Dialogue – speech between two or more people – is important for bringing fiction to life. It gives voice to characters, breaks up the text, balances description and helps to move the action on.

How someone speaks tells the reader a lot about the character, where they come from, how they see the world around them and how they relate to others. It’s an effective way of building tension in a scene, indicating mood and showing how a character changes throughout the narrative.

This post looks at some tips for developing authentic dialogue and sets out a few writing exercises to practice this.

Tips for creating dialogue

• Develop a unique voice for each character
• Keep speech patterns consistent – it should be obvious to the reader which character is speaking
• Keep it real – would someone really say that?
• Include mannerisms
• Consider who the character is talking to – most people modify their language depending on their audience
• Balance dialogue with description – short bursts of dialogue work best.

Exercise 1

• Go back to your character from the last exercise (or choose a new character)
• Put your character in a conflict situation with someone else
• Write a piece of dialogue between the two
• You can include some description but it should be mostly dialogue

Exercise 2

• Look at the image
• What are the two people in the foreground talking about?
• Write a piece of dialogue between the two

Exercise 3

This exercise helps develop the character’s unique voice.

• Go back to your original character
• Pick a subject they feel passionate about (in a positive or negative way)
• Write a monologue (their thoughts) about this particular thing
• It can be an impassioned speech or a rant!

If you’ve tried some of these writing exercises, I’d love to hear how you got on! Feel free to post some of your writing or give me feedback in the comments below!