So, I’m in the process of releasing my first book, and one of the main compliments I’ve received is that my characters and dialogue feel natural and well-written. I wanted to take a moment to share some of the techniques I use when writing dialogue.
Imperfect Writing Makes Good Dialogue
If you listen to how people talk in real life, it’s messy. We rarely speak in perfect grammar (or is that just me?). We stumble over our words, change direction mid-sentence, or trail off altogether. Embracing those imperfections can make your dialogue feel more alive.
I often use things like:
"..." to indicate a pause,
"-" to show someone being cut off.
These are small but ways to mimic natural speech.
You can also play with font size or text styling to convey emotion. For example:
“What were you thinking!?” might suggest anger.
But: “WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?” Now they’re furious.
On the flip side, shrinking the text—“...what were you thinking?”—could suggest a whisper or fear...just make sure your text isn’t too small where your readers can’t read it. Most font sizes in books are around 12, I wouldn’t go lower than 8
Writing in ALL CAPS works too (as shown above), if you don’t want to mess with font sizes. Just don’t overdo it or it loses impact.
For stuttering, I usually repeat the first few letters of a word:
“W...Wh...What were you thinking!?”
And you know how sometimes we might emphasise certain words to get our point across? I would show this off by making those words become either bold or italics.
“What were you thinking!?”
Pauses, stutters, forgetting things, these are all little quirks we have in real conversations, and including them will make your characters feel more natural.
What Does Your Character Care About?
Your characters might be fictional to us, but in their world, they’re real. So ask:
What do they like? What do they hate? What were they doing before the story began?
I like giving my characters a hobby, an interest, and something they can’t stand. These details don’t need to be forced into the plot, but when the opportunity arises, letting them talk about these things can show a new side of them.
Let’s make a character up right now:
Name: John
Role: Rough mercenary, ex-soldier, classic gruff type
Interest: Loves cartoons
Why? Because cartoons make him laugh. It’s how he unwinds. Now, instead of being just another brooding tough guy, John’s got a layer of vulnerability.
Even if this doesn’t make it into the story, you’ll understand your characters better, and that will always help your dialogue.
Moving on, when it comes to creating your character and figuring out what they like and don’t like, asking questions like:
Why does your no-nonsense assassin collect vintage toys?
Why is your jokester side character obsessed with horror films?
Can help you not only understand your characters more, but understand how they might talk as well. While this might start to fall under “How to create a character” kind of territory. Please understand that each character is unique and how they speak is unique. If you don’t understand your characters then there’s a chance your dialogue will sound generic.
Accents and Voice
Accents can be tricky. Personally, I struggle with writing them. Whenever I try to write with accents, they either sound off, or very stereotypical.
Instead of relying on phonetic spelling, I lean into cultural voice, how a person talks because of their upbringing or environment, not necessarily their accent.
Let’s take a Southern character as an example:
Stereotypical version:
“Y’know, city folk don’t get it. They’re all rushin’ around, starin’ at tiny screens...”
That doesn’t sit right with me. It feels like something I’ve heard in movies.
My version, with culture in mind:
“Y’know...city folk just don’t get it, do they? They’re rushing around, staring at their tiny little screens like if they look away for one second they’ll explode or something…”
The main difference was that I use slower pacing as indicated with the “…” filler words because from my experience country people tend to use filler words to help them process what they’re saying, and longer sentences.
Do keep in mind that the way someone is brought up will result in them speaking differently. Take for instance the phase “What are you doing?” can be said in many different ways.
“What you doing?”
“What chu doing?”
“What chu doin’?”
"Wha you doing?”
So I’m not saying to get rid of phonetic speaking, but instead to understand that phonetics are apart of culture as well. Instead of trying to force a character to speak in a certain way, learn their culture. Get their pauses, their filler words, change their dictionary, there’s a lot you can do besides just trying to copy someone else’s accent.
Plus, readers will usually fill in the blanks. If you say someone’s from the South or from a posh background, readers will likely imagine how they sound. Let your dialogue suggest it through rhythm, word choice, and tone. Don’t just rely on spelling alone.
Look, there’s a lot to say about writing dialogue, and I could keep going, but I want to keep these articles digestible. If you have any specific questions about writing dialogue, feel free to ask me! I’ll do my best to share what I’ve learned.
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