Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Dialogue

Writing dialogue is a delicate dance. Too fast and you may jump out of rhythm. Too slow and you may not be keeping up the pace. I had a teacher one time who compared writing dialogue to a mini skirt — long enough to cover the subject but short enough to keep things interesting.

Here are some mistakes to avoid when writing dialogue…

Don’t spoon-feed the audience
Don’t give your audience the answers, make them work for it. Rather than characters stating their reasons and conclusions, let your readers figure out the subtext on their own.

Don’t pad the work
Avoid meaningless words. There’s no need for “throat clearers” like: “Well…,” “Um,” “Er;” or questions like “What?” “Why?” “What did you say?” or “What do you mean?” or “What are you going to do now?”

Basically, don’t ask a question you’re going to answer in the next line of dialogue.

Don’t give your characters long speeches
Everybody loves a long monologue, but speeches take a long time to read. Even worse, they are often about ideas, not emotions — and dialogue is about expressing the emotional truth of a moment.

Don’t mince words
Don’t shy away from making your characters authentic. Let them speak their truth, even if its…