1. Dialogue Rules
Kroesch 8J

2. 1. Dialogue Should Be Used for CONFLICT
Pleasant conversations are nice, but the goal of writing conflict is to enhance the conflict between characters.
Non-conflict enhancing dialogue wastes space and bores readers

3. Rule 1 Example Without Conflict With Conflict
“What are we having for dinner?” asked Jane.
Bill opened the fridge, shifted the milk to see to the back. “How does steak sound?”
“Sounds great.”
“There’s chicken if you prefer,” he said.
“No, steak is fine. With mashed potatoes.”
With Conflict
“What are we having for dinner?” asked Jane.
Bill opened the fridge, shifted the milk to see to the back. “How does steak sound?”
“What, again?”
“We haven’t had steak since last Saturday,” he said.
“I know. And the Saturday before that and the one before that! Don’t you ever fancy something different, Bill?”

4. 2. Dialogue Must Drive the Story FORWARD
Ask yourself: would my story still make sense if I removed this dialogue? Your dialogue should be necessary to the plot!
Is your dialogue building or reducing tension. Dialogue in the rising action should increase tension; decrease in the falling action
Idle chit-chat, while realistic, only wastes space within your story
Readers don’t want perfect realism, they want a NARRATIVE

5. 3. Dialogue MUST provide characterization (DIRECT and INDIRECT)
Dialogue is the best way to show your audience who your characters are. Through dialogue we can find out things like:
How characters interact with each other
How characters feel about their conflicts
How characters react to stresses (panic, calmly, heroically)
We can even discover physical and other traits by the topics of conversation
“Geez, Neil, you’re really tall!”

6. 4. Dialogue should FEEL like a part of the writing
It should intermix with the narrative. There shouldn’t be “sections” of your story.
Avoid large chunks of description-less dialogue, these feel unnatural
Add character actions into your dialogue lines
No one just stands there while they talk. People move around, do other things, have hand gestures and facial expressions.

7. 4. Continued Use a variety of dialogue tags to avoid being repetitive.
SAID, SAID, SAID IS NOT GOOD WRITING
Right click and synonyms is a quick way to revise this issue
For variety, mix up your sentence length and dialogue sentence structures.
Not every line will be a simple response, not every line will be a full discussion. Think about how people naturally speak to each other
Some sentences will have dialogue first, some on the middle, and some at the end. A good mix will create variety that is interesting to readers.

8. SIMPLE VS. REVISED EXAMPLE
“What do you fancy for dinner, Sarah?”
“What have you got?” she enquired.
“Not much,” Frank admitted. “I think I could stretch to pasta, though. And there’s cheesecake for dessert.”
“Cheesecake’s my favorite,” Sarah replied.
“Then later I thought we could catch a movie,” Frank said cautiously.
“We could,” Sarah said. “But I just found $20”
REVISED
Frank’s stomach growled, “What do you fancy for dinner, Sarah?”
“What have you got?”
Frank opened the fridge, stood on his tiptoes to search the top shelf. “I could stretch to pasta,” he said. “And there’s cheesecake for dessert.”
“Cheesecake’s my favorite!” She smiled, thinking of the savory treat.
“Then later I thought we could catch a movie.”
“We could,” Sarah’s hand fished around in her purse. She pulled a single bill and held it between them, “I have another idea.”