Marg McAlister

1. Read Your Dialogue Aloud

"Read it aloud!" would have to be the number one rule for editing your dialogue. What seems to flow smoothly on paper (or on the screen) can sound clunky and unconvincing when you hear it read aloud. It's worth reading it into a recording device - you pick up things that are easy to miss if you're trying to read and listen at the same time.

It's also a good idea to get someone else to read your dialogue back to you, because they inevitably place the emphasis in different places. What sounds fine to you may not sound right to someone else. Listen carefully, and change whatever doesn't flow.

2. Colour Code Your Dialogue

Refer to the first article in this self-editing series to understand the value of colour-coding. (This article does make specific references to dialogue.) To recap: you should be using different coloured markers to highlight the following:

• speech tags

• actions

• thoughts

• actual words spoken

This will help you to see at a glance whether you are relying too heavily on one method.

3. Don't Overuse Tags

Tags should be used only if there could be some confusion about who is speaking. The number one problem I see with dialogue is over-use of speech tags such as 'he said', 'she said', 'Mary commented' and so on.

Try to write your dialogue in such a way that it's obvious who is speaking without a tag. Some examples:

Insert an action before or after speech

Mary looked at him in disbelief. "You told her WHAT?"

Insert character's thoughts before speech

Staring at the boat in the distance, Steve calculated that it would probably take him around fifteen minutes to swim out there. "Okay. I'll do it."

Use spoken words only

"Please, Steve - you have to do it for me. You could swim that far..."

"Maybe I could once, but not now. Not after the accident."

"Please. Please try."

In the last example, you can see that by inserting 'Steve' in the first sentence, we know that it's Mary talking. For the next two sentences, we don't need a speech tag because we understand that Steve is responding to Mary, and then finally that she is still begging him to do what she asks.

4. Don't Try Fancy Tags

"Said" is the best speech tag to use, because it's so common that it's almost invisible. (This doesn't apply if you OVER-use it - there's nothing worse than line after line of 'he said'.) It's also okay to use the occasional common variation like 'he replied'; 'she answered' or 'she insisted' - but DON'T OVERDO IT. You'll drive your readers crazy if you make them read something like this:

"Please, Steve," Mary begged. "You have to do it for me. You could swim that far," she insisted.

"Maybe I could once," admitted Steve, "but not now. Not after the accident."

"Please," Mary cried. "Please try."

You get the idea. Too many variations of 'he said/she said' serves only to distract (and probably annoy) the reader.

5. Don't Use the 'Sandwich Technique'

Your aim when writing dialogue should be to use a smooth blend of speech, actions, tags and thoughts. Note the word 'blend'!

Some writers make an effort to include all these components - but instead of mixing them up throughout a scene of dialogue, they layer one approach on top of another. They write six lines of direct speech, followed by a paragraph of the character's thoughts, followed by three or four lines of dialogue using 'he said' type tags, followed by a paragraph describing the character's actions. Naturally, this doesn't work - it all seems very structured and artificial, because it doesn't reflect what happens in real life.

6. Tap Into the Viewpoint Character's Thoughts

What happens when you have a conversation with someone in real life? Your mind is constantly busy. Not only are you thinking about what you're saying (and how the other person is responding) but your mind can be distracted by:

• anything in the background such as noises or movements, or

• stray thoughts prompted by something the other person has said.

For example:

"Sorry, Steve, I won't be able to finish the project tonight," Mary told him hesitantly. "I've got Emily's dance recital on."

Steve felt his heart sink. Dance recital... he'd almost forgotten. His daughter had reminded him last time they spoke - what, last Friday? She'd never have forgiven him if he failed to show up.

"Of course," he said. "I'll be going along myself. Jenna's a tree, I believe. Do trees get to dance much?"

Mary laughed. "You'd be surprised. Jenna's in the babies' group, isn't she? They're always fun to watch."

"Yeah." Steve calculated how much time this dancing thing would cost him. There was no way he'd have time to finish the project before the meeting tomorrow if he didn't work into the small hours.

"Mary... I hate to ask you this, but..."

She rolled her eyes. "You want me to work on it after I get home."

7. Make Sure All Your Characters Sound Different

One of the biggest traps in writing dialogue is having all your characters sound the same. Your challenge as a writer is working out a way to show different personalities or background (without resorting to clunky attempts to reproduce dialect or dropped aitches).

The big secret is remembering that everyone has a different 'window on the world'. Someone living in a drab, cramped bedsit in the city, barely able to afford the rent (and unable to afford heating) will look at the world differently to someone who has a mansion in idyllic surroundings. The former has to think before spending even a dollar. The latter may choose clothes and restaturants according to what he likes, rather than what he can afford. Someone who is an eternal optimist will speak and think differently to someone who is depressed.

As you can see, dialogue is about a lot more than just the mechanics of speech.

Here are a few ways to make sure your characters sound different:

• Allow some characters to speak more formally than others

• Give certain characters 'pet' phrases that they often repeat (don't do this with everyone or it will become annoying)

• Create a character who rarely finishes a whole sentence, or who has a habit of finishing others' sentences for them

• Show a character who always thinks before she speaks OR the opposite - who rushes in without thinking

• Let one character be a 'gabbler' who doesn't really listen to what others have to say, while another has to be coaxed to give an opinion

These are just a few examples - if you become an eavesdropper in public places, you'll pick up a lot more idiosyncrasies that you can use in your stories.

8. Vary Sentence Structure

Check your passages of dialogue to make sure that you aren't boring the reader by using the same sentence structure all the time.

Make some sentences long; others short.

Use speech tags and/or actions in different places - before speech, during speech, and after speech.

For example:

Start with an action:

Steve pointed at the yacht. "It's that one. Don't you remember it from last Christmas?"

Put a speech tag in the middle:

"It's the yacht second from the end," Steve said. "Don't you remember it from last Christmas?"

End with a speech tag:

"It's the yacht second from the end - don't you remember it from last Christmas?" Steve asked.

9. Use a Mixture of Tags, Body Language, Speech, Actions and Thoughts.

Don't confuse speech with dialogue. Speech equals spoken words. Dialogue shows you how speech fits into a scene, and takes into account the speaker's thoughts, the reactions of the other person in the scene, actions performed by anyone in the scene, and everyone's body language.

The setting will also influence the way dialogue is written - if it's a hot day, your characters might be lying around devoid of energy, waiting for the sun to go down. If they're cold, they could be shivering and hurrying to find shelter, not talking much because it's too cold to open their mouths. If you're relying mostly on direct speech plus a few speech tags, then it's likely your dialogue needs work.

10. Start a new paragraph for a new speaker

We're really going back to basics here, but it needs to be said - make sure that each new speaker's words start on a new line. If you don't do this, your readers can quickly lose track of who says what.

** Refer to page 25 in Book 3 of the Tipsheet Library, the article titled: "Who Said That?"

Other relevant articles in Tipsheet Library: Book 1 Page 5 (10 Tips on Writing Effective Dialogue); Book 2 pages 14, 17 37 and 40 (these last 4 articles are not specifically on dialogue but contain valuable related info about italics, layout and punctuation.)