Many authors are advised to “observe the conversations” around them, and properly analyse how we communicate. This is partly excellent advice, and partly terrible! Below I will explain what I mean, and provide suggestions for writing realistic dialogue in your novel.

Observe Real Conversations

One of the best ways to learn how people talk is to really listen.

Next time you’re on a bus, sitting in a café, or waiting in a queue, tune in to the conversations around you. Notice the rhythm of speech, the way people overlap, interrupt, trail off, and jump between topics. Watch their gestures too – how one person rarely talks for long without doing something: stirring their coffee, checking their phone, rubbing their hands together, or glancing at the clock.

These small, physical beats (known as action beats) are pure gold for a novelist. They bring dialogue to life because they remind the reader that your characters are human beings, not disembodied voices floating in the void. When someone speaks, they’re almost always doing something else too.

You might hear something like this:

“I told him I’d— No, hang on, let me just … yeah, I said I’d sort it tomorrow, but he, well, he’s not exactly patient, is he?”

That sounds real because it is real. There’s interruption, hesitation, and movement. But how well would that translate onto the page? Is it engaging? Is it dull? Is it too realistic?

Why Real Dialogue Doesn’t Work on the Page

Here’s the thing: real conversation is actually quite dull to read.

When we talk in real life, we fill our speech with ums, ahs, “you know”s, and “like”s. We repeat ourselves, lose our train of thought, talk over each other, and meander off-topic. That’s fine in real life – it’s how we communicate – but on the page it’s painful.

Try transcribing an actual conversation and you’ll see what I mean. It’s messy, repetitive and full of filler. Readers don’t want to slog through that. They want the essence of natural speech, not a literal representation of it.

So when you write dialogue, you need to loosely base it on real conversations, but be careful to leave out the bits that are neither furthering the plot nor improving characterisation.

The Art of Polished Realism

The goal is to create dialogue that feels real but reads beautifully. This is a true art form, and it’s not easy. Here are some suggestions to help you pull this off:

1. Cut the filler

You can skip the “hello”, “how are you?”, “good thanks, and you?” unless those pleasantries reveal something about the relationship between characters. Otherwise, jump straight into the meat of the exchange. Readers will thank you.

2. Use interruptions and pauses

Real people rarely let others finish entire paragraphs before responding. Add interruptions, hesitations, and unfinished thoughts to give a natural rhythm. Just don’t overdo it – too many dashes and ellipses can be distracting.

“I didn’t mean— well, you know what I meant.”

“No, actually, I don’t.”

That kind of back-and-forth creates energy.

3. Add action beats

Break up dialogue with action beats. These serve multiple purposes, and are essential for good dialogue. They can:
– indicate who is speaking (because whoever did the action said the words)
– provide information about the surroundings (he brushed snowflakes from his shoulders)
– add depth to characters (she stopped to catch her breath. Damn, she was unfit.)

“I told you already,” she said, twisting the ring on her finger.

Those small gestures are powerful because they show emotion without spelling it out.

4. Keep each voice distinct

Every character should sound like a unique person. Think about background, education, region, age and temperament. One character might be blunt and clipped; another might ramble or use metaphors. You don’t need to rely on heavy dialect or slang (see here for why not) – subtle differences in rhythm and vocabulary often do the job far better.

Balancing Realism and Readability

The sweet spot lies somewhere between authenticity and clarity. Your dialogue should sound plausible – as though real people might say it – but still be interesting and easy to follow.

When writing dialogue, ask yourself:

• Does this line reveal character or move the story forward?
• Is there a simpler or sharper way to say this?
• Could this be shown through action instead of speech?

Final Thoughts on Realistic Dialogue

Realistic dialogue is less about mimicking reality and more about capturing its rhythm and truth. It’s the illusion of authenticity that counts. By observing how people speak – their interruptions, their gestures, their half-finished thoughts – and then editing ruthlessly for clarity and flow, you’ll craft engaging dialogue that feels natural.

You might also be interested in looking at my other blog posts that talk about dialogue.

If you would like support with editing your novel, please do get in touch.

The post Realistic Dialogue is Tricky! appeared first on MandaWaller.

But many authors find it hard to write dialogue which is realistic and believable while at the same time not pedestrian or clunky. I’ve provided some tips below to help with writing compelling dialogue that will bring your characters to life.

Listen!

Listen to conversations around you. This is particularly useful if you are writing contemporary fiction. How do people actually speak? Listen to the cadence, vocabulary, speech patterns, rhythms. Pay close attention to how people talk in real life.

