how to write dialogue between two characters in an essay

How to Format Dialogue: Complete Guide

Dialogue formatting matters. Whether you’re working on an essay, novel, or any other form of creative writing. Perfectly formatted dialogue makes your work more readable and engaging for the audience.

In this article, you’ll learn the dialogue formatting rules. Also, we’ll share examples of dialogue in essays for you to see the details.

What is a Dialogue Format?

Dialogue format is a writing form authors use to present characters' communication. It's common for play scripts, literature works, and other forms of storytelling.

A good format helps the audience understand who is speaking and what they say. It makes the communication clear and enjoyable. In dialogue writing, we follow the basic grammar rules like punctuation and capitalization. They help us illustrate the speaker’s ideas.

General Rules to Follow When Formatting a Dialogue

Dialogue writing is an essential skill for both professionals and scholars . It shows your ability to express the issues and ideas of other people in different setups. The core rules of formatting are about punctuation. So, below is a quick reminder on punctuation marks’ names:

And now, to practice.

Please follow these rules for proper dialogue formatting:

•  Use quotation marks. Enclose the speaker’s words in double quotations. It helps readers distinguish between a character’s speech and a narrator’s comments.
•  Place punctuation inside quotation marks. All punctuation like commas, exclamations, or interrogation marks, go inside the double quotations.
•  Keep dialogue tags behind quotation marks. A dialogue tag is (1) words framing direct speech to convey the context and emotions of a conversation. For example, in (“I can’t believe this is you,” she replied.), the dialogue tag is “she replied.”
•  Use an ellipsis or em-dashes for pauses or interruptions. To show interruptions or pauses, end phrases with ellipses inside quotations. Em-dashes go outside quotations. No other extra marks are necessary here.
•  Remember a character’s voice.  Ensure that each character’s phrases reflect their background and personality.

5 More Rules to Know (+ Examples of Dialogue)

For proper formatting of dialogue in writing, stick to the following rules:

1. Each speaker’s saying comes in a new paragraph

Begin a new paragraph whenever a new character starts speaking. It allows you to differentiate speakers and make their conversation look more organized. (2)

“Has Mr. de Winter been in?” I said.    “Yes, Madam,” said Robert; “he came in just after two, and had a quick lunch, and then went out again. He asked for you and Frith said he thought you must have gone down to see the ship.”    “Did he say when he would be back again?” I asked.    “No, Madam.” — from Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

2. Separate dialogue tags with commas

When using dialogue tags ( e.g., “she said,” “he replied,”), separate them with commas. 

For example:

“You’ve got to do something right now , ” Aaron said , “Mom is really hurting. She says you have to drive her to the hospital.” “Actually, Dad , ” said Caleb, sidling in with his catalog , “There’s someplace you can drive me, too.” “No, Caleb.” — from The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

3. When quoting within dialogue, place single quotes

If a character cites somebody or something while speaking, we call it a reported dialogue. In this case, use single quotations within double ones you place for a direct speech. It will help readers see that it’s a quote.

John started to cry. “When you said, ‘I never wanted to meet you again in my life!’ It hurts my feelings.”

4. You can divide a character’s long speech into paragraphs

Dialogue writing is different when a person speaks for a longer time. It’s fine to divide it into shorter paragraphs. Ensure the proper quotation marks placing:

 The first quotation mark goes at the beginning of the dialogue. Each later paragraph also starts with it until that direct speech ends.

 The second quotation mark — the one “closing” the monologue — goes at the dialogue’s end.

Josphat took a deep breath and began. “ Here’s the things about lions. They’re dangerous creatures. They only know how to kill. Have you ever seen a lion in an open area? Probably not. Because if you had you’d be dead now. “ I saw a lion once. I was fetching firewood to cook lunch. All of a sudden I found myself face to face with a lion. My heart stopped. I knew it was my end on earth. If it wasn’t the poachers we wouldn’t be having this talk. ”

Yet, you can keep a long text as a whole by adding some context with dialogue tags. Like here:

As you can see, there’s no quotation mark at the end of the paragraph in red. It’s because the next “Ha! ha!” paragraph continues the character’s speech.

5. Use action beats

Describe actions to provide context and keep readers engaged. Help them “hear” your characters. Punctuation also helps here: exclamation (!) or interrogation with exclamations (?!) demonstrate the corresponding tone of your narrative.

He slammed the door and shouted , “I can’t believe you did that ! “

Mistakes to Avoid When Formatting Dialogue

A good dialogue is a powerful instrument for a writer to show the character’s nature to the audience. Below are the mistakes to avoid in formatting if you want to reach that goal.

 So, please don’t :

• Allow characters to speak for too long. Writing long paragraphs will bore the reader, making them skip through your speech. Short but sweet talk is the best. When writing, aim to be brief, dynamic, and purposeful. If your character speaks too much, generating opinion essays , ensure this speech makes sense and serves a bigger purpose.
• Overburden dialogue with exposition.  Avoid telling the story background or building sophisticated words in your characters’ speeches. Instead, reveal the narrative content in small bursts and blend it around the rest of the prose. Convey it through your character’s actions and thoughts rather than summaries and explanations.
• Create rhetorical flourishes. Make your characters sound natural. Let them speak the way they’d do if they were real people. Consider their age, profession, and cultural background — and choose lexical items that fit them most.
• Use repetitive dialogue tags. Constant “he asked” and “she said” sounds monotonous. Diversify your tags: use power verbs, synonyms, and dialogue beats.

Frequently Asked Questions by Students

How to format dialogue in an essay.

Formatting a dialogue in an essay is tricky for most students. Here’s how to do it: Enclose the speaker’s words with double quotations and start every other character’s line from a new paragraph. Stick to the citation styles like APA or MLA to ensure credibility. 

How to format dialogue in a novel?

 A dialogue in a novel follows all the standard rules for clarity and readability. Ensure to use attributions, quotation marks, and paragraph format. It makes your dialogue flow, grabbing the reader’s attention.

How to format dialogue in a book?

Dialogue formatting in a book is critical for storytelling. It helps the audience distinguish the hero’s words. Follow the general rules we’ve discussed above:

Use double quotations and isolate dialogue tags with commas. Remember to place the discussion in blocks for better readability.

How to format dialogue between two characters?

A two-character dialogue offers the best way to prove successful formatting skills. Ensure you use action beats, quotations, and attribution tags. It allows readers to follow the conversation and understand it better.

What is the purpose of dialogue in a narrative essay?  

Dialogue writing is the exchange of views between two or more people to reach a consensus. It reveals the character’s attitude and argumentation. Last but not least, it helps convey the descriptive nature of your narrative essay.

References:

• https://valenciacollege.edu/students/learning-support/winter-park/communications/documents/WritingDialogueCSSCTipSheet_Revised_.pdf
• https://www.ursinus.edu/live/files/1158-formatting-dialogue
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How to write dialogues between two characters? (15 Tips & Examples)

Last Updated on July 20, 2022 by Dr Sharon Baisil MD

Dialogue is an essential part of any story. It can be used to move the plot forward, deepen characterization and foreshadow upcoming events.

The way you use dialogue in your story will depend on various factors, including genre, setting, and tone, but some general guidelines apply to all stories.

15 useful tips for crafting excellent dialogues between characters in your fiction

Well-written dialogues make your characters come alive on the pages, show their thoughts, emotions, and inner conflict like no other element can do.

These useful tips will help you create dialogues between characters that will captivate your readers and bring your words to life.

Give characters distinct voices

The most important thing about writing good dialogue is giving each character their voice so readers can tell them apart just by reading their words without ever seeing their names or hearing their thoughts:

“I’m going after him!” he shouted angrily as he tore off down the street after his attacker.

The speaker is a man, and the way he speaks will probably be quite different from how a woman would say the same sentence.

Use contractions in dialogue

Contractions add familiarity to your characters’ voices, so use them for casual conversation.

You can use contractions to ratchet the emotion in an argument between characters quickly, but try not to overuse them.

Use beats in dialogue

Beats are short lines of action that precede or follow a line of dialog, focusing on what a speaker is doing before and after their lines.

Beats can be as simple as a character grabbing another character’s wrist to keep him from leaving the room or belting out, “No! Don’t go.”

Beats can also show how a line of dialogue is said—whether angrily, skeptically, or with disbelief:

Annoyed, Tom slammed his hands down on the table between them. “You’re going to have to stop this, Kayla. I can’t go on like this.

Beats should quickly show the nature of the action and only be used occasionally if you want your characters’ dialogue to stand out.

Use the power of suggestion

The writer’s job is to show readers what is happening in a scene, so you should write in full sentences and avoid dialogue tags as much as possible. But if you do use a dialogue tag, take advantage of the power of suggestion to show how your characters are speaking.

“You can’t go out in that dress! It’s too revealing and far too sexy for church,” Thomas said sternly.

