6 creative writing tips to master writing dialogues 💬

In my opinion, dialogues are the heart of a novel. ❤️‍🩹

Dialogues bring life into characters and propel the plot. Good dialogue isn’t just about what the character is trying to say, but how they say it, why they say it, and the rhythm and language in which they speak. ✅

So ff you’re interested in learning how to write better dialogues, here are some essential tips! ⬇️

1 Know your characters ✍️

Before you let a character speak, you should think about their background, their personality and their motivations. 😱

Each character should have a unique voice that reflects their own traits and experiences. Some characters use distinct words more often than other characters. 🌿 This goes even beyond vocabulary and speech patterns, it shows their worldview, their emotional state, and even interpersonal dynamics! 🗣

For example: An old doctor is gonna speak entirely different than a young teenage girl. They use different words, they are moved by different topics and they have different traits and personalities. ✍️

2 Try to mimic real conversations 🧐

There’s a huge difference between written and spoken language. Actually, that’s a whole topic itself. 💡

But when it comes to dialogues in your stories, it’s important, that you try to mimic some of the typical “messiness” of real conversations. 💥

When you listen to how people talk in real life, you can easily notice the interruptions, the slang or dialect, unfinished sentences or little mistakes. ✨

👉 To create authentic dialogue, you could try to let your characters interrupt each other or to let a specific character use a dialect word.

3 Show don’t tell

Show don’t tell is a really, really important creative writing tip. I did write a whole blog post about that and shared it with you on social media too.

But for short: Avoid info-dumping in your dialogues. ⚠️ It’s not a natural conversation, when your characters unnaturally explain things just for the reader’s “benefit”.

Your readers are smart and paying attention. You don’t need to give them all the information in one big package of dialogue. Dialogue should reveal information authentic rather than through obvious and long exposition. ✅

Do you remember some movies where the villain exactly explains what they plan, when and where? Yeah. Don’t do that. 😂

4 Embrace your subtext

What a characters says isn’t always what they mean. 😳

Use your subtext to add depth and tension to your dialogue. Characters might hide their true feelings, speak in metaphors, or use sarcasm to mask their intention and that you can show through subtext. 🤩

For example:

Instead of writing: “I love you”, he said nervously.
You could write even more specific: “I love you”, he said with shaking voice. His heart was racing.

5 Pacing: vary speech patterns and sentence length ⚡️

Just like in real life, no two characters should sound similar. 💡

Vary with your sentence length, the vocabulary, and the speech rhythms to reflect each character’s personality and background. This change of speed is also called pacing. 💾

When you write a very exciting passage, you should use short sentences. This accelerates the reading pace and increases the tension even more for the reader. 📈

In calmer passages, on the other hand, you can use longer sentences to show variety and versatility. 📉

6 Edit, edit, edit 🔄

I know it’s hard but revisions are really important when it comes to dialogues.

Cut any conversations that feels redundant or drags the pacing or the plot. 🚫

Every line should serve a purpose, whether it’s revealing a character, advancing to plot, or building the tension or a relationship. ✅

Tip: Read your dialogue out loud while editing. This can help you catch an awkward phrasing and you can make sure that it sounds natural. 💬

I really hope you like these tips. If so, subscribe my blog for free and check out my socials to support my work! 💕

Happy Writing, your Katharina!