scene without using any modifiers. Just write down a conversation as it goes along naturally. After you have completed the dialogue, add narrative description, but not dialogue tags such as said, shouted or ordered. Instead, try to work the dialogue into the action as a logical progression of the statements. Finally, add any dialogue tags that are absolutely necessary, and keep them simple such as said, told, or asked. Again, only put them in if you can find not other options. Compare this to the previous dialogue you have written and see what you like or dislike about the changes.
- Write a scene in which one person tells another person a story. Make sure that you write it as a dialogue and not just a first person narrative, but clearly have one person telling the story and the other person listening and asking questions or making comments. The purpose of this scene will be both to have the story stand alone as a subject, and to have the characters’ reactions to the story be the focal point of the scene.
- Write a scene in which one person is listening to two other people have an argument or discussion. For example, a child listening to her parents argue about money. Have the third character narrate the argument and explain what is going on, but have the other two provide the entire dialogue. It is not necessary to have the narrator understand the argument completely. Miscommunication is a major aspect of dialogue.
- Write a conversation between two liars. Give everything they say a double or triple meaning. Never state or indicate through outside description that these two people are lying. Let the reader figure it out strictly from the dialogue. Try not to be obvious, such as having one person accuse the other of lying. That is too easy.
- Write a conversation in which no character speaks more than three words per line of dialogue. Again, avoid crutches such as explaining everything they say through narration. Use your narration to enhance the scene, not explain the dialogue.
- Write a narrative or scripted scene in which several characters are taking an active role in the conversation. This can be a difficult aspect of dialogue to master, because with each additional character, the reader or audience must be able to keep track of the motivations and interests of the individuals involved. This can be especially difficult in prose, where the time between one character speaking and the next can be interrupted by action or description. See how many characters your can sustain within the scene and still have it make sense and be engaging.
i really find the exercise very interesting and practical. I am going to ask my students to do it
Hello
I feel this information can help young learner to understand the very basics of writing dialogues.
This is certainly very helpful. Thnaks very much.
These ideas are fun and easy to teach. I’ll
definately be using them to teach my Creative
Writing class. Thanks!
I am thinking of writing a screenplay that I have been wanting to write for 5 years. I am going to use your steps because you are so right, dialogue
is the most hardest element in a screenplay and it is a make or
break element in a movie or book.
I am a young writer, and often have problems writing dialog between people. Thanks to these writing tips I have been able to help my writing progress, and get a whole lot better. I belive that many people can learn from these easy tips.
Akasha (14)
I am a young English student, after read this mentioned above I deceided to speek or write in English, anything, any topic under the sky. I am sure, I will win to this attempt
I think these are great ideas for writing dialog in my storys for creative writing class. I
srugle creating dialog in my story’s and i think that this will help me alot
Hi,
Excellent advice, thanks a lot.
One question though, who are the best writers to study the different stlyes of dialogues.
I am currently knee deep in my first projext and I am struggling to find the correct tense for my narrators vioce (if i choose to have one),and i am writing a story with 5 main characters, who will be in
the same scenes for most of the book. Think Harry potter with Ron, Hermione, Harry, and two
other main charcters. I could go the mehtod i am familiar with, from novels such a timothy
Zhan’s star wars series, with first person narrative
that changes to a different character each chapter. However, my characters are in the same
room for most of the early scenes in the book, and i dont wnat to re-wrtie scenes for each
perspective.
Any advice, tips or even simialar styles already out there would be very helpful?
for new writers like me this should be helpful. I am having trouble getting book reviews because I am published by
[...] Improving Dialogue Thursday February 23rd 2006, 10:46 pm Filed under: Writing Writer’s Resource Center » Blog Archive » 12 Exercises for Improvi [...]
[...] Improving Dialogue Thursday February 23rd 2006, 10:47 pm Filed under: Writing Writer’s Resource Center » Blog Archive » 12 Exercises for Improvi [...]
This is the first thing I’ve read and I already love this website! Looking at these exercises taught me a lot of things about what makes good dialogue that I hadn’t realized before. Thanks!
I’m glad you liked the exercises Sophia. I am now featuring a writing prompt every day with my writing updates on the main page.
cable car…
AUTONET009911 …
This is amazing. I’ve spent a fortune on books and e-courses and writing courses in the community and never received the informaiton I just recived from this website. Thanks so much.
Thank you so much. This was really helpful to get me started.
As everyone says,
thank you!
this was very helpful
This was very helpful indeed. Very good excercises to help an aspiring writers! Thank you
This is avery practical approach of scriptwriting
This is going to help with my scriptwriting, thanks!
This helped me immensely in some dialogue scenes I have been struggling with lately. If I ever attempt to write a script of any sort, I’m sure it will help me further; a profuse thank you to this website!
Hi,
First, sorry for my English, I’m a French speaker…
I am very impressed by the contents of this site. For me, which starts to write, it is a really invaluable and very interesting tool.
Like everybody say :
THANK YOU!!!!
Claudia
An example of excellent dialog is in the new book, “The What-If Guy” by Taylor Wilshire. This is a recent book award winner of the “People’s Choice Book Review-2006 Book of the Year for the Chick Lit category–they think it was a winner for it’s dialog. The dialog is funny, clipped and natural.
Thanx! These exercises look great for someone starting out in the writing biz, will give them a try!
I have a question. If you say this: “Mom, I’m going to go play with Shawn okay?” screamed Jason.
At the end of ur quotation do you capitalize how he said it? So do i need to capitalize scream or not?
hello,
i thought that this website should give examples of afew dialogues.
a bit about me:
i am a 13 yr old student who intends on becoming a sucessful lawyer. I love to talk and argue my point, Through day night and even early hours of the morning i will argue until found correct!
To Ashley,
No you would not capitalize screamed. It would be the same as in when there isn’t a question mark, such as: “Mom, I’m going to play with Shawn,” screamed Jason.
Hope that helps.
I found this article very helpful. However tip numer two scares me a little. I wonder if any writers have ever
eavesdropped on me before? Haha.
[...] 12 Exercises for Improving Dialogue | Writer’s Resource Center [...]
We recommend this exercise to rejected authors so they can tune up their dialogue skills. A Great story idea without great dialogue won’t cut it. Write on! Resubmit!
great exercise!!
Nice exercises. I think these will be interested to read at the forum for writers. I’ll post a link to it.