Thomas isn’t actually saying what he is doing when he utters those words. Still, by adding the dialogue tag, ‘said sternly,’ you’ve given readers a clue about how he’s speaking without using an intrusive adverb.

Show body language and tone of voice to indicate how a line is said

Lines can be said in many different ways. If you want your characters to sound different from one another, give them each distinct way of speaking.

The girl shrugged as if she didn’t care. “I don’t want to go. I hate him! He’s an idiot and a jerk. He thinks he can control me, but he’ll never get away with it.”

She shrugged (body language), which showed she didn’t care, and then went on to say she hated the man in question. The way she said it was with vehemence—and so readers can tell that her tone of voice reflected those feelings.

Keep your dialogues short

Long blocks of dialogue can become tedious for readers.

You don’t want to keep interrupting the action with lines of dialogue, so if you have too much to say about one topic, break it up into several chunks of conversation instead of writing it all as one big block:

“I can’t believe you got her to agree to marry you,” she said in awe. “I knew you were unhappy, but I didn’t think you had it in you to make such a big change. And now with the promotion… Wow!”

The ‘she said at the beginning of each line shows readers that the person speaking is changing. But even though the blocks are shorter in the second example, they still give readers a good sense of how each speaker reacts and speaks.

Avoid dialogue tags

These can distract readers from what’s actually being said by breaking up the flow of exchange.

A line of dialogue should be able to stand on its own without adverbs or fragments that indicate how it’s said.

With the exception of dialogue that’s written in dialect, write all dialogue as plain prose.

You can use beats to show a speaker’s tone of voice and/or body language, but avoid writing out those actions in quotation marks like this:

“This is not happening,” Spencer cried as he sank to the ground.

You can use contractions in a line of dialogue when appropriate but try not to overdo it (it is better to err on the side of caution).

Use appropriate language

There’s no need to pepper your story with profanity, colloquialisms, and vulgarities just because you think it will give the characters “voice.”

In real life, people swear or use slang when they’re upset or angry (or both), but unless that’s the case in your story, stick to formal language.

Avoid using adverbs in dialogue tags

Adverbs such as ‘shouted angrily’ tell us how a line is spoken rather than what it means.

Your reader can figure out the tone of voice and other emotions by what’s said.

For example:

“I hate you,” Spencer said angrily; it would be better as:

“I hate you,” he spat.

Mix up your dialogue tags for a variety

Most of the time, you can use ‘said’ and ‘asked’ in your writing , but if you overuse these words, they’ll lose their impact. Instead of writing:

“Where have you been?” she asked wearily.

Use ‘demanded,’ ‘hissed,’ or any number of other verbs to show how your character is speaking. Not only will it make the exchange more interesting, but it’ll also help readers picture how that line is being spoken.

Use slang sparingly

Slang and colloquialisms can be a fun way to capture the voice of your characters, but it’s easy for them to lose their novelty and become distracting.

Used sparingly, they can add flavor to dialogue but don’t overdo it or use too much on one page, or readers will get tired of it.

Slang is often tied to a certain generation or culture, so if you use too many modern expressions, you might lose some readers who are unfamiliar with them. If the slang is integral to the story, however, go ahead and use it.

Keep dialogue in character

You can have your characters speak in dialect or foreign phrases if it’s appropriate to the story. But make sure they’re consistent with how they normally talk (for example, don’t suddenly change from formal to slang).

Give your characters distinctive voices

Make sure each character speaks in a way that’s unique to them. For example, if you have five different people talking, don’t make all of them sound the same.

One person might be more soft-spoken, while another is more reckless or emotional. Their words should be nuanced to reflect their personalities.

Don’t let characters explain too much

Exposition is boring and telling, not showing. Your dialogue tags should add something to the conversation, not reveal what could easily be summarized elsewhere.

Read your dialogue out loud to catch mistakes

You can’t always tell when your dialogue is awkward or doesn’t flow smoothly just by reading it on the page.

Have a coworker read your dialogue aloud and take notes as they do so (they should also be reading your dialogue tags).

This person can catch errors, clunky phrasing, and unnatural patterns that may not be clear to you. This is better than reading aloud to yourself since you’ll be too distracted by the story to notice these things.

15 Dialogue examples (with writing and format tips)

1. The character is shy or doesn’t want to talk to another person.

“I’m not talking to you; I’ve got nothing to say.” He stared at his feet, concentrating on the pattern of holes in the shoes he’d outgrown years before.

2. There is an interruption, and a question is asked by one character and answered by another.

“I’m going to the store.” She twiddled with a button on her shirt and stared at the floor, waiting for his reaction. He frowned but nodded. “Ok, I’ll be back before lunch.”

3. The character needs something from someone else or is angry/upset about something that has happened.

“Why isn’t the washing machine fixed?” He glared at her, hands fisted on his hips. “You know I have a deadline this week. You promised you’d stay on top of these things.”

4. The character speaks to someone they love or admire, and it’s sweet/romantic.

“Did you hear that song? I love that song.” She rested her head on his shoulder and smiled. “I know; it’s beautiful.”

5. The character is warning another person or explaining something in a serious tone of voice.

“Did you hear the sheriff just pulled someone over on Main Street?” He raised an eyebrow and looked out the window. “That’s never good.”

6. The character is playful, flirting with someone they like/love, or teasing another person in a fun way.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he said lightly and winked at her as she came back into the room. She laughed and playfully slapped his arm. “You love it.”

7. It’s the end of a conversation, and one person is saying goodbye to another.

“I have to go now, but I’ll see you next week.” She gave him a small smile before turning away. He nodded and walked her to the door as they said goodbye.

8. The character needs to tell another person that something is wrong or needs to be discussed.

“We need to talk.” His voice was tight, but she ignored it. “I’ll have time later tonight, don’t worry about it.” She shut the door on her way out and walked down the hallway humming to herself. He stood there staring at the door handle, his mind racing.

9. The character is very angry with another person, and they are trying to control their temper or talk about something that’s bothering them in a calm/controlled way.

“When will you have it fixed?” He clenched his fists tightly at his sides, thinking of all the things he wanted to say but didn’t trust himself to speak. “I’ll call the repair guy first thing tomorrow.”

10. The character is nervous or worried about something and doesn’t want another person to ask about it yet, so they change the subject.

“How’s your day going?” He sat down across from her, trying to read her face for hints of what had happened. She shrugged and glanced away, fiddling with a string on her shirt. “I’m fine; how are you?”

11. The character is trying to figure out if another person is lying or telling the truth about something.

“Did you do it?” His eyes bored into hers, demanding an answer she couldn’t give him. She looked away, staring at the floor. “What do you think?”

12. The character is very upset about something and needs to stop/slow down another person trying to leave or calm them down if they are angry/upset.

“Wait! Don’t go.” She cried out as he turned away from her and walked out. “I can’t do this anymore.”

13. The character tells a secret in a warm/confiding way or whispers exciting news to someone they like/love and want to share privately with them.

“It’s almost midnight,” he whispered against her ear as his arm circled her waist from behind. She turned to smile at him. “I know! I can’t wait for midnight.”

14. The character is confused, uncertain about something, or needs someone to explain something to them in a gentle/caring way that makes them feel safe.

“What does this mean?” He frowned at the paper, not understanding why he’d been rejected from the school he’d wanted to apply to. “I’m not sure; I’ll help you figure it out.”

15. The character is feeling playful or mischievous and wants to play a trick on another person.

“You’re going to be in so much trouble when your mom gets home!” He snickered as she looked up at him in disbelief. “That’s not funny….”

You can use more dialogue tags (like ‘angrily,’ ‘murmured,’ etc.), but this list gives you a good idea of how to make your characters sound different from each other and bring out their personality traits through their words!

Hope these examples will help you 🙂

How to write a dialogue between multiple characters: The ESSENTIALS

It’s natural for characters to talk to each other in a story. Communication is important, after all! If you’ve ever struggled with writing dialogue in your own stories and wondered how to make it better, here are the basics of writing dialogue between multiple characters .

Step 1: Decide what your characters will say before anything else

This may seem obvious but knowing what your characters will say before you start typing is key. If you sit down and write a paragraph or two of dialogue without thinking about it, the conversation will likely be choppy and disjointed. You’ll also have trouble understanding why the scene is happening later on.

Step 2: Stop your characters from blurting out everything that’s on their mind

It can be hard in a conversation to know how much information your characters should reveal. They may tell too much or be too mysterious about certain details until the very end of the scene.

Arranging dialogue requires balance and a sense of when to reveal something important.

Step 3: Leave clues as to what the characters are hiding

If you have secrets in your story, make sure not every character knows them—they should only be privy to that information if it’s relevant. This also allows tension to build and creates mystery around certain characters.

Step 4: Make sure each character has a different way of speaking

Though you only have two or three characters in the scene, they should still be as distinct from one another as possible. One may speak more softly, while another might be blunt and to-the-point.

