How can I make my dialogue more realistic?

It’s my life need help to clarify doubt about: : How can I make my dialogue more realistic?
I need some tips about writing dialogue, in stories. I just dont want to sound too cheesy, or too fake if I write dialogue. Any tips? The dialogue is for writing stories.

Try this:

Answer by Mephistopheles
Try this it will help you out: http://teacher2b.com/creative/dialogue1.htm

Dialogue is one of the most difficult elements of fiction writing. On the surface, it appears easy to execute – we all speak, don’t we? – but real life speech is not nearly as compelling and as pointed as fictional dialogue.

1) When you write dialogue, be mindful of both pace and natural progression. If you are relatively new to writing, read your dialogue aloud to get a better grasp of how you write. Your dialogue should never appeared to be forced into a certain direction, nor should it go on and on with meaningless exchanges.

2) Dialogue is an integral part of your characters. Dialogue should distinguish your fictional characters as much as their actions do. Their personalities should reflect the way they talk. For example, an impatient person might speak in fragments, and a chatty one in run on sentences. A scientist might use a technical vocabulary while a night club owner might spout cutting-edge idioms. Avoid stereotypical and cliché talk unless this is your point.

3) Avoid mundane exchanges. A writer does not have to include everything characters might say to each other. As a general rule, avoid writing empty pleasantries such as “How are you?” and “I’m fine. And you?” While people enter into conversations in real life this way, your job is not to document reality but to create a compelling illusion of reality. To do this, your dialogue must get immediately to the point and do its job in as few words as possible. As you read, note how authors frame their dialogue with summary, how each exchange advances the plot, characterizations, and theme, and how the dialogue is compacted.

4) Dialogue does not always need to be linear in its progression. If you listen to how people talk, you’ll see we often digress, or avoid answering a question directly, or are temporarily distracted by the environment or random thoughts. As a writer, you cannot let your dialogue meander in this way, but you may allow information and tension to arise out of conversational lapses. Of course, your readers must understand the logic behind such elliptical dialogue, either by your inserting the distraction itself into the text, or by preparing the reader through previous characterization and plot events. This sounds easier than it is. Study other writers to see how this can be accomplished.

5) Frame your dialogue with narrative descriptions and character gestures. At appropriate times, when you want to create a pause in the conversation or when you want to show a non-verbal reaction, describe what is happening. Let your characters interact with the environment. Although too much description will slow the flow of the conversation, too little can put the speakers in a literary vacuum. Find the balance.

6) Start over if necessary. If you discover you cannot get your characters to make the points you want them to, you may have to begin the exchange anew. Perhaps you began the dialogue on the wrong note, or had introduced emotions contrary to your aim, or have placed your characters at a location not conducive to the type of conversation they are having.

7) Dialogue is not real conversation. As an exercise, record a conversation – with the participants’ knowledge, of course – and then type up a transcript, word for word. You’ll find the result boring to read. Now edit the transcript to a few pithy lines. Most conversation is filled with extraneous words and exchanges while good dialogue is not. Dialogue only appears to reflect how people speak; it is the edited version of reality.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

2 COMMENTS

  1. Hi, hi,
    Mephistopheles has given you good advise.
    I beg to disagree with Mighty Power — first,
    she’s assuming ghetto, and if indeed you were
    writing about ghetto, the use the ghetto dialogue,
    as that is what is REAL,
    and what I would want to read.

  2. write your story with the most non-cheezy, ghetto words you can think of. then go back and edit them out.
    ex) “What’s crack-a-lackin’, Billy?” can be edited to say “What’s up, Billy?” and it doesn’t sound cheezy.

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