Nine tips for more natural character conversations

Nothing takes me out of a story like when characters open their mouths and talk like they’ve never interacted with another human being before. If that’s true for them, I read on. Romantasy can get wild, folks. But when I’m supposed to believe that this character has friends, has neighbors, has community members with whom they regularly interact… then bad dialog can grind all other story engines a halt, and lose you readers before you even reveal that decadent first twist you have planned.

So let’s talk about talking. Let’s doll up your dialog. Let’s wag those tongues in the natural way.

What’s Making Your Dialog Sound Stilted

  • Not using contractions. For example: “do not” versus “don’t.” A lack of contractions makes your dialog feel overly formal, and if your conversation is happening between two people with a more casual rapport (best friends, siblings, etc), that’s one of the first things readers will clock, even if it’s unconscious. There are exceptions to this rule, like if you’re writing during a time period or culture where language is more formal, or if you want one character or both to feel a little bit stuffy, but unless you’re trying to evoke a very specific, very formal cadence… add some apostrophes.
  • Overusing names. Generally speaking, we only ever say people’s names TO them for emphasis. I go days between saying my husband’s name to his face. He knows I’m talking to him. He knows I know his name (I hope). It would feel completely bizarre to be like “good morning, husband’s name” versus “morning, how did you sleep? I slept badly because you stole the covers in the dead of night again!”
  • Too long/complete of sentences. How often are you grammatically correct out loud when you’re not in a job interview? And how often, outside of circumstances where you’re given the floor to tell a story, are your sentences longer than a few spare words to get your point across? Most people use language to communicate, and communication does not require perfect sentence structure. Communication relies on context and familiarity, rather, and if your characters are familiar with one another… they probably use a lot of shorthand, or they start with the simplest possible thing (“do you need anything from the store?” “Shampoo”) before being forced or compelled to clarify (“the one in the purple bottle. I think it’s got a green cap? Garner Frunk or something. Just text me a picture of the display and I’ll tell you which one.”) Also- let them interrupt each other! It’s often not rude, it’s just that people get excited to chime in or they guess the end of the sentence and are ready for the next one.
  • Unrealistic exposition. “Hello, sister of mine, my beloved Brianna, who is exactly ten years my junior. How fair thee on this fine Monday afternoon at 3pm outside your high school, Fruita Monument?” We are all trying to figure out the best way to convey important information without just doing a three page info-dump, but mechanically forcing your characters to do it for you is also not the answer. If you really need someone to say something out loud, you need to also ensure they’re in a situation that calls for that explanation. This is why it’s so common for protagonists to be newcomers- to a school, a world, a community. Their ignorance is your ignorance, so if you don’t know something, it’s because neither do they.
  • Improperly placed filler words. Is that REALLY where the “um” goes? This is one of those things that you really gotta hear it out loud to catch perfectly, but a rule of thumb to follow is: if you need a character to stumble, filler words are used at the start of a sentence, in place of nouns, or preceding the subject of a sentence. “Uh, can you get me some shampoo?” (start, implies the character was distracted before speaking) / “Can you get me some, uh, shampoo?” (noun, they’re struggling to recall the word or are uncomfortable with what the noun indicates) / “Can you, uh, get me some shampoo?” (subject, either their unconscious mind knows they have something to say but are distracted until their conscious mind comes up with the specifics, or they feel uncomfortable making the request). I wouldn’t overuse these, but if the moment or character calls for it this should steer you correctly.
  • Overusing dialectic spelling and style. Sometimes, you can just say they’re from Boston, you don’t need to spell out “Ahm” instead of “I’m” every single time. Pick a handful of words or turns of phrase to remind us. If it’s a fully different, like when a Scottish character is asking if someone “kens” something (“knows”), that’s fair game.
  • Treating the reader like they’re dumb. Unless it’s genuinely unclear after multiple rounds of feedback/beta readers, you don’t need to tell me “she said snarkily” if the line is already snarky. And if it’s genuinely unclear… then the line doesn’t sound very snarky. Think of your snarkiest friend- what makes their words snarky? Is it emphasis? Word choice? Sentence construction? Some tonal tagging will be necessary, but an angel dies every time a writer puts “they said jokingly” after an obvious joke in the dialog… and they die painfully when the joke isn’t even funny.
  • There’s too much cluttering the conversation that isn’t dialog. This is less a dialog note than it is what appears around it, but my advice is: sometimes, take it from the screenwriters and just let them TALK, checking in only to give us plot-important actions or to remind us who each line belongs to… though if you’re in your characters’ voices enough, we should be able to tell without it. You’ll also find it’s easier to get into a rhythm and start distinguishing between voices when they’re just kinda going at each other.
  • There’s too much dialog. You actually don’t have to transcribe every single thing literally being said in a conversation for the reader to understand what’s happening. Yes, the character may literally be recounting something we’ve already seen and so they would say all that stuff… but do we actually need to read it? Sometimes the best dialog is a summary of dialog because the actual conversation doesn’t move anything forward or reveal anything new to us about the characters, it just has to happen for logistical reasons.

But you should also just read it out loud

Things sound different in your head than in your mouth; what scans fine in the ol’ noggin is absolutely bizarre when your tongue has to trip over it. This is doubly true for dialog (though I would recommend reading your whole book aloud to yourself at some point in the revision process).

Better yet: host a table read, at least for important moments where you really need the banter and back and forth to connect. Get some friends (bonus points if they’re actors!) to read a section for you, and just watch them interplay. Take note of where they stumble, where they emphasize words, where they skip things, where they fully lock in and where they seem less engaged. Watch actual people talk your words, and be honest about if it came out the way you intended, then as people talk amongst themselves before and afterwards, really pay attention to the cadence and word choices. Listen to how conversations tend to weave half-thoughts and gesticulations, because the goal is not to finish sentences but to communicate information or to convey emotion.