Think about how people speak and mimic that behavior in your dialogue.

Step 5: Keep the characters moving forward

Even during dialogue, your characters should be doing something. They may cross the room and sit down at a table where they can talk in private, or one might say goodbye after revealing the answer to a mystery.

The plot must continue—don’t just let it take a break during the conversation.

Step 6: Focus on what’s important

As writers, sometimes, we want to include every little detail in our dialogue. While that can make for an engaging scene, it may also risk slowing down the pace of your story or bogging readers down with too much information. Figure out which details matter and leave out everything else.

Step 7: Make sure your characters end up in a different place than where they started

Even if they don’t leave the room or have some huge transformation, make sure the scene leads your characters to a new conclusion. They may feel more secure after talking about their fears with another character, or they might learn something about themselves (or someone else) that changes the direction of their life.

A story is about change, and your characters should also be evolving in some way during dialogue scenes.

Step 8: Make sure dialogue is attached to the right character

Dialogue typically belongs with the person speaking, but it can be detached when one character speaks for another.

For example, if someone said, “he told me not to come,” that wouldn’t mean he was talking—the second person would have relayed the message.

Dialogue should almost always be attached to the person who said it, even if that information is being passed on through another character in the scene.

Step 9: Use body language

Body language can go a long way in your dialogue and convey more subtext than you might imagine. It can show a character’s thoughts or how they truly feel, even if they aren’t speaking those words directly.

For example, a character may cross their arms to indicate that they don’t agree with something, or their eyes may widen when they hear particularly shocking news.

Step 10: Use dialogue to build tension

Dialogue can create both narrative and emotional tension. It may reveal a problem that needs to be solved and what each person is thinking about the conversation.

Tension is needed when you want readers to feel excited or nervous, so figure out how you can pull them into dialogue with these elements.

Step 11: Use dialogue to create intimacy

Dialogue can also leave readers feeling close to your characters. Make them feel like they are included in the conversation, especially if it features two people working through a problem together. This creates a sense of community and keeps readers invested in what’s happening.

Step 12: Use dialogue for exposition

Since many writers are reluctant to include too much exposition, dialogue is a great way of getting this information out there without it feeling forced.

However, you can’t just tell readers everything—the characters should be figuring things out simultaneously as the reader. This makes them feel like active participants in the story.

Resources for further reading and exercises in dialogue creation

• Florida State University
• Valparaiso University – Judith L. Beumer Writing Center
• Purdue University- Fiction Writing Basics

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How to Write Dialogue: Rules, Examples, and 8 Tips for Engaging Dialogue

by Fija Callaghan

Fija Callaghan is an author, poet, and writing workshop leader. She has been recognized by a number of awards, including being shortlisting for the H. G. Wells Short Story Prize. She is the author of the short story collection Frail Little Embers , and her writing can be read in places like Seaside Gothic , Gingerbread House , and Howl: New Irish Writing . She is also a developmental editor with Fictive Pursuits. You can read more about her at fijacallaghan.com .

You’ll often hear fiction writers talking about “character-driven stories”—stories where the strengths, weaknesses, and aspirations of the central cast of characters stay with us long after the book is closed. But what drives character, and how do we create characters that leave long-lasting impressions?

The answer lies in dialogue : the device used by our characters to communicate with each other. Powerful dialogue can elevate a story and subtly reveal important information, but poorly written dialogue can send your work straight to the slush bin. Let’s look at what dialogue is in writing, how to properly format dialogue, and how to make your characters’ dialogue the best it can be.

What is dialogue in a story?

Dialogue is the verbal exchange between two or more characters. In most fiction, the exchange is in the form of a spoken conversation. However, conversations in a story can also be things like letters, text messages, telepathy, or even sign language. Any moment where two characters speak or connect with each other through their choice of words, they’re engaging in dialogue.

Why does dialogue matter in a story?

We use dialogue in a story to reveal new information about the plot, characters, and story world. Great dialogue is essential to character development and helps move the plot forward in a story.

Writing good dialogue is a great way to sneak exposition into your story without stating it overtly to the reader; you can also use tools like dialect and diction in your dialogue to communicate more detail about your characters.

Through a character’s dialogue, we can learn about their motivations, relationships, and understanding of the world around them.

A character won’t always say what they mean (more on dialogue subtext below), but everything they say will serve some larger purpose in the story. If your dialogue is well-written, the reader will absorb this information without even realizing it. If your dialogue is clunky, however, it will stand out and pull your reader away from your story.

Rules for writing dialogue

Before we get into how to make your dialogue realistic and engaging, let’s make sure you’ve got the basics down: how to properly format dialogue in a story. We’ll look at how to punctuate dialogue, how to write dialogue correctly when using a question mark or exclamation point, and some helpful dialogue writing examples.

Here are the need-to-know rules for formatting dialogue in writing.

Enclose lines of dialogue in double quotation marks

This is the most essential rule in basic dialogue punctuation. When you write dialogue in North American English, a spoken line will have a set of double quotation marks around it. Here’s a simple dialogue example:

“Were you at the party last night?”

Any punctuation such as periods, question marks, and exclamation marks will also go inside the quotation marks. The quotation marks give a visual clue to the reader that this line is spoken out loud.

In European or British English, however, you’ll often see single quotation marks being used instead of double quotation marks. All the other rules stay the same.

Enclose nested dialogue in single quotation marks

Nested dialogue is when one line of dialogue happens inside another line of dialogue—when someone is verbally quoting someone else. In North American English, you’d use single quotation marks to identify where the new dialogue line starts and stops, like this:

“And then, do you know what he said to me? Right to my face, he said, ‘I stayed home all night.’ As if I didn’t even see him.”

The double and single quotation marks give the reader clues as to who’s speaking. In European or British English, the quotation marks would be reversed; you’d use single quotation marks on the outside, and double quotation marks on the inside.

Every speaker gets a new paragraph

Every time you switch to a new speaker, you end the line where it is and start a new line. Here are some dialogue examples to show you how it looks:

“Were you at the party last night?” “No, I stayed home all night.”

The same is true if the new “speaker” is only in focus because of their action. You can think of the paragraphs like camera angles, each one focusing on a different person:

“Were you at the party last night?” “No, I stayed home all night.” She raised a single, threatening eyebrow. “Yeah, I wasn’t feeling that well, so I just stayed in and watched Netflix instead.”

If you kept the action on the same line as the dialogue, it would get confusing and make it look like she was the one saying it. Giving each character a new paragraph keeps the speakers clear and distinct.

Use em-dashes when dialogue gets cut short

If your character begins to speak but is interrupted, you’ll break off their line of dialogue with an em-dash, like this:

“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling that well, so I just stayed in and—” “Is that really what happened?”

Be careful with this one, because many word processors will treat your em-dash like the beginning of a new sentence and attach your closing quotation marks backwards:

“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling that well, so I just stayed in and—“

You may need to keep an eye out and adjust as you go along.

In this dialogue example, the new speaker doesn’t lead with an em-dash; they just start speaking like normal. The only time you’ll ever open a line of dialogue with an em-dash is if the speaker who’s been cut off continues with what they were saying:

“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling that well, so I just stayed in and—” “Is that really what happened?” “—watched Netflix instead. Yes, that’s what happened.”

This shows the reader that there’s actually only one line of dialogue, but it’s been cut in the middle by another speaker.

Each line of dialogue is indented

Every time you give your speaker a new paragraph, it’s indented from the left-hand side. Many word processors will do this automatically. The only exception is if your dialogue is opening your story or a new section of your story, such as a chapter; these will always start at the far left margin of the page, whether they’re dialogue or narration.

Long speeches don’t use use closing quotation marks until the end

Most writers favor shorter lines of dialogue in their writing, but sometimes you might need to give your character a longer one—for instance, if the character speaking is giving a speech or telling a story. In these cases, you might choose to break up their speech into shorter paragraphs the way you would if you were writing regular narrative.

However, here the punctuation gets a bit weird. You’ll begin the character’s dialogue with a double quotation mark, like normal. But you won’t use a double quotation mark at the end of the paragraph, because they haven’t finished speaking yet. But! You’ll use another opening quotation mark at the beginning of the subsequent paragraph. This means that you may use several opening double quotation marks for your character’s speech, but only ever one closing quotation mark.

If your character is telling a story that involves people talking, remember to use single quotation marks for your dialogue-within-dialogue as we looked at above.

Sometimes these dialogue formatting rules are easier to catch later on, during the editing process. When you’re writing, worry less about using the exact dialogue punctuation and more about writing great dialogue that supports your character development and moves the story forward.

How to use dialogue tags

Dialogue tags help identify the speaker. They’re especially important if you have a group of people all talking together, and it can get pretty confusing for the reader trying to keep everybody straight. If you’re using a speech tag after your line of dialogue—he said, she said, and so forth—you’ll end your sentence with a comma, like this:

“No, I stayed home all night,” he said.

