# Improving Dialogue?



## Soline (Jul 19, 2012)

The 'Witer's Critique' didn't seem suitable for this, so I figure I'd post here.

I'm a writer of sorts, generally the smutty sort. And I like to think I'm pretty good at it, I frequently get told how 'colourful' my stories are and great the descriptions and details are and whatnot.

The thing that I think really lets me down though is the dialogue. -personally- I don't like it, when I write it it feels too forced and I just can't seem to get much of the talking flowing smoothly (Bits work, but I'd rather the entire dialogue fitted well). I've only ever had one suggestion to improve my dialogue, and so it might just be self-criticism at it's finest, but I do read others works, and other peoples roleplays, and feel horribly inadequate on the dialogue front...-particularly- in roleplays, since I know what I want to say and what should be said, and logically at least it -should- follow correctly (and again, never been picked up on it, granted) but it just doesn't feel as...fluid, when -I- write it.


Again, just about -all- of my stories are of the extremely smutty, porny nature, though I'm currently writing one that, while still containing fetishes, is pretty tame, so I might link to that one when it's up for a bit of critique.

but essentially, what I'm asking, is does anyone have any tips or suchlike for improving dialogue in stories?


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## Poetigress (Jul 19, 2012)

Try searching the Writer's Knowledge Base for "dialogue." Brings up a lot of good articles:

http://hiveword.com/wkb/search

Other than that, it's hard to say anything more specific without a sample to look at.


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## Smelge (Jul 19, 2012)

Two ways I can see that works fairly well.

1 - Imagine yourself as each character in turn. You know their personalities and character, so imagine being each one in turn, then decide how the conversation would flow and how they would respond and react. Once you have a framework of how you want the conversation to progress, streamline it. Make it sound less like you and more like the characters.

2 - Prepare a file outlining the character and personality, then send it to a friend and roleplay the scenario either in person or using an IM service. Try to avoid using it verbatim, unless you get some absolute gem of dialogue. You'll still probably need to edit it, reduce it down and modify it to fit the story you have, but it gives you a framework to build on, and hopefully helps it stop sounding like the same peson generating all the dialogue.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 19, 2012)

Well, the question is what kind of story you're trying to write, and trying to make the dialogue fit into that template better.  If you're writing a Tolkien-esque fantasy epic story, don't have characters fling short quips and lots of curse words at each other, for example.  One thing I always tend to like in dialogue, though, is a lot of twists and turns that make sense but that the reader doesn't necessarily expect.  It's pretty boring to just do this:
Person A: "Good morning."
Person B: "Good morning to you, too."
Person A: "Did you read the paper?"
Person B: "Yes."
and so on.  You need to add a little mystery:
Person A: "Good morning."
Person B: "Looks like you recovered."
Person A: "Those pills you gave me helped.  Say, did you read the paper?"
Person B: "The kid they found in the ditch?"
and so on.  You got two questions from that already: what happened the night before, and what about this kid in the ditch?

But that's just an idea of what might be causing it.  When my dialogue gets inorganic and blocky is when people start saying exactly what you would expect them to say, so I try to avoid that as much as is reasonable.  It's easy to go over-board, though, and make the dialogue completely opaque, so it's a bit of a delicate game to play, but it's also pretty fun to try.
Since this is more about dialogue in general, feel free to link to your story here when it's up and we can all talk a bit more specifically about your case.  Unless you wanted a full critique, of course.


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## kitreshawn (Jul 25, 2012)

The key to writing dialogue is to keep in mind that what actually ends up on the page would sound nothing like a real conversation if it were read out loud.

For one good dialogue summarizes the boring parts.  A good example is skipping over the hellos and goodbyes.  A lot of times you can leave them out completely or simply put 'we greeted each other' so long as there isn't something special.  It is also possible to summarize long conversations that only bring up a few interesting points, possibly jumping into the actual dialogue for when those points are delivered before summarizing the rest.

Another thing to keep in mind is that even the dialogue itself will not be like actual spoken speech.  Real spoken speech is full of false starts, excessive pauses, people talking over each other, and so forth.  If you tried to make dialogue like actual speech it would be very frustrating to read.

Try to avoid strong markers like "exclaimed" or "shouted."  These sorts of things are better conveyed through what is being said and the context of the scene than by a definite descriptor.  If you need to make use of a strong descriptor to make it clear that someone is shouting (or what have you) then 99% of the time it means your dialogue is weak.

Finally try to intersperse action with dialogue.  People do not sit perfectly still while they speak so have them do things as they talk.  They can get up, sit down, walk across the room, twirl their hair.


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