Observe conversations, both formal and informal, and listen to the rhythms, vocabulary, and speech patterns people use. This will help you capture the authenticity of natural dialogue in your writing.

However, this advice comes with a warning! When we speak, we mumble and trip over our words. We hesitate and use “um” and “er”. If you wrote down a conversation, word for word, it would be very clunky to read back. Having one character that stumbles is fine. Having all your characters stumble is not!

“I, er, don’t know what to, um, do?” he said.

“Like, what are we, um, supposed to, er, say?” she replied.

Contractions

People rarely speak in formal, stiff language – even when they are giving a formal, stiff presentation. Again, this applies particularly to contemporary fiction. Be aware that some genres (for example historical fiction) may need a different touch.

Using contractions (won’t rather than will not, shouldn’t rather than should not, haven’t rather than have not) will make your dialogue sound more natural and conversational.

Show Personality

Each person has their own way of speaking that reflects their personality. Characters in your book should be equally distinct from each other. Consider factors like age, regional dialects, education and life experience.

However, be careful not to take this too far. The differences need to be subtle. Don’t give each of your characters something remarkable. It’s fine for one character to use a verbal tick, but if they are all at it, it’s going to become a parody.

Varying the sentence length can work really well – maybe one character can speak in very short, abrupt sentences, providing a foil for a character who expounds at length.

Another excellent way to show differences is with word choice. One character can use longer, more sophisticated words to reflect either that they are more sophisticated, or that they are insecure and trying to appear more sophisticated.

Keep it Concise

If you listen to a conversation, it’s rare for one person to speak for very long without having some sort of engagement from the other players in the group.

Writing compelling dialogue means avoiding lengthy monologues in your novel – even if someone is telling a story. Other people rarely stay quiet for very long!

Interruptions

Include interruptions and people speaking over each other. These can be hard to render in text, but ending dialogue with an em dash (—) indicates that a character has been interrupted (by another character or a loud noise, for example). Using ellipses ( . . . ) indicates a character has trailed off.

Adding interruptions adds realism to dialogue and creates a sense of natural flow, making the interaction between characters more dynamic and lifelike.

Writing Compelling Dialogue Means Reading Aloud!

Read your dialogue out loud. This will pick out anything that sounds unnatural or stilted. Pay particular attention to the pace and rhythm.

Reading words aloud helps you to identify overly long sentences (where you literally have no chance to take a breath), and repeated sentence structures (where all the sentences are constructed in the same way).

Writing compelling dialogue that sounds natural and flows well takes practice and a keen ear for authenticity. By observing real conversations, crafting distinct voices for your characters, and incorporating these techniques, you can make your dialogue resonate with readers and bring your story to life.

If you are looking for an editor for your next novel, you might like to learn more about my editing process.

The post Writing Compelling Dialogue appeared first on MandaWaller.

What is dialogue in a novel? It’s how you represent the way your characters are speaking.

In books, it tends to be encased within either ‘single quotes’ (common in the UK), or “double quotes” (common in the US).

There are many rules relating to dialogue and how it should be formatted – and this is just an introduction. Incorrectly punctuated dialogue is extremely easy for an editor to mend, but it can be time-consuming – and therefore costly. If a manuscript has the dialogue correctly formatted, an editor will need to spend less time on it, and therefore will need to charge less!

Curly (smart) Quotes or Straight Quotes?

It’s conventional in fiction publishing to use curly (smart) quotes rather than straight ones. To make sure you are using curly quotes, go into your MS Word document and change the settings:

• go to FILE, MORE and select OPTIONS
• within options, select PROOFING
• within proofing, select AUTOCORRECT OPTIONS
• within autocorrect options select AUTOFORMAT AS YOU TYPE
• ensure “Straight quotes” with “smart quotes” is selected.

This means that as you type, MS Word will automatically use curly quotes (double, single and apostrophes).

What Is Dialogue For?

• it tells us WHAT the characters are saying.
• it tells us WHO is speaking.
• it can also tell us HOW the character is feeling, or what is motivating them.

Punctuating Speech Tags
Speech is used to tell us what the characters in our books are saying. It is important that the reader always knows which character is speaking.
To do this, we can use speech tags. In the following example, the speech tags are underlined.
‘Hello,’ said David.
or
David said, ‘Hello.’

Speech tags can go in one of three places:
1. After the speech: ‘Hello,’ said David.

2. Before the speech: David said, ‘Hello.’

3. In the middle of speech: ‘Hello,’ said David. ‘Who are you?’

Where you choose to place the speech tag is largely a matter of personal choice. It’s more conventional for the speech tag to follow the dialogue, or to interrupt the dialogue. And it may be that you want to mix it up a little, to vary the sentence structure and pace.