But if you’re using an action to identify the person speaking instead, you’ll punctuate the sentence like normal and start a new sentence to describe the action taking place:

“No, I stayed home all night.” He looked down at his feet.

The dialogue tags and action tags always follow in the same paragraph. When you move your story lens to a new person, you’ll switch to a new paragraph. Each line where a new person speaks propels the story forward.

When to use capitals in dialogue tags

You may have noticed in the two examples above that one dialogue tag begins with a lowercase letter, and one—which is technically called an action tag—begins with a capital letter. Confusing? The rules are simple once you get a little practice.

When you use a dialogue tag like “he said,” “she said,” “he whispered,” or “she shouted,” you’re using these as modifiers to your sentence—dressing it up with a little clarity. They’re an extension of the sentence the person was speaking. That’s why you separate them with a comma and keep going.

With an action tag , you’re ending one sentence and beginning a whole new one. Each sentence represents two distinct moments in the story. That’s why you end the first sentence with a period, and then open the next one with a capital letter.

If you’re not sure, try reading them out loud:

“No, I stayed home all night,” he said. “No, I stayed home all night.” He looked down at his feet.

Since you can’t hear quotation marks out loud, the way you say them will show you if they’re one sentence or two. In the first example, you can hear how the sentence keeps going after the dialogue ends. In the second example, you can hear how one sentence comes to a full stop and another one begins.

But what if your dialogue tag comes before the dialogue, instead of after? In this case, the dialogue is always capitalized because the speaker is beginning a new sentence:

He said, “No, I stayed home all night.” He looked down at his feet. “No, I stayed home all night.”

You’ll still use a comma after the dialogue tag and a period after the action tag, just like if you’d separate them if you were putting your tag at the end.

If you’re not sure, ask yourself if your leading tag sounds like a full sentence or a partial sentence. If it sounds like a partial sentence, it gets a comma. If it reads like a full sentence that stands on its own, it gets a period.

External vs. internal dialogue

All of the dialogue we’ve looked at so far is external dialogue, which is directed from one character to another. The other type of dialogue is internal dialogue, or inner dialogue, where a character is talking to themselves. You’ll use this when you want to show what a character is thinking, but other characters can’t hear.

Usually, internal dialogue will be written in italics to distinguish it from the rest of the text. That shows the reader that the line is happening inside the character’s head. For example:

It’s not a big deal, she thought. It’s just a new school. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.

Here you can see that the dialogue tag is used in the same way, just as if it was a line of external dialogue. However, “she thought” is written in regular text because it’s not a part of what the character is thinking. This helps keep everything clear for the reader.

In your story, you can play with using contrasting internal and external dialogue to show that what your characters say isn’t always what they mean. You may also choose to use this internal dialogue formatting if you’re writing dialogue between two or more characters that isn’t spoken out loud—for instance, telepathically or by sign language.

8 tips for creating engaging dialogue in a story

Now that you’ve mastered the mechanics of how to write dialogue, let’s look at how to create convincing, compelling dialogue that will elevate your story.

1. Listen to people talk

To write convincingly about people, you’ll first need to know something about them. The work of great writers is often characterized by their insight into humanity; you read them and think, “Yes, this is exactly what people are like.” You can begin accumulating your own insight by listening to what real people say to each other.

You can go to any public place where people are likely to gather and converse: cafés, art galleries, political events, dimly lit pubs, bookshops. Record snippets of conversation, pay attention to how people’s voices change as they move from speaking to one person to another, try to imagine what it is they’re not saying, the words simmering just under the surface.

By listening to stories unfold in real time, you’ll have a better idea of how to recreate them in your writing—and inspiration for some new stories, too.

2. Give each spoken line a purpose

Here is something that actors have drilled into their heads from their first day at drama school, and writers would do well to remember it too: every single line of dialogue has a hidden motivation. Every time your character speaks, they’re trying to achieve something, either overtly or covertly.

Small talk is rare in fiction, because it doesn’t advance the plot or reveal something about your characters. The exception is when your characters are using their small talk for a specific purpose, such as to put off talking about the real issue, to disarm someone, or to pretend they belong somewhere they don’t.

When writing your own dialogue, ask yourself what the line accomplishes in the story. If you come up blank, it probably doesn’t need to be there. Words need to earn their place on the page.

3. Embrace subtext

In real life, we rarely say exactly what we really mean. The reality of polite society is that we’ve evolved to speak in circles around our true intentions, afraid of the consequences of speaking our mind. Your characters will be no different. If your protagonist is trying to tell their best friend they’re in love with them, for instance, they’ll come up with about fifty different ways to say it before speaking the deceptively simple words themselves.

To write better dialogue, try exploring different ways of moving your characters around what’s really being said, layering text and subtext side by side. The reader will love picking apart the conversation between your characters and deducing what’s really happening underneath (incidentally, this is also the place where fan fiction is born).

4. Keep names to a minimum

You may notice that on television, in moments of great upheaval, the characters will communicate exactly how important the moment is by saying each other’s names in dramatic bursts of anger/passion/fear/heartbreak/shock. In real life, we say each other’s names very rarely; saying someone’s name out loud can actually be a surprisingly intimate experience.

Names may be a necessary evil right at the beginning of your story so your reader knows who’s who, but after you’ve established your cast, try to include names in dialogue only when it makes sense to do so. If you’re not sure, try reading the dialogue out loud to see if it sounds like something someone would actually say (we’ll talk more about reading out loud below).

5. Prune unnecessary words

This is one area where reality and story differ. In life, dialogue is full of filler words: “Um, uh, well, so yeah, then I was like, erm, huh?” You may have noticed this when you practiced listening to dialogue, above. We won’t say there’s never a place for these words in fiction, but like all words in storytelling, they need to earn their place. You might find filler words an effective tool for showing something about one particular character, or about one particular moment, but you’ll generally find that you use them a lot less than people really do in everyday speech.

When you’re reviewing your characters’ dialogue, remember the hint above: each line needs a purpose. It’s the same for each word. Keep only the ones that contribute something to the story.

6. Vary word choices and rhythms

The greatest dialogue examples in writing use distinctive character voices; each character sounds a little bit different, because they have their own personality.

This can be tricky to master, but an easy way to get started is to look at the word choice and rhythm for each character. You might have one character use longer words and run-on sentences, while another uses smaller words and simple, single-clause sentences. You might have one lean on colloquial regional dialect, where another sounds more cosmopolitan. Play around with different ways to develop characters and give each one their own voice.

7. Be consistent for each character

When you do find a solid, believable voice for your character, make sure that it stays consistent throughout your entire story. It’s easy to set a story aside for a while, then return to it and forget some of the work you did in distinguishing your characters’ dialogue. You might find it helpful to write down some notes about the way each character speaks so you can refer back to it later.

The exception, of course, is if your character’s speech pattern goes through a transformation over the course of the story, like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady . In this case, you can use your character’s distinctive voice to communicate a major change. But as with all things in writing, make sure that it comes from intention and not from forgetfulness.

8. Read your dialogue out loud

After you’ve written a scene between two or more characters, you can take the dialogue for a trial run by speaking it out loud. Ask yourself, does the dialogue sound realistic? Are there any moments where it drags or feels forced? Does the voice feel natural for each character? You’ll often find there are snags you miss in your writing that only become apparent when read out loud. Bonus: this is great practice for when you become rich and famous and do live readings at bookshops.

3 mistakes to avoid when writing dialogue

Easy, right? But there are also a few pitfalls that new writers often encounter when writing dialogue that can drag down an otherwise compelling story. Here are the things to watch out for when crafting your story dialogue.

1. Too much exposition

Exposition is one of the more demanding literary devices , and one of the ones most likely to trip up new writers. Dialogue is a good place to sneak in some information about your story—but subtlety is essential. This is one place where the adage “show, don’t tell” really shines.

Consider these dialogue examples:

“How is she, Doctor?” “Well Mr. Stuffington, I don’t have to remind you that your daughter, the sole heiress to your estate and currently engaged to the Baron of Flippingshire, has suffered a grievous injury when she fell from her horse last Sunday. We don’t need to discuss right now whether or not you think her jealous maid was responsible; what matters is your daughter’s well being. As to your question, I’m afraid it’s very unlikely that she’ll ever walk again.” Can’t you just feel your arm aching to throw the poor book across the room? There’s a lot of important information here, but you can find subtler ways to work it into your story. Let’s try again: “How is she, Doctor?” “Well Mr. Stuffington, your daughter took quite a blow from that horse—worse than we initially thought. I’m afraid it’s very unlikely that she’ll ever walk again.” “And what am I supposed to say to Flippingshire?” “The Baron? I suppose you’ll have to tell him that his future wife has lost the use of her legs.”

