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Writing about writing good dialogue


Learning to write good dialogue

Writing fiction has many aspects, and the importance of dialog writing cannot be over-estimated. Realistic dialog pulls you right in to a story or dialog, whereas stilted stuff gets rejected after a few lines.

You listen to people talk all the time, right? So it should be easy to write dialog, right?

Unfortunately, the answer is NO!

I am not sure how good my own dialog writing is, and so I have been looking up some resources. The best I found so far was this book: Writing Dialogue, by Tom Chiarella. This guy gives you some really neat tips.

You can also read some excellent tips on dialog writing (as I did), here, here, and here.

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Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas’s short fiction has been published at Smokelong, Ambit, Litro, Puerto del Sol, among others, and she's the co-editor of The Forge literary magazine. She's the author of YOU BENEATH YOUR SKIN, a bestselling crime novel, which has been optioned for screens by Endemol Shine. Her next #1 Amazon bestselling crime novel, THE BLUE BAR, was published by Thomas & Mercer. It received a starred review on Publishers Weekly, and was one of 2023's Most Anticipated Mysteries & Thrillers on Goodreads. Kirkus Reviews called its sequel, THE BLUE MONSOON, a compelling procedural awash in crosscurrents. Her work is represented by Lucienne Diver at The Knight Agency.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

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2 Comments

  • Anonymous says:
    08/08/2008 at 17:02

    Thanks for the resources… will look them up 🙂 …

    ~Mental Mist

    Reply
  • Joe says:
    08/08/2008 at 01:35

    Dialog is by far my favorite part of writing, because that’s where all the characterization and conflict collide. It can be very challenging to do well. My technique is to over-develop my characters so I know them far better than needed for the story. I also always pick out an actor or a tv/film character to model my character’s voice on, so I can hear it in my head. Then, it’s almost easy. Almost.

    Reply

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