Abbie:
What's up my friend? Abbie here, and welcome back to WritersLife
Wednesdays, where we come together to help you make your story matter and make your author
dreams come true. Today we are talking about dialogue. More specifically, how to write dialogue that
sounds like a natural, realistic conversation that people might actually have in real life,
not a scripted piece of garbage. Abbie:
We've all seen it before. In books, unrealistic dialogue makes it hard
to see what's happening and take it seriously. In films, unrealistic dialogue can dull the
shine of even the most incredible actors and make the whole thing, again, feel like a joke. So I think it's safe to say that dialogue
is a crucial part of storytelling and if you do it right, you will capture and hold your
reader's attention like nothing else. Abbie:
So that's what today's video is all about. We're going to explore writing dialogue, how
to make it sound realistic and natural, and I'm going to share with you the five techniques
that I've used over the years to make my dialogue shine. Abbie:
Why does your story matter? Good question. What if I told you that there's a science
behind every great story? I don't just teach you how to write. I teach you how to change the world with your
story and make your author dreams come true. Abbie:
Okay, so here's the most important thing that most writers do not even think about when
they're writing dialogue. Every single line of dialogue is a piece of
information that you are giving to your reader. So is every dialogue tag and the expression,
gesture, emotion, and/or body language that goes with it. Most writers do not think about this. They just write dialogue because you need
to write dialogue, right? It makes the story go by. No. No, it does much more than that. It gives us insight into every single character's
personal reality every time they open their mouth. Abbie:
Same thing with the people you know in real life. Humans are incredibly perceptive creatures. We're constantly gathering millions of bits
of information all day, every day, but we can only learn so much about a person from
what we see, and that's why we talk. That's why we communicate with each other
through language. This constant need to share our thoughts and
emotions with each other is so intrinsic and natural. You probably don't ever think about how it
runs your entire life. Abbie:
We humans literally could not survive without communicating with each other. At least we wouldn't have any meaningful relationships,
which would make life pretty dull and meaningless. Your characters are no different. They are just having dialogue to move the
plot forward or to make the story go by. They're having dialogue because they need
to share information and emotion with each other, as well. They need to communicate with each other,
as well. It doesn't just matter to you as the author,
it matters to them. Abbie:
I know that sounds a little abstract and weird, but this is the place that you have to start
from, because it breathes life into your characters and makes them seem more real. And you have to make them feel real before
you can write realistic dialogue. Otherwise, you're just making the story go
by and basically having a conversation with yourself as the author and then slamming some
dialogue tags in there in between every piece of information. And ta-da, we have a story loaded with cut
and dry conversation that sounds more like reading your three-act story structure and
character profiles. Let's not do that. Abbie:
Instead, let's write realistic, natural, emotional, intricate dialogue that shows us what's happening
inside and outside the characters instead of just telling us. And to pull this off, I have six amazing helpful
techniques to share with you. I said five earlier, but it's actually six. These are the techniques I use all the time
to make my dialogue shine. Abbie:
First and foremost, listen to people talk in real life. I know everybody says to do this, but they
say it for a reason. The more you listen to real conversations,
the more you learn how to write them in a way that feels natural and compelling. Abbie:
Notice what they say, but beyond that, notice the nonverbal cues, the emotions, the expressions,
the gestures. Learn the unique languages of everybody around
you. Even practice writing real life conversations. Next time you're having a conversation with
somebody, even if it's about literally nothing, grab your phone and record it and then later
transcribe it. Add in dialogue tags, and expressions, and
body language and then read it. That is what realistic dialog looks like. Abbie:
Now it's also probably void of drama and intrigue, because life is usually pretty boring compared
to fiction, which is why you should also practice this dialogue exercise with film. Which leads us into technique number two,
listen to well-written dialogue in film. Yes, film. I'm not going to go tell you to read books
with good dialogue, although that can be helpful, too. But the thing is when you read, you are making
the characters speak in your imagination. You can probably see what's happening, too,
if it's a well-written book, but I want to take all of that imagination aspect out of
it. And I also don't want you comparing your dialogue
to somebody else's dialogue and getting a little discouraged because you think theirs
is better or something. Abbie:
