0-100 Real Quick Tips For Writing: Dialogue

I love dialogue, dialogue is the meat in the sandwich of writing. It’s what readers mostly pay attention to so you need to make it good! (No pressure lol) 

Professional writers will tell you to avoid meaningless dialogue and small talk BUT I would like to challenge that and say to use it as a way to show the dynamics in a relationship OR, if it’s combined with an action beat, something that is unique to that character.

E.g instead of just saying- “hey, how you doin’?” – and moving on without a dialogue tag.

I’d do this- “Hey, how you doin’?” Denki Kaminari asked, giving you his signature bright smile and double finger guns.

^^^ you can’t tell me that it’s NOT a typical thing that Kaminari would say and do.

Pro’s would say to omit that completely because it’s a pointless greeting BUT when you add the action on the end it makes it cute and shows his uniqueness. 

As I mentioned on my message board earlier to the lovely follower who asked the question about how to write dialogue-

Sometimes with dialogue it’s more about the delivery than the actual words because you can have the exact same sentence said by two

different characters and have a completely different feel from them just by the dialogue tag or action beat.

Eg.

“What do you mean you don’t hate me?” Bakugou grunted, averting his eyes with a scowl on his face.

“What do you mean you don’t hate me?” Todoroki asked in a confused voice- still as monotone as ever, but with genuine confusion mixed in.

I used the exact same line for the characters but what followed (dialogue tag) defined how they delivered the line so if you think the dialogue is lacking, focus on how it was delivered and any other action tagged on the end.

!For those asking about cannon phrases!

For example- Bakugou would never just straight up say something like “you mean so much to be and I’m glad I have you by my side.” So how you do avoid this and keep a character as cannon as possible?

Wikifandoms! 

I LIVE on that site. They give you everything you need for writing a character, right down to some of that character’s favourite quotes or things they have said in the anime or manga.

Study those! Get amongst it! Those lines are direct from the character’s mouth so they are more cannon than cannon. If you stick those you’ll be fine.

But author-san? We are writing romance for these characters… and cannonly they don’t say any romantic lines so what do we use as a basis??? 

Good question!

Find out what ‘dere’ type your character of interest is and then type into Google “how would a [dere type] say ‘I love you’ – or whichever line you need- and then have a look at what people say.

BUT AUTHOR?! WHAT THE HECK IS A DERE TYPE?!

These are the Tsundere, Kudere, Yandere etc… each character will fall into one or a mix of these dere’s and should give you a basis for your non cannon dialogue to take form 😉

—Stick to the unique character’s way of speaking.—

Some characters have a particular way they speak or they have a certain phrase they like to use.

Eg. Atsumu from Haikyuu. It’s noted that he speaks with an accent and replaces ‘your’ with ‘yer’ so it would be more cannon to stick with this.

Eg. Saiki from The disastrous life of Saiki K. He likes to use the phrase “good grief” a lot so that would be something to remember when writing dialogue for him.

Dialogue slows the plot down so use more of it if you want to really draw the scene out, or cut dialogue down if you want to speed the scene up 😉

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