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How to Write Great Dialogue for Short Stories
“Dialogue is more like a movie than it is like real life, since it should be more dramatic.” — Anne Lamott
I have a confession to make: I still find writing dialogue difficult. With my first ever short story (The Money Tree), I even decided not to include any dialogue at all. I was scared I would suck at it. I thought having an omniscient style of storytelling, where the narrator knows all, would solve my problem.
I’m still proud of that first story though, and it taught me to tell a story without any dialogue. However, dialogue can move a story forward, it creates interaction with your characters and above all, conflict. Dialogue done well is better than good narrative.
Why do I still find writing dialogue difficult then? Well, I tend to either speed it up or shorten sentences ‘as you say it’, which is not often stylistically considered as good prose. I mean, if your character has a certain accent or speaking disability, go for it! But do so wisely and consistently. Another thing I mess up is the sentence structure. Like when a piece of dialogue is part of a sentence or not. More on that later in this post.
In this post, we will cover what writing good dialogue entails as well as how to stylistically bring it across nicely, including sentence structure.
The Rules for Good Dialogue
“Dialogue is the way to nail character, so you have to work on getting the voice right.” — Anne Lamott
I love the quote by Anne Lamott at the beginning of this article. Dialogue should be dramatic. This was one of the first things I learned writing dialogue for my short stories. One of my friends (who happens to be an editor) made it very clear: make complete sentences. Often in ‘real life’ we abbreviate and shorten. We’re lazy. But our dialogue writing shouldn’t be.
Just write down dialogue as people say it in real life, right? No. Don’t punish your reader. People like clear and complete sentences.
One of the best online lectures I followed this year were the ones by Brandon Sanderson . He uses the MICRO rules…