And so forth. To create good dialogue exposition, look for little ways to work in the details of your story, instead of piling it up in one great clump.

2. Too much small talk

We looked at how each line of dialogue needs a specific purpose above. Very often small talk in a story happens because the writer doesn’t know what the scene is about. Small talk doesn’t move the scene along unless it’s there for a reason. If you’re not sure, ask yourself what each character wants in this moment.

For example, imagine you’re in an office, and two characters are talking by the water cooler. How was your weekend, what did you think of the game, how’s your wife doing, are those new shoes, etc etc. Can’t you just feel the reader’s will to live slipping away?

But what about this: your characters are talking by the water cooler—Character A and Character B. Character A knows that his friend is inside Character B’s office looking for evidence of corporate espionage, so A is doing everything he can to stop B from going in. How was your weekend, what did you think of the game, how’s your wife doing, are those new shoes, literally anything just to keep him talking. Suddenly these benign little phrases have a purpose.

If you find your characters slipping into small talk, double check that it’s there for a purpose, and not just a crutch to keep you from moving forward in your scene. When writing dialogue, Make each line of dialogue earn its place.

3. Too much repetition

Variation is the spice of a good story. To keep your readers engaged, avoid using the same sentence structure and the same dialogue tags over and over again. Using “he said” and “she said” is effective and clear cut, but only for about three beats. After that, try switching to an action tag instead or letting the line of dialogue stand on its own.

You can also experiment with varying the length of your sentences or groupings of sentences. By changing up the rhythm of your story regularly, you’ll keep it feeling fresh and present for the reader.

Effective dialogue examples from literature

With all of these tips and tricks in mind, let’s look at how other writers have used good dialogue to elevate their stories.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine , by Gail Honeyman

“I’m going to pick up a carryout and head round to my mate Andy’s. A few of us usually hang out there on Saturday nights, fire up the playstation, have a smoke and a few beers.” “Sounds utterly delightful,” I said. “What about you?” he asked. I was going home, of course, to watch a television program or read a book. What else would I be doing? “I shall return to my flat,” I said. “I think there might be a documentary about komodo dragons on BBC4 later this evening.”

In this dialogue example, the author gives her characters two very distinctive voices. From just a few words we can begin to see these people very clearly in our minds—and with this distinction comes the tension that drives the story. Dialogue is an excellent place to show your character dynamics using speech patterns and word choices.

Pride and Prejudice , by Jane Austen

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?” Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. “But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.” Mr. Bennet made no answer. “Do you not want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently. “You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.” This was invitation enough. “Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.”

In this famous dialogue example, the author illustrates the relationship between these two characters clearly and succinctly. Their dialogue shows Mr. B’s stalwart, tolerant love for his wife and Mrs. B’s excitement and propensity for gossip. The author shows us everything we need to know about these people in just a few lines.

Dinner in Donnybrook , by Maeve Binchy

“Look, I thought you ought to know, we’ve had a very odd letter from Carmel.” “A what… from Carmel?” “A letter. Yes, I know it’s sort of out of character, I thought maybe something might be wrong and you’d need to know…” “Yes, well, what did she say, what’s the matter with her?” “Nothing, that’s the problem, she’s inviting us to dinner.” “To dinner?” “Yes, it’s sort of funny, isn’t it? As if she wasn’t well or something. I thought you should know in case she got in touch with you.” “Did you really drag me all the way down here, third years are at the top of the house you know, I thought the house had burned down! God, wait till I come home to you. I’ll murder you.” “The dinner’s in a month’s time, and she says she’s invited Ruth O’Donnell.” “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

This dialogue example is a telephone conversation between two people. The lack of dialogue tags or action tags allows the words to come to the forefront and immerses us in their back-and-forth conversation. Even though there are no tags to indicate the speakers, the language is simple and straightforward enough that the reader always knows who’s talking. Through this conversation the author slowly builds the tension from the benign to the catastrophic within a domestic setting.

Compelling dialogue is the key to a good story

A writer has a lot riding on their characters’ dialogue, and learning how to write dialogue is a critical skill for any writer. When done well, it can leaves a lasting impact on the reader. But when dialogue is clumsy and awkward, it can drag your story down and make your reader feel like they’re wasting their time.

But if you keep these tips in mind, listen to dialogue in your everyday life, and practice , you’ll be sure to create realistic dialogue that brings your story to life.

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How to Write Dialogue in a Narrative Paragraph

By Hayley Milliman

What is Dialogue?

How to write dialogue, how to punctuate your dialogue, periods and commas, question marks and exclamation points, final thoughts.

Dialogue is the written conversational exchange between two or more characters.

Conventional English grammar rules tell us that you should always start a new paragraph when someone speaks in your writing.

“Let’s get the heck out of here right now,” Mary said, turning away from the mayhem.

John looked around the pub. “Maybe you’re right,” he said and followed her towards the door.

Sometimes, though, in the middle of a narrative paragraph, your main character needs to speak.

Mary ducked away from flying fists. The fight at the pub was getting out of control. One man was grabbing bar stools and throwing them at others, and while she watched, another one who you could tell worked out regularly grabbed men by their shirt collars and tossed them out of the way. Almost hit by one flying person, she turned to John and said, “Let’s get the heck out of here right now.”

In my research, I couldn’t find any hard and fast rules that govern how to use dialogue in the middle of a narrative paragraph. It all depends on what style manual your publisher or editorial staff follow.

For example, in the Chicago Manual of Style , putting dialogue in the middle of paragraphs depends on the context. As in the above example, if the dialogue is a natural continuation of the sentences that come before, it can be included in your paragraph. The major caveat is if someone new speaks after that, you start a new paragraph and indent it.

On the other hand, if the dialogue you’re writing departs from the sentences that come before it, you should start a new paragraph and indent the dialogue.

The fight at the pub was getting out of control. One man was grabbing bar stools and throwing them at others, and another one who you could tell worked out regularly grabbed men by their shirt collars and tossed them out of the way.

Punctuation for dialogue stays consistent whether it’s included in your paragraph or set apart as a separate paragraph. We have a great article on how to punctuate your dialogue here: Where Does Punctuation Go in Dialogue?

It’s often a stylistic choice whether to include your dialogue as part of the paragraph. If you want your dialogue to be part of the scene described in preceding sentences, you can include it.

But if you want your dialogue to stand out from the action, start it in the next paragraph.

Dialogue is a fantastic way to bring your readers into the midst of the action. They can picture the main character talking to someone in their mind’s eye, and it gives them a glimpse into how your character interacts with others.

That said, dialogue is hard to punctuate, especially since there are different rules for different punctuation marks—because nothing in English grammar is ever easy, right?

We’re going to try to make this as easy as possible. So we’ll start with the hardest punctuation marks to understand.

For American English, periods and commas always go inside your quotation marks, and commas are used to separate your dialogue tag from the actual dialogue when it comes at the beginning of a sentence or in the middle. Here are a few examples:

Nancy said, “Let’s go to the park today since the weather is so beautiful.”

“Let’s go to the park today since the weather is so beautiful,” she said.

“Let’s go to the park today,” she said, “since the weather is so beautiful.”

British English puts the periods and commas inside the quotation marks if they’re actually part of the quoted words or sentence. Consider the following example:

• She sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, the theme song from The Wizard of Oz.

In the above example, the comma after “Rainbow” is not part of the quoted material and thus belongs outside the quotation marks.

But for most cases when you’re punctuating dialogue, the commas and periods belong inside the quotation marks.

Where these punctuation marks go depends on the meaning of your sentence. If your main character is asking someone a question or exclaiming about something, the punctuation marks belongs inside the quotation marks.

Nancy asked, “Does anyone want to go to the park today?”

Marija said, “That’s fantastic news!”

“Please say you’re still my friend!” Anna said.

“Can we just leave now?” asked Henry.

But if the question mark or exclamation point is for the sentence as a whole instead of just the words inside the quotation marks, they belong outside of the quotes.

Does your physical therapist always say to his patients, “You just need to try harder”?

Do you agree with the saying, “All’s fair in love and war”?

Single Quotation Marks

Only use single quotation marks for quotes within quotes, such as when a character is repeating something someone else has said. Single quotes are never used for any other purpose.

Avery said, “I saw a sign that read ‘Welcome to America’s Greatest City in the Midwest’ when I entered town this morning.”

“I heard Mona say to her mom, ‘You know nothing whatsoever about me,’ ” said Jennifer.

Some experts put a space after the single quote and before the main quotation mark like in the above example to make it easier for the reader to understand.

Here’s a trickier example of single quotation marks, question marks, and ending punctuation, just to mix things up a little.

• Mark said, “I heard her ask her lawyer, ‘Am I free to go?’ after the verdict was read this morning.”

Perfectly clear, right? Let us know some of your trickiest dialogue punctuation situations in the comments below.