So let's just take all the thinking out of the equation and listen to well-written dialogue. Don't get stuck up on the fact that it's not
a book. If you've been here for awhile, you know that
a story is a story is a story. So carefully select some well-written movies
and TV shows to watch. And I say carefully select because there's
a lot of poorly written films and shows out there. If you want to know some of my top recommendations,
check out this video. It's a recent episode of the podcast that
I do with my sister, and in this episode we discuss some of our favorite TV series and
why we love them so much. So check out that for a starter pack of masterfully
written shows to binge ASAP. Abbie:
And don't just passively watch films and shows. Notice when the dialogue feels amazingly written
and realistic, and notice when it feels a little forced or unrealistic. Pro tip, this switch can happen in the same
show. Once season might have excellent writing and
the next season is just poorly written. May even be the same writer. I've seen this happen on several different
occasions and it's actually quite amazing to watch how bad dialogue can literally ruin
the performance of an otherwise great actor. Abbie:
Take for example, this scene from season four of Poldark, which is, in my opinion, when
the writing started to go downhill. Ross has just returned home to his wife Demelza
after working in London, and although they've been through some difficulties in their marriage,
the following conversation feels unrealistic and uncharacteristic. Ross:
All the way home, I wondered how this would be. Would there be anger, jealousy? Would we have a laugh again... Like we used to? Demelza:
I don't know, Ross. Will we? Abbie:
You can tell the problem lies with the writing and not the acting, when the actors are clearly
doing their best with the script that they've been given. When dialogue is poorly written, it's almost
difficult to watch the actors deliver their lines, because it feels so out of character
and unrealistic. Let's contrast that with a scene from season
two of Poldark, when the writing was absolutely superb and the character voice was on point. Ross:
It was one night. How long will it take you to forgive me? Demelza:
I don't know, Ross. How long would it take you to forgive me? Ross:
That's hardly the same. You would never do a thing which required
my forgiveness. Demelza:
Are you sure? Ross:
When? Demelza:
Werry House. After the ball, Captain McNeil came to my
room. Ross:
How could he dare? Demelza:
Because I invited him. Abbie:
What this second example has that the first example is lacking is actually the next and
most vital component that makes dialogue shine, subtext. Subtext is essentially reading between the
lines. It's the things that the characters don't
have to say because you see it, you hear it in their tone of voice, you just know it's
there. Abbie:
Without subtext, what you hear is what you get. The characters just come right out and tell
you everything that they are thinking and feeling, which leads to dialogue that just
feels unrealistic, because people in real life don't communicate like this. It makes the reader or the viewer feel like
they're being treated like a dummy, because they can't possibly read between the lines
or look deeper into this conversation to see the subtext. Real people don't just blurt out everything
they're thinking. At least, most of us don't. Most people hold back a lot of what they're
thinking and feeling and they don't just say it for a myriad of reasons, and those reasons
are the subtext that I'm talking about. Abbie:
Maybe I'm so obsessed with subtext because I watch mostly British dramas and they have
a reputation for leaving most of the drama unspoken. Speaker 4:
I'm sorry Mama, but you know me. I have to say what I think. Speaker 5:
Why? Nobody else does. Abbie:
This isn't to say that you never let the characters speak openly about their thoughts and feelings. They absolutely have to at some point, but
if they always say what they're thinking and feeling, it leaves absolutely no room for
intrigue. Abbie:
Technique number four is my absolute favorite and saves my life every single day. Write your dialogue like a screenplay. Even if you're not a screenwriter, especially
if you're not a screenwriter, because as we've seen, you can learn a lot about writing dialogue
from well-written dialogue in film and TV. Writing screenplay style is the absolute best
way to make a conversation flow naturally, because you're not thinking about writing. You're not thinking about making your sentences
sound good. You're not thinking about descriptions, or
thought processes, or all the stuff that goes in between the dialogue, you're just thinking
about the dialogue, the conversation. That's it. I do this for every single book I write, every
single one. Abbie:
Usually when I'm brainstorming a new book, bits of dialogue will come to me out of nowhere. I'll start thinking about a certain plot point
in the outline and then all of a sudden it's like, boom, I'm in the scene and I can hear
what the characters are saying to each other. They'll just start having a conversation about
whatever's happening at that point in the book and I'll just hear it in my head, and
I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop. I have to go write this down. So I do. Abbie:
Before I sit down to begin the first draft of a book, I have tons of scenes already scripted