This guide will talk you through the first two options – speech tags that come before and after speech. Speech tags that come in the middle of speech (along with interruptions) will be discussed in a separate article.

When to Use Speech Tags?

Speech tags should be used as little as possible. The content of the dialogue, and the order in which it is written, should make it clear who is speaking. This is relatively easy when there are only two characters speaking (as each character takes a new line), but sometimes where there are multiple characters, or it’s not clear exactly who is speaking from just the dialogue alone, it’s necessary to help the reader out with speech tags. There are other ways of indicating who is speaking – using action beats, for example. And these will be discussed in a future article.

1. Speech Tag Comes AFTER Speech

Where the speech tag (said David) comes after the speech, the speech generally ends with a comma, question mark or exclamation mark:

‘Hello,’ said David.
‘Hello.’ said David.
‘Hello!’ said David.
‘Hello?’ said David.
‘Hello’ said David.

Regardless of the punctuation within the quote marks, the speech tag is written in lower case (even if the dialogue ends with an exclamation mark or question mark). The only time that dialogue ends with a full stop ( . ) is when there is NO FOLLOWING SPEECH TAG:

‘Hello.’ Said David.
‘Hello.’ said David.
‘Hello,’ said David.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello!’ Said David.
‘Hello!’ said David.
‘Hello?’ Said David.
‘Hello?’ said David.

There is no punctuation between the quote marks and the speech tag:

‘Hello,’, said David.
‘Hello’, said David.
‘Hello,’ said David.

The speech tag is not capitalised if it follows the dialogue:

‘Hello,’ Said David.
‘Hello,’ said David.

2. Speech Tag Comes BEFORE Speech

Where the speech tag comes before the dialogue, it is standard to have a comma between the speech tag and the speech.

David said, ‘Hello.’

Where the speech tag comes before the dialogue, the speech is punctuated as if it were a normal sentence. So it would end with a full stop, exclamation mark or question mark. There is no punctuation outside the final quote marks.

David said, ‘Hello.’.
David said, ‘Hello?’.
David said, ‘Hello.’

Where the speech tag comes before the dialogue, the speech is capitalised in accordance with the normal rules as if the speech were the start of a new sentence:

David said, ‘hello.’
David said, ‘Hello.’
David Said, ‘Hello.’

Which Speech Tags?

The most common speech tag is ‘said’. This is used so frequently that it is almost invisible. The reader sees it, takes in its meaning, but doesn’t get tripped up on the word. The following speech tags are similar – they are almost as invisible as said (but not quite):
Asked (‘What’s your name?’ David asked.)
Replied (‘Frank,’ Frank replied.)

There are many many other speech tags that can be used, and the world is divided as to whether it’s a good idea to use them:
Exclaimed (‘You did what?’ she exclaimed.)
Mumbled (‘I just wanted to,’ he mumbled.)
Uttered (David uttered, ‘No!’)

Said is by far and away the safest speech tag to use – particularly for beginners. There are also speech tags that aren’t even types of speech:
1. ‘You did what?’ she laughed.
2. ‘Wow that’s amazing,’ she gasped.

These are non-standard speech tags, and a better option would be to show your reader that the character is laughing or gasping, rather than telling them:
1. Rebecca found this statement incredibly funny and grinned widely. ‘You did what?’ she asked.
2. This statement took Rebecca’s breath away. ‘Wow, that’s amazing!’ she said.

Superfluous Speech Tags

It’s not always necessary to repeat the name of the character who is speaking. Imagine you have two characters interacting, one called (yep, you guess it) David, and one called Mark. It would NOT be necessary to write their dialogue as follows:
‘Hello, David,’ said Mark.
‘Hello, Mark,’ said David.

The above dialogue would work well as:
‘Hello, David,’ said Mark.
‘Hello, Mark.’

Or, if there is a bit of text before the dialogue, it could work as follows:
Mark bumped into David in the pub. ‘Hello, David,’ he said.
‘Hello, Mark.’

New Character, New Line

It’s not necessary to repeat the character’s name every time they say something, so long as you start a new character on a new line.

A Couple of Asides…

Whether you choose single or double quotes, they need to be kept consistent throughout the book. Where quotes are being used for distancing purposes (for example, the representation of ‘air quotes’), these should also match the style of quotation marks that you are using for dialogue. Finally, see my separate article regarding punctuating dialogue within dialogue.

This has been a very general introduction to understanding the basics of punctuating dialogue. For more FREE AUTHOR RESOURCES, please visit my quick tips page.

The post appeared first on MandaWaller.