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Hayley Milliman

Hayley is the Head of Education and Community at ProWritingAid. Prior to joining this team, Hayley spent several years as an elementary school teacher and curriculum developer in Memphis, TN. When Hayley isn't hunched over her keyboard, you can find her figure skating at the ice rink or hiking with her dog.

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A Complete Guide To Writing Dialogue

One of the writer’s most effective tools is dialogue. A story with little or no conversation between characters can sometimes make the eyelids flicker. Too much may leave the reader breathless. Writing dialogue is tough and a skill that takes time to master. 

However, there are plenty of useful tips, tools and methods to help you learn how to write dialogue in a story and how to format it too.

And for your benefit, you can find them all in this comprehensive guide.

Below, you can find the definition of dialogue, tags and formatting guidelines and a discussion on the different ways characters speak and converse.

And you can also find plenty of illuminating dialogue examples to help you gain a clear understanding of the mechanics and how you can apply it to our own writing.

You can jump through this guide by clicking below:

Choose A Chapter

What is dialogue, how to format dialogue.

• Should I Use ‘Said’ And Asked?

How To Write Dialogue Between Two Characters

How to write dialogue readers love, how to write internal dialogue, an exercise on how to write dialogue in a story, good dialogue examples from fiction, technical writing tip – how does dialogue impact the pacing of a story, how do you edit dialogue, take part in our survey on writing dialogue.

Dialogue is defined as a conversation between two or more characters , particularly in the context of a book, film or play.

Specific to writing, dialogue is the conversation between characters.

A n author may use dialogue to provide the reader with new information about characters or the plot, delivered in a more natural way. They may also utilise it to speed up the pace of the story.

As we’ll see below, there seems to be one pervading guideline when it comes to writing great dialogue and that is clarity reigns supreme.

What Is Internal Dialogue?

Internal dialogue is that which happens within a character’s mind . This can sometimes be reflected in fiction with the use of italics. For example:

I hope they don’t come down here, Mycah thought.

Internal dialogue is a great way of delving deeper into a character’s mind and perspective and is a powerful weapon when it comes to characterization. We explore it in more detail below.

Writers have different stylistic preferences when it comes to dialogue. Below, we’ll take a look at some of the best practices and common literary conventions, such as the use of a dialogue tag and quotation marks. 

Using Quotation Marks

If sticking to the principle of clarity reigns supreme, then for me, using double quotation marks is the most effective way of communicating dialogue.

They’re universally recognised as a means of conveying dialogue, and they stand out more on the page in contrast to single quotation marks. There are more reasons for using them, however, and that involves a criqute of the single quotation mark.

Writing Dialogue With Single Quotation Marks

This does come down to a matter of style.

The best format I’ve found, and by best I mean the approach readers find clearest, is to use speech marks (“) as opposed to a single apostrophe (‘).

If, for instance, a character is speaking and quotes someone else, single quotation marks can be used within the speech marks, therefore avoiding any confusion, for example:

  “I can’t believe she called me ‘an ungrateful cow.’ She’s got some nerve.”

Format Dialogue On A Single Line

Another helpful approach to help maintain clarity is to begin a piece of dialogue on a new line whenever a new character speaks. For instance:

“Who was at the door?” Nick asked. “A couple of Mormons,” Sarah said.

Adding Dialogue Tags

Dialogue tags are simply a piece of prose that follows a piece of speech that identifies who spoke. You can see it in the example above featuring Nick and Sarah.

You can use a dialogue tag in lots of useful ways. For example body language.

If a character reacts to something another character says or does, to maintain clarity, pop the reaction on a new line, followed by dialogue. So for example:

“We’re all sold out,” Dan said. Jim sighed. “Have you not got any in the back?”

Do You Always Need To Use Dialogue Tags?

Something I’ve noticed some of my favourite writers doing—James Barclay and George R.R. Martin, in particular—is, when possible, avoid using an attribution altogether. Less is more, as they say. If just a couple of people are talking, it may already be clear from the voices and language of the characters who exactly is speaking.

Again, to aid clarity, if there are a number of people involved in a conversation, it helps to use an attribution whenever a different character speaks. Nobody wants to waste time re-reading passages to check who’s speaking. I don’t enjoy it and I’m sure others don’t either.

Repetitive use of attribution may grate on a reader. It can suggest a lack of trust in them to follow the story. It helps when editing to look for moments where it’s unclear who’s speaking and if necessary add an attribution.

A brief point on the styles of attribution. If you read a lot, you may notice some writers prefer the order “John said,” and some prefer “said John”. Sanderson is of the view that the character’s name should come first because that’s the most important bit of information to the reader. But the likes of Tolkien adopted the latter version. It’s all personal preference. Why not mix and match?

Should I Use “Said” And “Asked”?

When it comes to the questions I often see asked on how to write dialogue, this is perhaps the most common.

An attribution, also known as an identifier or tag, is the part of the sentence that follows a piece of dialogue. For example: “John said.” In his creative writing lectures, Brandon Sanderson shares a few useful tips.

• Try to place the attribution as early as possible to help make it clear in the reader’s mind who is speaking. This can be done mid-sentence, such as: “I don’t fancy that,” Milo said. “What else do you have?” Breaking away like this works well if a character is going to be speaking for a few lines or paragraphs. You can also use an attribution before the dialogue, though there’s something about this that I find jarring. Used sparingly it works well, but too often just seems annoying and archaic. It’s all personal preference though.
• Try using beats, but not too many. What’s a beat? A beat is a reaction to something said or done. So for example facial expressions like frowning, smiling, narrowing of the eyes, biting of the lip, and hand gestures such as pointing, clenching fists, and fidgeting. And then you’ve got physical movements, like pacing up and down, smashing a glass, punching a wall.
• Don’t worry about using ‘said’ and ‘asked’. To the reader, these words are almost invisible. What they care about is who exactly is speaking.
• When a character first speaks refer to them by name, but after that, it’s fine to refer to them as he or she, provided they’re still the one speaking. It’s even desirable to use the pronoun; repeating a name over and over can irritate a reader.

Remember the overarching principle for when it comes to writing dialogue: clarity reigns supreme. Using ‘said’ and ‘asked’ is often the clearest way of getting your point across.

What To Use Instead Of Said In Dialogue

Remember, there’s no problem with using the word ‘said’ after a piece of dialogue. But if you find when reading your piece aloud that the repeated use jars, especially in a dialogue-rich scene, you may want to mix things up.

Using words other than ‘said’ can help to characterize too—everybody reacts differently to things and those reactions reveal a lot about a person.

So, here’s a list of twenty words that you can use instead of ‘said’ when writing dialogue:

• Pointed out
• Interrupted

So, let’s take a look at how to write dialogue between two characters. If you’d rather have a visual explainer, check out this informative video below.

A useful distinction to make is between everyday dialogue and the dialogue we find in fiction.

The chatter we hear in real life is full of rambling, repetitive sentences, grumbles, grunts, ‘erms’ and ‘ahs’, with answers to questions filled with echoes (repeating a part of the question posed, e.g. “How are you?” asked A. “How am I?” B answered).

When we think of the dialogue we read in books, it contains little of the things we find in these everyday exchanges. According to Sol Stein, there’s a reason for this—it’s boring to read.

If it holds no relevance to the story, we don’t care if a character’s cat prefers to eat at your neighbour’s house instead of your own, or if they think their nail job isn’t worth the money they paid, or if they think the window cleaner isn’t cleaning their windows. There are some snippets we overhear on the street that are interesting—an unusual name, a section of a story we want to know more about. Rare diamonds in a mine miles deep. I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to achieve realistic dialogue and it makes for drawn-out scenes and boring exchanges.

According to Stein, dialogue ought not to be a recording of actual speech, but rather a semblance of it.

What is this semblance of dialogue why should we try and achieve it?

So, how do we write  good  dialogue?

When we scrutinise a person as they’re talking (all the boring stuff aside) we discover a lot about their character: who they are, what they believe in, and sometimes, if they reveal them, their motives. We glean all this from word choice, sentence structure, choice of topic, their behaviour as they say something.

It’s these little details we as writers must dig for, so when it comes to writing our own dialogue, we can use them to help characterise our own characters and, if possible, develop the plot. The key to mastering dialogue , according to Stein, is to factor in both characterisation and plot.

How do we do it? Let’s look at some dialogue writing examples:

Milford:                       How are you? Belle:                            How am I? I’m fine. How are you? Milford:                       Well thanks. And the family? Belle:                            Great

I had to stop myself from stabbing my eyes out with my pen. This example is mundane, riddled with echoes, and gives us no imagery about the characters involved. How about this version?

Milford:                        How are you? Belle:                            Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t see you there. Milford:                        Is this a bad time? Belle:                            No, no. Absolutely not.

See the difference? Milford asks Belle a question, which Belle doesn’t answer. This is an example of oblique dialogue . It’s indirect, evasive, and creates conflict.

