When it comes to writing good, compelling dialogue, it is important to consider more than just the plot of your book. Yes, an exchange of dialogue can further the plot and progress the story, but that is only part of what great dialogue can achieve. When written properly dialogue can, and will, be completely character driven as long as each piece of dialogue has a purpose and a meaning.

This single piece of advice applies to all dialogue. If your dialogue has absolutely no purpose then, put simply, it will not interest the reader. If there is no reason to include a line of dialogue, if there is no conflict going on whatsoever, then there is nothing driving the dialogue. It is empty and purposeless.

That being said, you shouldn't immediately cut out all casual conversation from your writing. You may feel at first glance as though a line serves only to exist as filler, a simple and boring exchange between two characters, but this will only be true of particularly poor dialogue. If executed correctly, even a casual conversation can interest and excite the reader, simply by being character driven.

But first things first, let's look at an example that illustrates the problem:

"Hey," John said.

"Hi," Sally replied.

"How are you?" John asked.

"Not too bad. You?"

"I'm ok," John said. "I was just going to the shops."

"Ok then, speak to you later," Sally said.

If this exchange was interesting to you then you really need to find something more exciting to spice up your life. This interaction between two characters tells us literally nothing about our characters, their relationship with each other, their motives, etc. It's painfully simple, painfully boring and just painful to read. If this exchange was completely cut from whatever we were writing, the reader would be none the wiser, and if it is ever the case that something could be cut and not impact anything, then it most definitely should be cut.

A casual conversation like this, where two characters who already know each other have met up with one another, must at the very least illustrate the nature of the relationship between the characters or build on the preexisting relationship. They may well be conversing in such a way that doesn't involve the larger conflict of the book, but there should still be smaller conflicts between characters.

In the case of a budding romance, the purpose behind each line is to bring the characters closer together, to reduce the conflict between them. The dialogue can also reveal parts of them that they didn't already know, resulting in more conflict between them. In the case of a villain being introduced to our main protagonist, there should obviously be great conflict between them with their characters clashing in such a way that can only result in far more hostile dialogue. This can all be done very subtly but will result in far more interesting, compelling dialogue.

A simple way to demonstrate the relationship between characters is through word choice. Try to think about the way in which your characters would address each other and speak to each other. Taking John from our earlier example, do you think he would speak to his wife in the same way he'd speak to his boss? How about his children? How about his friends? Altering the exchange we had before, his opening line of dialogue could completely change the interaction, giving the reader a much better introduction and insight into the new character, Sally. Here are a few variations on that opening line:

"Hello, sweetie."

"Morning, ma'am."

"Alright, mate?"

Here, three completely different relationships are established in a single line. That is the power of good dialogue. However, the tone kept throughout the conversation must be consistent; it's no good starting a conversation as if two characters are intimate lovers and finishing it like they're no more than work colleagues. The exception to this would be if something dramatic happened within the interaction such as a big argument between the characters that changes their relationship forever. You must always think about the relationship between your characters, how it develops and how it changes, and you must show that through your dialogue.

Another area which, if not done properly, can result in shoddy dialogue, is subtext. Subtext is the "show don't tell" rule of dialogue. It is what the characters mean, but not what they say. Here is the most obvious example I could think of:

Dave went to comfort John because his wife had just passed away. "You alright, John?" he asked.

"I'm fine," John replied.

What John says and what John means are entirely different. He is telling Dave that he is fine, but what he is actually doing is telling the reader that he is not fine at all but he just doesn't want to talk about it. This information is conveyed without outwardly saying it, and it makes the dialogue feel much more real. If you write dialogue without subtext and your characters just say exactly how they feel and exactly what they're doing or exactly what they want to do, it will feel very unnatural to the reader. It results in dialogue that is exceptionally clunky, will be very on-the-nose and sometimes will even make the reader laugh at how awkward and bad it is.

The good news is, you can use subtext to convey a lot of information to your reader about your characters. In this example, John has just been stabbed:

"Are you alright?" Dave asked.

"Oh, just wonderful," John said. "Couldn't be better!"

Once again, the reader knows that John is not alright, but here the subtext tells us a little more about his character. He's quite sarcastic, even in the face of death, and perhaps he even likes to undermine his friends as here, he is essentially insulting Dave's intelligence. It is surprisingly easy to convey information through dialogue without mentioning it within the dialogue or narration. How much duller would this be if the narrator had told us at one point that John was particularly sarcastic? It is much more natural and elegant to give the reader this information through dialogue.

Something that you should also be aware of is the voice of your character. In the real world, every person has their own distinct voice, their own way of talking, and the characters in your book should be no different. You might think this is a difficult task given that your readers cannot actually hear your characters and instead have to rely on their own reading, but this is a poor assumption. Good writing will, in fact, create a unique voice for each character and will result in your reader reading each line in a different way. If you do this properly, you won't even need to use dialogue tags to let your reader know who's talking; they'll be able to figure out who it is before you tell them. Here's an excellent example from a little known book series called Harry Potter:

"Longbottom, if brains were gold, you'd be poorer than Weasley, and that's saying something"

If you've ever read Harry Potter, you'll instantly be able to tell that this line was delivered by none other than Draco Malfoy. In fact, this one piece of dialogue perfectly illustrates almost every single point I've made so far. We are instantly able to tell who is speaking because of the way he addresses others, opting to call them by surname as if he is above them, and by the tone he uses. It also tells us that he's not a particularly nice chap but he is fairly clever, insulting Neville and Ron in an interesting and creative way. It quite clearly demonstrates the relationship he has with Neville and Ron: he thinks he is above them and feels as though he can freely insult them. You might go as far as saying they are enemies. All of this information was conveyed in a single line of dialogue, a line that in no way contributes to the plot, but it most certainly contributes to the characters.

If you're worried that you won't create a character as strong and as memorable as Malfoy then fret not because you can still easily distinguish your characters' voices even if the characters themselves are fairly weak. You could give your character a heavy accent and perhaps they often use slang. Maybe another character speaks much more formally and tends to use big, long, clever words. Maybe your character is particularly shy and so their speech patterns reflect that, perhaps having their words are broken apart by "um's" and "err's" or maybe they constantly show their lack of self-confidence by doubting their own words and voicing those doubts. As long as each character has a unique voice and the words they say demonstrate something about their character, you really can get creative with it. And soon, even a casual conversation will seem interesting to your reader.

It's worth noting that truly great writers of dialogue do not only utilise these character building techniques in casual conversation. The best lines of dialogue are generally those that combine various aspects of dialogue and continue to build and develop characters alongside the plot. It is much harder to write dialogue in which each line serves multiple purposes, but by first practising to ensure that each line serves at least one purpose, you will be much better prepared later to try to take your dialogue to the next level.

Credits:

Article by DI_Gremlin

Quote from JK Rowling

Edits by d_s_t_e