The rules of dialogue

I always teach my students that dialogue is based on the rules of conversation then edited back to give readers only what they need. This is an exercise that I do with them - ask yourself

How often do we use short sentences?

How often do we use long sentences?

How often do we use long words when short ones would suffice?

How often do we say um and er

How often do we use slang terms?

How often do we mangle the laws of grammar?

How often do we talk in brackets and using dashes and using commas?

How often do we assume that the other person already knows part of what we are talking about?

How often did we use humour?

How often did we inject words and phrases to make what sounds boring more interesting?

How often do we fill silences with throw away comments which if we thought about them we would not use.

From that you will take the following:
A lot of the time, we do not speak in correct sentences

We assume the listener knows a lot about us

Dialogue can impart information but we try to make that information interesting, lacing it with humour, personal interpretation etc

We can tell a lot about a person in a short snap of conversation

Dialogue needs to be crisp We do not, by and large, talk in long conversations

Needs to be in character - a pitman talks like a pitman, a lady like a lady (but may swear!)

Dialogue must take the story on unless we are trying to make small talk

But dialogue must not be packed with extraneous information

If you need to slot in information, find a way of doing it sublety “Saw Bill this morning. His usual gloomy self. Not sure he’ll ever recover his spirits. The divorce really has knocked him backwards.”

John Dean