It’s a great tool for when it comes to looking at how to write dialogue in a story using different approaches. Our character is not getting answers. Oblique language helps to reveal a bit about the characters and the plot, namely that Belle could be a bit shifty and up to something unsavoury.

Writing Realistic Dialogue

When it comes to knowing how to write natural dialogue, the question to ask yourself is whether or not this style is going to fit your story.

Natural dialogue suits some stories wonderfully. However, it can also work against your story, maybe confusing things for your readers or making it too difficult to read.

When it comes to writing natural dialogue, it’s important to bear in mind the principles discussed here. Give your conversations purpose, make them oblique or intriguing, and don’t give information up cheaply.

You can achieve this in a natural or more casual or informal style.

If you’re looking for more visual tips and advice on writing dialogue, check out this excellent video below:

Say It Aloud

When you’ve written a piece of dialogue, one of the best and simplest techniques to check how it works is to say it out loud.

In doing so you’ll get a sense of how natural it is or whether it jars, or even if it’s cringy or cliche—we’ve all been there.

If you don’t feel comfortable speaking it aloud, you can use a Text to Voice function, like on a website like Natural Readers which allows you to paste in text and then have it read it back to you (it’s free).

Add Slang From Your World

An effective way to write good dialogue that not only characterizes and drives the plot but adds to your world, is to use slang or world-specific references. This can be particularly useful in the fantasy and sci-fi genres .

For example, in my novel  Pariah’s Lament , I refer to the world in place of phrases that refer to our own. So instead of “What in the world was that?” I’d say something like “What in Tervia was that?”

Small Talk And Hellos And Goodbyes

As a general rule, there’s no need to include small talk, hellos and goodbyes. The reader isn’t really too bothered about these niceties. They just want to get to the action, the conflict.

You can brush over things like small talk and hellos with short descriptions in your prose writing . For instance:

Stef and John stepped into the room. A sea of smiling faces welcomed them and before they knew it, they were shaking hands and embracing. “I wasn’t expecting such a warm welcome,” Stef said. “It’s like they have no idea what we’ve done,” John replied. “Maybe they don’t.” “Or maybe they do, and it’s all a ruse.” Stef looked at him a moment, thoughtful. “You’re getting paranoid.”

See here how the hellos were glided by and we’re straight into more interesting dialogue? You can also cut back on the odd superfluous dialogue tag too if it doesn’t add to your story.

Give Your Characters Their Own Voice

A character’s voice is an important factor in dialogue. Nobody speaks in the same way. Some people have lisps, some people say their ‘r’s’ like ‘w’s’, some people don’t enunciate properly, say words differently, speak in accents, and have a nasal twang. There are so many variables.

Introducing these features to some or all of your characters can help to make them more memorable and distinct.

How To Write Dialogue For A Drunk Character

When we’re writing our stories it’s likely that some of our characters may become intoxicated with alcohol or drugs. This creates the question in a writer’s mind, how do you write dialogue for a drunk character?

We can fall into the trap of spelling out the words that they try to say, factoring in the slurs, the missed words and the mispronunciations. The problem this can create is that it can go against our overarching principle of clarity reigns supreme.

Dialogue that’s too difficult to read can cause frustration in the reader. They may get fed up and stop reading altogether—the last thing we want.

The best technique is to provide a description of how the person is talking. Describe how they slur their words, how certain letters sound in their drunken state and so on. Including body language in this will help a great deal too. You can then write dialogue in a more natural and understandable way.

The same applies to the likes of writing stuttering in dialogue. It can be very frustrating for a person to listen to a person with a stutter. To include it in your writing can cause problems too. So again one of the best solutions is to describe the stutter first and then write dialogue naturally.

Hopefully, these tips will help you with how to write dialogue for our intoxicated characters.

An Author May Use Dialogue To Provide The Reader With Information, But Don’t Info Dump

An author may use dialogue to provide the reader with useful information. However, if done incorrectly it can have a negative effect.

In his book The First Five Pages , Noah Lukeman says that one of his biggest reasons for rejecting a manuscript is the use of informative dialogue. In other words, using dialogue as a means for conveying information, or info-dumping . He says it suggests the writer is lazy, too unimaginative to convey the information in a subtler way. If you’d like to learn more about avoiding info dumps, check out my guide on natural worldbuilding .

Sometimes dialogue will give us no information at all. Sometimes snippets. Often if you overhear a conversation between two people you’ll find you understand little of what they discuss. It’s the little details they reveal that are most interesting. Take the example of someone mentioning they went to the hospital. The person they’re with may know why they went, but you don’t. Give the reader pieces of the giant puzzle and leave them wanting more.

Lukeman suggests a few solutions to mend instances of informative dialogue. One is to highlight pieces of dialogue that merely convey information and do not reveal or suggest the character’s personality or wants. Break them apart and find a way to let them trickle into the story.

Understanding how to write internal dialogue can prove a key weapon in your writing arsenal.

This style of dialogue can be employed effectively in scenes or stories focused on lone characters. It can break up the monotony of long paragraphs of exposition, which provides welcome relief to readers. Unlike other forms, you don’t need to use a dialogue tag as such.

There are a couple of common ways that you can employ internal dialogue in writing:

• The first option is to italicise the comments made by your character internally. For example: “A door downstairs slammed shut.  It’s not windy tonight. How the hell could that have happened?” The main idea here is that the italicised words make it clear to the reader that this is internal dialogue.
• Another option is to write internal dialogue as you would normal dialogue, with speech marks. The difference is what follows that passage of conversation. Usually, it’s something like, “I really do need to get that fixed,” Halle thought to herself. Here, you simply identify that the dialogue was spoken in the mind and not aloud.

As for which is best for how to write effective dialogue for internal thoughts, it’s all a matter of style. However, my personal preference is using italics. To me, it’s just clearer to readers, and that’s the main aim. So that is how to write internal dialogue.

As a little exercise, try and think of some oblique responses to the following line. I’ll give you an example to start. Remember to factor in Stein’s key ingredients— characterisation and plot:

            Exercise: “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

            Example: “Did you say the same thing to that blonde girl behind the bar?”

In this example of how to write dialogue, we get a response that avoids answering the statement. She could quite easily turn around and say “Thank you,” but that’s boring. Instead, we’re wondering about this man and what he’s about, and a bit more about the woman too, namely that she’s observant.

Let’s take a look at some good dialogue examples from some of the finest pieces of fiction to grave our bookshelves:

Dialogue Example #1 “The Silence of the Lambs” by Thomas Harris

“Good morning, Dr. Lecter. How are you feeling?”

“Better than your last visit, Clarice. Shall I have a chair brought in for you?”

“No thank you, I’d rather stand.”

“Please, sit. That’s better. You know, you remind me of someone. A young man I met long ago. He was a student like yourself, with a quick mind and a charming smile. I wonder what became of him.”

“I don’t know, Dr. Lecter. I’m here to ask you about Buffalo Bill.”

Dialogue Example #2 “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger

“You’re lucky. You’re really lucky. You know that, don’t you?” I said.

“Don’t worry about me,” Sally said. “I’ll be all right. I’m serious.”

“I know you will,” I said. “That’s why I’d like to talk to you for just a minute. This is no kidding. You’re going to have to have yourself a grand time this summer. Especially this summer. Have yourself a real need. Because you’re going to go to a lot of parties, and some of them are going to be quite grim, and you’re going to need that need.”

“I know I will,” Sally said. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I know you will,” I said. “But do it anyway. Do it for me. Okay?”

Dialogue Example #3 “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

“Atticus, are we going to win it?”

“No, honey.”

“Then why-“

“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win,” Atticus said.

One of the most important things to know when it comes to looking at dialogue is the impact it has on pacing.

Dialogue has a knack for increasing the pace and moving the story forward. Readers can find themselves tearing through pages laden with dialogue. As if with all tools of the craft, it pays to know how best to use it. Literary agent Noah Lukeman said a writer must learn how to use restraint when it comes to dialogue, “to sustain suspense and let a scene unfold slowly.”

Again, it’s all a matter of preference.

It’s one thing to know how to write dialogue, it’s another to know how to edit it.

For sound editing advice a good person to turn to is a master editor. In his book on the craft of writing, Sol Stein provides a very helpful checklist when going over passages of conversation:

• What is the purpose of this exchange? Does it begin or heighten an existing conflict, for example?
• Does it stimulate curiosity in the reader?
• Does it create tension?
• What is the outcome of the exchange? Builds to a climax, or a turn of events in the story, or a change in relationship with the speakers?
• Has the correct dialogue tag been used for each character, one that enhances the tale.

One additional step Stein recommends is reading dialogue aloud in a monotone expression. Listen to the meaning of the words in your exchanges.

“What counts is not what is said but the effect of what it means… The reader takes from fiction the meaning of words. And above all, they take the emotion that meaning generates.”

