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Hi, Jerry Jenkins here talking about writing and more specifically, you as a writer.
Jerry B. Jenkins shares six keys to writing compelling dialogue that engages readers and reveals character naturally.
Key Takeaways
- Tight, purposeful dialogue is more engaging than wordy exchanges.
- Backstory should be layered naturally through dialogue, not dumped all at once.
- Dialogue reveals character and advances the plot simultaneously.
- Subtlety in dialogue enhances realism and reader involvement.
- Editing dialogue carefully can transform a manuscript’s readability.
Summary
- Compelling dialogue is essential to keep readers engaged and distinguish characters.
- Dialogue breaks up narrative, adds white space, and makes the page more inviting.
- Cut dialogue to the bone by removing needless words to make it powerful and concise.
- Use dialogue to subtly reveal backstory without unrealistic information dumps.
- Reveal character traits through dialogue rather than narrative summary.
- Employ subtlety in dialogue using techniques like subtext and sidestepping.
- Subtext allows characters to say one thing but mean another, adding depth.
- Sidestepping involves characters avoiding direct answers to add realism.
- Effective dialogue moves the story forward by showing rather than telling.
- Jenkins offers a free self-editing checklist as a bonus to refine manuscripts.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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You may entice readers with a clever plot and just the right pace, but if your characters' conversations don't ring true, readers soon lose interest.
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So let's talk about how to write compelling dialogue. Doing this well is no easy task, but let me see if I can help over the next several minutes.
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I'm closing in on my 200th book, and two-thirds of those have been novels, so though I've made a lot of mistakes, I've also learned a lot about dialogue the hard way, by trial and error.
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Through my blog at JerryJenkins.com and private writing community, the Jerry Jenkins Writers Guild, I help writers like you craft captivating stories, and a major component is powerful dialogue.
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Think of it as conversation that works. Effective dialogue keeps the reader turning the pages.
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Why? First, it breaks up narrative summary, it's less dense, in fact, with more white space, it even looks more inviting on the page.
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But there are myriad ways dialogue can fail, so we'll look at those as I also show you how to make your dialogue work for you.
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Second, dialogue helps distinguish between characters through dialect and word choice, and done well, it moves your story, allowing you to show, rather than tell.
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That may sound contradictory because what is dialogue if not someone telling someone else something, but stay with me and I'll show you the difference.
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If your dialogue is bloated or obvious or telling, readers won't stay with you long, it must sound natural and credible, and I'll show you how to accomplish that.
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If your dialogue bores you, it'll put your reader to sleep.
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So let me share with you six keys to help keep your dialogue riveting, as we do that, let me urge you to stay with me to the end of this video, I'll be giving you a completely free bonus, my self-editing checklist to help you refine your entire manuscript.
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Okay, let me quickly cover the six keys to writing compelling dialogue.
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Key one is to cut dialogue to the bone wherever possible.
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Now, admittedly, sometimes we want characters to rattle on to reveal that they're brainiacs or blowhards.
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But in every other instance, you want to omit needless words.
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Some writers argue that tight dialogue does not represent real life.
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That's true, but if you really mirrored actual dialogue, it would read like a court transcript.
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And include endless repetition and even all the ums, ahs, and uhs, etc.
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See how much you can cut while communicating the same point.
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Think of it more as a representation of the way real people talk.
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The way they think they're communicating.
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You'll be amazed by how much power this adds.
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Instead of a wordy exchange like this, well, this may be the one of the craziest mistakes I've ever made.
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Why do you say that, Pa?
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Try this, this may be my craziest mistake ever.
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Why, Pa?
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Those are virtually the same words in the same order, but fewer of them.
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I call that getting to the good stuff, rendering the prose more powerful.
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Okay, a second key to writing effective dialogue is to use it to subtly reveal backstory.
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Layering in backstory helps keep your reader engaged.
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So what do I mean by layering it in?
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Just that you want to avoid an unrealistic information dump where one character tells another one everything.
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People don't do that in real life.
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Usually, when we're talking to someone about something in the past, they know what we're talking about.
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So we don't spell it all out.
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It might sound more like this.
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As they headed into the house, Janet whispered, can we just not bring up Cincinnati?
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Maggie shot her a double take.
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Believe me, I don't want that anymore than you do.
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Good, Janet said.
