Fictional Dialogue Exercises
How to Improve Conversations Between Characters in Novel Writing
Here are some ideas for putting the right words into your characters' mouths -- Words that will tell readers more about your characters.
Dialogue is a challenge for even the most experienced fiction writer. As in real life, where people struggle to find the right words in a particular situation, fictional characters struggle with words, too. Although dialogue comes easily to some writers, and less so to others, learning to make your characters speak in a way that is right for them will go a long way towards making them credible to your readers.
Find the Right Words
As any fiction writer knows, sometimes the right words just spill out of a character’s mouth, as if divinely dictated. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen very often. Putting words into a character’s mouth is hard work.
The first step in finding the words is to listen to what your characters are saying now. If you are so focused on every other aspect of the story – from pacing to tone to theme and so on – you may have neglected your characters’ speech. So take a break from all those other important things, and listen to your characters. If they’re using the wrong words to express themselves, both you and your readers will know.
Two Dialogue Exercises
Try these exercises to see if you can pinpoint the areas that need to be improved in your characters’ dialogue.
1. Take two main characters and throw them into an argument – about something important or trivial – and, using only dialogue, let them argue.
When the argument appears to be over – either resolved by the characters or by you having run out of steam – read the dialogue aloud. Do each character’s words sound like him or her or are you cringing as you read because they sound false or stilted? Is one character more dominant in the argument than the other? Should this be, or have you discovered something new about this character? Look at the word patterning. Does a character routinely repeat words, say very few, never give the other character a chance to reply? All of this information is important. Note it in your working journal.
2. Now, throw those same characters into a friendlier situation, say coffee at the local coffee shop.
Again, when their conversation is over, read it aloud. Has the dominant character monopolized this conversation, while the other character has said very little? Has the word patterning changed because of the situation or remained the same? Simple exercises such as these allow you to discover things about your characters that even you didn’t know.
Read more about dialogue in Write Better Fictional Dialogue.