that is just the dialogue, and this is an incredible way to kickstart your writing process. Side note pro tip, if you absolutely hate
showing up to write with nothing but your outline and your notes, write some of the
dialogue in that scene beforehand, even if it's just a few lines. Get the conversation started and it will be
so much easier to build the scene out around it. I use this method all the time and it literally
makes my writing process so much better, smoother, and faster. Abbie:
But even if you don't write bits of dialogue out of sequential order like I do, I still
highly recommend writing the dialog script style before you write in the narration. I recommend this mostly because when you start
adding in dialogue tags, and description, and narration, it can mess with the flow of
the conversation. You might be surprised how even if the dialogue
seems to flow okay with all of this extra stuff in there, when you take that out, it's
weird. It's weird. It's just, it's bad. Abbie:
This is a great test that you can do on your own writing to test your dialogue. And there's actually a tool in Scrivener,
if you use Scrivener, that makes this super easy. It's called linguistic focus and you can find
it under the edit menu and under writing tools. Linguistic focus allows you to see a specific
type of word like nouns, pronouns, verbs and adjectives, but it also allows you to see
direct speech, as in dialogue. When you select direct speech, it will highlight
all your dialogue and you can fade the rest of the text however much you want. This is a great way to check and see if your
dialogue flows naturally and realistically or if all your descriptions and narration
and stuff are getting in the way and muddling everything. Abbie:
But my favorite way to write dialogue is still to write it like a script before I write the
descriptions, and the narration, and the rest of the scene. Comment below and tell me if you do this too,
because I feel like it's kind of odd. I don't know. I don't know how many people actually do this,
so tell me if you're one of them, if you do this, if you get scenes like out of nowhere
and you have to write down the dialogue beforehand, and then you just copy it over when you're
ready. I want to know how many writers do this. Abbie:
Technique number five, give every character a unique voice. We've talked about character voice many times
before. In fact, I made a whole video about how to
rock your character voice. Check that out if you're new to writing character
voice. But voice is vital when it comes to writing
dialogue. You don't want all your characters to sound
the same, especially in narration. And if you're writing in multiple points of
view, you don't want the chapter headings to be the only indication that the point of
view has changed. So take the time to really develop your character's
voice and make them recognizable. A great way to do this is to make a style
sheet for each character, deciding ahead of time what's going to make this character different
from the other characters. Tons more tips on character voice in that
video I mentioned, so definitely watch it if you haven't already. Abbie:
And last but not least, technique number six, practice, practice, practice, and then practice
some more. I know this is annoying to hear, but dialogue
is one of those things that really gets better the more you write. When you look back at some of your old, old
writing projects, you will cringe at the dialogue you wrote when you didn't know what you were
doing. Not going to lie, I have hundreds of thousands
of words in stories and manuscripts and fan fiction of years gone by that is full of absolutely
cringe-worthy dialogue, because 10 years ago I didn't know what I was doing. Abbie:
Guys, it takes a while to get the hang of this. So try to be patient with yourself, write
as often as you can, every day if you can, write, write, write, and do your best. And remember that your best is always improving
and you are always improving as a writer. And this is not to say that you only write
cringe-worthy dialogue as a beginner writer. Absolutely not. You'll write some really great dialogue, especially
if you follow the techniques that we just went over in this video. And especially if you avoid the five deadly
mistakes of writing dialogue, which we're going to go over in another video. We're going to identify all the cringe-worthy
dialogue pitfalls that you want to stay far away from, so stay tuned for that video, make
sure you're subscribed so you don't miss it, or if you're from the future, the link will
be right there. Abbie:
Smash that like button if you liked this video, and be sure to subscribe to this channel if
you haven't already, because I post writing videos and publishing videos every single
Wednesday and I would love to have you here in the community. Also, be sure to check out my Patreon, because
that's where we go beyond videos and take storytelling to the next level. The Patreon community is not only the best
way to support what I'm doing here on YouTube, but it's also the only way to connect one
on one with me and get better guidance on your story. So go to Patreon.com/AbbieEmmons and check
out all the awesome extra exclusive content that I have over there for you. Until next week, my friend, rock on. Abbie:
Okay, the five techniques, is that what I said? I have no idea what I even said.