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I mean, can we not talk about it, please?
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That's real life dialogue and naturally the reader assumes this is a setup that demands a payoff.
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It wouldn't be there otherwise.
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So we know these two characters will eventually get back to this.
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Readers will stay with your story until the characters tell them more.
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This is crucial because it helps you avoid one of the most common mistakes I see in beginners' manuscripts.
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The dreaded information dump.
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The wrong way to have included this bit of backstory would have been to have one of the characters say, let's not talk about Cincinnati, where you were almost killed by that drunk driver and wound up in the hospital for six weeks and we all worried you'd never walk again.
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Now, as clunky and unrealistic as that sounds, believe me, I've read worse.
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The way to do this as your story progresses is to have the characters reveal more and more about the past, the way they would in real life.
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Maybe the next time Cincinnati comes up, it's raised by another character who says, hey, I haven't seen you since the accident, you seem to be walking a lot better.
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To which your character can say, still have a long way to go, but I'm not really comfortable talking about it yet.
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And the other says, really, after what, two years?
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Three, but seriously, can we drop it for now?
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See how this is yet another setup for yet another payoff down the road?
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That's the way to keep readers turning the pages.
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All right, onto the third key to writing effective dialogue, use it to reveal character.
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Here's an example.
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A woman in a restaurant whispers to her lunchmate, you know who that is over there, don't you?
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The other surreptitiously glances to another table and says, no, who?
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That's just it, she's had so much work done, you don't recognize her.
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That's Betty Lou Herman.
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No.
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Yeah.
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She's had her nose done, cheeks lifted, even a hair transplant.
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Whatever for?
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She's going into politics.
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Seriously, that's really her?
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In that brief exchange, three characters have been revealed and we learn a lot about them, don't we?
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One is a gossipy busybody, another a willing listener, and the third, ambitious and vain.
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Learning that much about three different characters minus the dialogue would have required an awful lot of narrative summary in the form of telling rather than showing.
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We didn't have to be told about them, we were shown through dialogue.
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That gives readers a role in experiencing your story.
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Let them deduce what's going on rather than having it spoon-fed to them.
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That's part of the fun of being a reader, participating in the experience.
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Okay, a fourth key to writing effective dialogue is to be subtle.
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Often what separates good fiction from bad is subtlety.
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The old adage less is more is at play here.
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Dialogue offers you several ways to powerfully understate things.
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Here are three.
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First, subtext.
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When people say other than what they really mean, that's subtext.
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For example, Cindy falls in love with a slightly older boy next door who sees her as just a little sister type.
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When she gets to high school, Tommy's already the captain of the football team, dating the head cheerleader, and largely ignoring Cindy.
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When Tommy goes off to college, word soon gets back to Cindy that he and his girlfriend have broken up.
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So when he comes home after his freshman year and is pulling a tire off his car, Cindy just happens to walk outside.
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Tommy looks up, stunned, who is this beauty, little Cindy from next door?
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She says, making a change, are you?
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Tommy says, yeah, I'm actually rotating my tires.
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Cindy says, well, I've heard that change can be a good thing.
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And he says, yeah, I've heard that too.
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That's subtext.
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They're not really saying what they mean.
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They're not really talking about rotating the tires, are they?
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A second way dialogue helps you remain subtle is by sidestepping.
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Sidestepping is when a character responds to a question by ignoring it and offering a whole new perspective.
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Some say most politicians have perfected this.
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In the movie Patch Adams, the late Robin Williams played a brilliant young doctor who believes the Old Testament adage that laughter is the best medicine.
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In the children's cancer ward, he wears an inflated surgical glove on his head, making him look like a rooster, he wears bedpans for shoes and stomps about, flapping his arms and squawking.
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The children find it hilarious, but hospital directors consider it undignified and demand that he stop.
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Patch is trying to make one girl in particular, a hospital volunteer, laugh.
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But while everyone else thinks he's funny, she never cracks a smile.
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Finally, Patch leaves the hospital to open a clinic in the country.
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Imagine his surprise when that humorless young lady appears to help him set up.
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At one point, she goes outside to rest, so Patch follows and sits opposite her.
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He says, I've got to ask, everybody thinks I'm hysterical but you.
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I've tried everything.
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Why don't you ever think anything I say is funny?
