Dialogue Should Do More Than One Job

Have you ever recorded yourself talking with a friend and then listened back? Real conversation is full of “um,” small talk, and dead air — completely normal to say out loud, and almost unreadable on the page. “Hi.” “Hi.” “How are you?” “Fine.” is exactly how a real conversation might start, and it's also nearly impossible to care about.

So why does dialogue in books feel so much more alive than that? Because story dialogue is allowed to skip the boring parts real speech is full of. It's usually doing at least one more job at the same time as reporting what was said — moving the plot forward, or showing something about who's talking through how they say it.

Compare “Hi.” “Hi.” “How are you?” “Fine.” to this: “You're late.” “I know. I couldn't find my shoes.” “You never can.” Nobody explained what's going on between these two people, and yet you can already feel some history there.

A quick check for your own dialogue

After writing a conversation, ask yourself what it's accomplishing besides the words themselves. Is it revealing tension between two characters? Giving the reader information they needed? Showing someone's personality through how they talk, not just what they say? If you could delete a line without losing anything, that's a strong sign it isn't doing enough yet — and now you know exactly what job to give it.