How to Write Realistic Dialogue

Writing dialogue is hard but writing realistic dialogue is even more difficult. Creating characters and having them speak without sounding like characters someone created is a skill that is part talent and part practice. While it might not be possible to help with the talent by following these simple steps the practice part can be taken care of.

Instructions

1. Go to a place where there are a lot of people and eavesdrop on a conversation.

2. Write down everything you overhear verbatim. Take note of pauses, slang, hmm-hmms, uh-huhs and any other aspect of the conversation that was important in the way they were conveying what they had to say.

3. Repeat Steps 1 to 2 as many times as you can with the end result being you have conversations written down for numerous people of varying ethnic groups, class, sex, age, authority and position in life.

4. Create bios for the characters you're trying to write dialogue for. Make sure you know everything about them from their class, age, race, sex and any other aspect of their life that will determine what they say and how they say it.

5. Sit down and start writing, taking note of the conversations you've documented and basing the dialogue you write on the biography you wrote for the characters you created.

Tips & Warnings

• Pay close attention to accents. All southern accents are not alike. Neither are all Spanish accents. These are things you need to keep not of when you're documenting the conversations so when you go to write your dialogue you can note the differences.

• Don't be fooled by the simplicity of the steps. Writing realistic dialogue means understanding how people really talk and not how you think they talk. By listening to and documenting conversations you should be able to have an understanding of how people from all walks of life have conversations and be able to mimic that with your characters without sounding stale or falling into tired stereotypes.