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After a long pause, she says, men have liked me all my life.
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All my life.
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And we realize by the way she says it.
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She was abused as a child.
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Suddenly, we understand what this girl is all about.
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She doesn't trust men and she doesn't laugh because life isn't funny.
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She's not really answered his question.
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Her problem has nothing to do with him or his humor.
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Finally, Patch realizes that some things aren't funny, some things you just don't make fun of.
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It's a great turnaround in the story.
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And an example of sidestepping dialogue.
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A third way dialogue can contribute to subtlety is through silence.
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Now you may wonder how silence could be considered dialogue.
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Well, silence truly can be golden.
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Many, including Abraham Lincoln, have been credited with the line, better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
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One of the toughest things to learn as a writer is to resist the urge to fill soundless gaps.
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We simply don't need to write that someone didn't respond or didn't answer.
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If you don't say they did, the reader will know they didn't.
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Here's an example.
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Well, John, Linda said, what do you have to say for yourself?
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John set his jaw and stared out the window.
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I'm waiting, she said.
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He lit a cigarette.
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Linda shook her head.
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I swear, John, honestly.
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You see, too many writers feel the need to write here.
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But he refused to say anything.
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Or, but he never responded.
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Don't.
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We know, we get it, and it's loud, effective, silent dialogue.
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By saying nothing, John is actually saying everything.
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All right, let's move to a fifth key to writing effective dialogue, and that's reading it aloud.
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Anything that doesn't sound right won't read right either.
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So rewrite it until it does.
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In the adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain distinguishes between the Southern white boy and Jim, the runaway slave by hinting at their respective accents.
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Twain doesn't need to tell us who's speaking, yet we never confuse the two.
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Here's how the dialogue flows.
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Jim, did y'all ever see a king?
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Y'all is the only word in that sentence that implies a Southern accent, but it's enough.
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I show enough did.
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You liar, Jim, you never seen no king.
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I seen four kings in a deck of cards.
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Now, Huck's grammar and Jim's show and foe are the only hints of their dialects.
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Too many phonetics would have slowed the reading.
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Resist the urge to complicate things with all sorts of punctuation and unique spelling.
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Just a hint here and there will give your reader the flavor.
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And you'll notice that when you read it aloud.
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Now finally, key six to writing effective dialogue is to strive for a make my day moment.
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Certain iconic lines of dialogue have become as legendary as the films and books they originate from.
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Like, frankly, my dear.
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There's no place like home.
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To my big brother, George, the richest man in town.
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Go ahead, make my day.
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May the force be with you.
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Houston, we have a problem.
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Admittedly, few writers, even best-selling novelists, ever create such an unforgettable line of dialogue.
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But striving to create one is worth the effort.
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Ironically, iconic dialogue should fit so seamlessly it doesn't draw attention to itself until fans begin quoting it.
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Okay, those are the six keys to writing effective dialogue.
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So let's briefly cover some miscellaneous issues that arise when writers ask about dialogue.
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First, they want to know the proper way to format dialogue in their manuscripts.
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Well, first, use dialogue tags, I'm referring to the attribution tags, he said, she said, etc.
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And they are usually all you need to indicate who's speaking.
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So resist the urge to get clever.
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Just use he said or she said.
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Teachers who urge you to find creative alternatives are usually unpublished and believe agents and editors will be impressed.
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Trust me, they won't be.
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Avoid mannerisms of attribution.
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People say things, they don't wheeze, gasp, sigh, laugh, grunt, or snort them.
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They might do any of those things while saying them, which might be worth mentioning.
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But the emphasis should be on what is said.
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And readers just need to know who is saying it.
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Keep it simple.
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Sometimes people whisper or shout or mumble.
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But let their choice of words indicate their grumbling, etc.
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If it's important that they sigh or laugh, separate that action from the dialogue.
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Jim sighed, period.
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I can't take this anymore.
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Now, not Jim sighed, comma, I can't take this anymore.
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Although you read them in school readers and classic fiction, attribution tags such as replied, retorted, exclaimed, and declared have become cliches and are archaic.
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You still see them occasionally, but I suggest avoiding them.
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Often, no attribution is needed.
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Use dialogue tags only when the reader wouldn't otherwise know who's speaking.
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I once wrote an entire novel, The Last Operative, without attributing a single line of dialogue.
