WRITING STYLE TIPS FOR DIALOGUE

YES/NO ANSWERS

Often, we write characters who answer questions with a ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ then give an explanation for the ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I suggest that you cut the "yes" or "no" and get right to the explanation. The explanation implies the "yes" or "no" and keeps the audience more engaged.

CHIT-CHAT

If your dialogue is about ordering food in a restaurant, introducing characters to each other, or carrying on in aimless cutesy gibberish, you are writing 'chit-chat'. This is dead dialogue. It does nothing to move the story forward and develop characters. Dialogue is a form of action. It must be tight, dynamic, and full of conflict. Every word a character speaks should reveal that character's humanity and keep the reader turning the pages.

AD-LIBS

For the most part, I would avoid little dialogue prefixes and tags like “look”, “ya know”, “alright”, “like”, “I mean”, “it’s just that”, “well”, etc. They drain the energy out of the intention of the character. Most American actors are going to add them anyway because they don’t know how to make their transitions effectively, so they use these little fills. Well-trained actors usually don’t need the crutch. They stick to what’s written and make it work. Watch Meryl Streep, Patrick Stuart, Ben Kingsley, Jeremy Irons, Ralph Fiennes, Dame Judith Dench, Lena Olin (okay, she’s Swedish) Cate Blanchett (okay, she’s Australian), for examples of actors that do not need the crutch. I suggest you avoid giving the actors the crutch. Even if you think the character would stumble and stutter around on a line, see what you can do to write his/her dialogue in a way that keeps the energy focused. These little ad-libs are like a character pacing while delivering a line. Both diffuse the energy of the character and the scene. Drives me nuts.

ALL RIGHT/ALRIGHT

“alright” is used as an exclamation, not unlike “awesome” “far out” “outa sight” “groovy” “cool” “okay”, “bitchin’”, etc. “All right” is used in all other instances such as “Everything is all right.” Webster’s calls “alright” a disputed usage. I would just say use it as instructed above.

UNDERLINED DIALOGUE

Don't underline or italic-ize dialogue. Rarely should you need to emphasize a character’s words. It is your job to write dialogue clearly enough so that the subtext and emphasis are obvious. Only emphasize a word if it is needed to help with some ambiguity of meaning. But, work to avoid it. Emphasized dialogue is a sign of lazy writing.

CHARACTERS TALKING TO SELF

Generally, a writer has a character talking to self because he feels the audience won’t get something, or the writer is commenting on something through the character. The writer uses it as exposition, or to explain a moment. This is lazy writing. Avoid it. Find a way to show without having characters talking to self.

ON-THE-NOSE

On The Nose refers to dialogue where the character speaks his/her objective. An objective is the character's subtext in a scene. Rarely do characters say what their objective is. They speak around it in an effort to persuade the other character to give him/her what he/she wants. A guy on a date would never say "Let's go to my place and have sex." He would take her out to dinner, go to a show, impress her, hopefully, with all his vast knowledge of astronomy and/or astrology, perhaps ask her about herself and listen while she talked of her day at work, her yoga class, her new diet, her cat that had an altercation with the neighbor's dog and had to go to the vet which cost $165, etc. He might even ask her what kind of cat she had and how his sister had one of those. Anything but "Let's screw." To say that would be "on-the-nose."