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Not a single said, asked, anything.
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I made clear through action who was speaking and not one reader, even my editor, noticed.
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Here's an example.
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Jordan shook his head and sighed, period.
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I've had it.
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Another common error is having characters address each other by name too often.
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Real people rarely do this and it often seems planted only to avoid a dialogue tag.
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Fictional dialogue should sound real.
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And don't start your dialogue attribution tag with said, like said Joe or said Mary.
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That reads like a children's book.
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Substitute he and she for the names and that'll make it obvious.
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Said he or said she just doesn't sound right.
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Rather, end with said for the most natural sound.
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Joe said or Mary said.
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And resist the urge to explain, give the reader credit.
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The amateur writer often writes something like this.
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I'm beat, exclaimed John tiredly.
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Well, besides telling and not showing, violating a cardinal rule of writing.
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It uses the archaic exclaimed for said and misplaces that before the name of the speaker rather than after.
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And adds the redundant tiredly, explaining something that needs no explanation.
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The pro would write, John dropped onto the couch, period.
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I'm beat.
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That shows rather than tells and the action dropped onto the couch tells who's speaking.
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All right, we've covered a lot here today, but stay with me for the cardinal sin of dialogue and also to get your free bonus at the end.
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No shortcuts will turn you into a best-selling author, but writers often ask me for that Yoda-esque bit of wisdom that you'd give me if you could tell me only one thing.
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So here it is.
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Avoid on the nose dialogue.
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It's not magic, but if you can get a handle on this amateur writing pitfall, you'll instantly have a leg up on your competition.
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On the nose may sound like a positive thing, which it would be if it were related to marksmanship or academics.
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But for our purposes, it's a term coined by Hollywood script writers for prose that mirrors real life without advancing your story.
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This is one of the most common mistakes I see in otherwise good writing.
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Even the pros fall into it.
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An example.
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Page's phone chirped, telling her she had a call.
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She slid her bag off her shoulder, opened it, pulled out her cell, hit the accept call button, and put it to her ear.
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This is Paige, she said.
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Hey, Paige.
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She recognized her fiance's voice, Jim, darling, hello.
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Where are you, babe?
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Just got to the parking garage.
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No more problems with the car then.
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Oh, the guy at the gas station said he thinks it needs a wheel alignment.
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Good, we on for tonight?
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Looking forward to it, sweetie.
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Did you hear about Allison?
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No, what about her?
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Cancer.
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What?
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Now here's the way that scene should be rendered.
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Page's phone chirped, it was her fiance Jim, and he told her something about one of their best friends that made her forget where she was.
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Cancer, she whispered, barely able to speak.
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I didn't even know Allison was sick, sick, did you?
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Trust me, not a single reader will wonder how she knew the caller was Jim.
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Does anyone need to be told that the chirp told her she had a call?
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That her phone is in her purse, her purse is over her shoulder, she has to open it to get to her phone.
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She has to push a button to take a call.
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That one needs to put the phone to her ear to hear and to speak.
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That she identifies herself to the caller.
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Now those who love you might also love that kind of writing, praising you for describing every real life detail of answering a phone call.
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It shows you can exactly mirror real life.
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Good for you.
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Don't beat yourself up over it.
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We've all done it.
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Now quit it.
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Leave it to the amateurs.
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Separate yourself from the competition by recognizing and deleting minutia like that.
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Dig deep.
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Go past the surface.
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Mine your emotions and your mind and your heart and your soul.
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Remember what it felt like when you got news like that about someone you deeply cared about.
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And take the reader with you on the journey you promised them when they picked up your story.
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Let them hear Paige's response, Jim, let me give you a rain check for tonight.
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I need to go see her.
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Apply to your own dialogue the principles and tools I've outlined here, and I believe you'll see an immediate, compelling difference in your own fiction.
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Thanks for staying with me.
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You've qualified for the free bonus, the self-editing checklist that will help you refine your manuscript into something much more compelling.
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Just click the link on your screen to grab it.
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And remember, effective dialogue is one of the most important elements of good writing.
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Check back here periodically for more free writing tips.
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And I'll see you next time.
Topics:writing dialoguecompelling dialogueJerry B. Jenkinswriting tipsfiction writingcharacter developmentsubtextbackstoryself-editingwriters guild
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