So these are a few things that I’ve found helpful when it comes to writing dialogue. As we’ve seen, an author may use dialogue to provide the reader with interesting information, delivered in a compelling and intriguing way.

Perhaps the most important advice I’ve taken away from them all is to always maintain clarity while using obliqueness to give dialogue that snappy, enticing edge. It’s easier said than done, mind.

Learn More About Creative Writing

Before I leave you, I wanted to point you in the direction of some other guides I think you may find useful.

• Great Examples Of The 5 Senses In Writing – if you’d like to learn how to enrich your prose with vivid descriptions, this guide holds the answers.
• Men Writing Women – this guide can be important when it comes to writing dialogue. It’s vital to take these key considerations into account when writing characters of different genders.
• More Dialogue Writing Examples   from Florida Gulf Coast University, with useful advice on making the best use of a dialogue tag

For more writing tips and guides , head here. Or you can find lots of links on all types of creative writing topics on my home page . Thanks for reading this guide on how to write dialogue that readers will love.

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richiebilling

About author, related posts, loaded language: a complete definition with examples, how to write a premise for your story, brilliant adjectives to describe a person.

I think crafting one’s own “book on writing” is a great exercise for any writer, regardless of whether or not they want to publish it. The act itself is a great way to organize one’s thoughts and ideas about writing, and compare one’s existing ideas to those one may encounter through others (books, blogs, interviews, etc.). I don’t know if mine will ever be fit for publication, but I find it very helpful to write such things down, instead of worrying about whether or not I’ll remember it.

Definitely! That’s one of the main reasons I’m doing it. We’ve got nothing to lose!

Mmm. And writing it out, organizing it, really helps us retain it afterwards. I feel like I rarely need to consult my notes, but the act of writing them out really helps.

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How to Write Dialogue Between Two Characters (Solved!)

By: Author Paul Jenkins

Posted on Published: February 26, 2022  - Last updated: March 25, 2022

Categories Writing , Creativity , Filmmaking , Storytelling

In any piece of writing or fiction, how to write dialogue between two characters or multiple characters can be a crucial element to success. It can either make or break a piece of literature. Dialogue allows the author to get right into the minds of their characters. It’s how readers can see the personalities and qualities of the characters they’re reading about. It’s also how writers can set the tone and mood of their work.

What is Dialogue

Dialogue (from the Greek meaning ‘through speech’) is when a character or characters in a story say something to someone. That can be to another character, to or with themselves (a monologue, for example), or even directly to the audience or reader (a soliloquy).

When two characters have a dialogue, the essential element is the exchange between the two characters. There is an interaction.

Dialogue Should Never Be Haphazard

In creative writing and screenwriting, the words spoken in character dialogue are never there by accident. They are there to serve a specific purpose at the particular moment they occur.

Dialogue is the way characters speak, reveal their feelings and personality, and come alive to the reader. It can surprise, intrigue, entertain and sometimes make the reader laugh. Compelling dialogue also creates tension, builds suspense, and reveals conflict.

It should never be used just to fill space, or because the writer doesn’t have a clue what else to do. Dialogue is like a jigsaw. It may seem like a jumble of random pieces, but when put together correctly the whole image is seen.

It can be helpful to think of dialogue as a form of action – this puts the focus on what is happening. A character speaks words; the character or characters are not just “saying things”.

Dialogue, well-written, is the way that a skilled writer shows rather than tells in their stories.

The Four Main Purposes of Dialogue

In fiction and screenwriting, dialogue serves four main objectives:

1. to convey necessary story information,

2. to develop characters,

3. to move the plot forward, and

4. to create a tone or mood.

Make Sure To Use the Appropriate Voice

When writing effective dialogue, it’s important to identify and use the appropriate voice for the character, and for the occasion. Voice means the way a character speaks, which includes tone, diction, and word choice.

A character won’t always sound the same when speaking to a friend as when speaking to the boss. The dialogue will change depending on the circumstances and relationship.

In real life, people change their tone and style of speaking depending on who they are talking with.

However, when fiction writing we usually don’t mirror precisely how people speak in real life – the requirements of the story usually mean that more conflict is introduced, and less chitchat allowed.

Related: Why Diction Is Important

An Overall Rule of Thumb for Dialogue

There are many things to consider when writing dialogue, such as word choice, speech patterns, and filler words.

If the dialogue is too formal, it can distance the reader from the character and create a barrier to developing a relationship with the character. If the dialogue is too casual, it can sound unnatural and unprofessional in certain circumstances.

Know the Difference Between Visual and Non Visual Dialogue

Before we dig into the specifics of how to write a dialogue between two characters, it’s important to note the difference between visual media, auditory media, and media that is read.

In visual media, we the viewers see the character’s facial expressions and body language, and we see what is happening around the characters.

This means that dialogue has less of a burden to carry in a film compared to other media.

In written media, it’s the opposite. We, as the audience, don’t see the characters’ expressions, body language, etc. We don’t see what is around the character. We don’t get to be an actual part of the scene in the way which we do in a film.

This includes the characters’ state of mind, which is visual media can be portrayed in many ways. In media designed for readers only – for example, a novel – we delve into a character’s internal world far more than happens on screen, for example.

How to Feed Observation Into Well-Written Dialogue

A wonderful way to write a better dialogue between two characters is to turn on your power of observation in art and life.

Take the people around you. What do they say to each other?

Observe people in the street, on TV, and even in films. Pick up a newspaper, or read a novel – what are the characters saying?

In most cases, people are not concerned with proper grammar when they speak. They just talk. However, when writers write dialogue, they tend to over-correct.

Don’t just listen, watch. People don’t just speak words — we get body language with it. 75% of human communication is non-verbal.

This means that when two people are having a conversation, we get to see how they are moving their bodies to go along with what they are saying.

Pay Attention to Tone and Tempo

The same goes for tone and tempo. Listen to the tone in a person’s voice. Don’t just listen to the words they are saying, listen to how they sound.

If you can hear the first character getting louder, you know something is about to happen. If you can hear the second character getting more monotone, you know that they are not as interested in what the first character is saying.

Character Delineation in Dialogue

You can use good dialogue to delineate your characters. Indeed, it matters that you do so in order to create distinct characters.

Dialogue not only reveals the character’s attitudes, feelings, and morals but also reveals their background.

The way characters speak reflects their class – their education level, their region, the economic and social environment in which they live, and their language patterns.

In each region, there are peculiarities to how people speak. There are also individual speech patterns. For example, some people speak in a very tentative way, always looking to others for approval. You can hear this in the way they speak about themselves. Others are quite the opposite, coming across as very sure of themselves. This is evident in the words they use, the way they talk about themselves.

Consistent Dialogue Formatting

Usually, it’s important for readers to know instantly when they are in a piece of prose, or dialogue. As a writer, you want this ‘signposting’ in your writing to be as seamless and invisible as possible. What matters, after all, is your story.

• The way to achieve format dialogue is through the correct and consistent use of quotation marks. The basic rule is:
• When a character speaks, use a double quotation mark.
• If a character quotes someone else, put that quote using a single quotation mark inside the double speech marks of the character who is speaking.
• Make sure you use a new paragraph when switching characters. Either a new speaker, or the reaction of a second or more character.
• Know the rules of punctuation in dialogue, and apply them consistently.

Beware Adverbs

Stephen King, in his wonderful guide to the writing craft On Writing , attacks adverbs with a passion.

His basic point is that there is a big difference between verbs of dialogue attribution: for example, ‘ shouted ‘, ‘ pleaded ‘, ‘ said ‘ and adverbs lobbed alongside verbs in an attempt to bring dialogue tags to life.

For example, ‘ shouted menacingly ‘, ‘ pleaded abjectly ‘, ‘ said contemptuously .’

The effect of the adverbs is to weaken the sentences, and often to cover for lazy dialogue or a poor scene setup.

Instead, use a dialogue tag he/she/name ‘ said ‘ and allow your dialogue to breathe through.

Don’t overdo the tags either. In a two-person dialogue, once you have set up who is speaking first, it should be straightforward to delineate by separate paragraph who is speaking. If the dialogue runs on for a bit, you can slip a tag in now and again, or have one of the characters refer to the other by name.

You can also set up the dialogue with the prose describing meaningful and purposeful action – not fluff – and then launch straight into the dialogue. It will be obvious who is speaking, how, and why.

Keep Dialogue to the Point

I once had to narrate an audiobook where there were extensive dialogue passages all the way through the book.

Honestly, this undercut the effectiveness of the story because as a narrator, and as a reader, it felt like having to wade through piles of dialogue in order to get to the essential point in each scene.

Related: How to Become An Audiobook Narrator

Sometimes you’ll come across the advice to restrain dialogue to two or three lines at most. While this is useful to remind yourself to keep things concise, be aware that sometimes dialogue can and should run on much longer.

Don’t think that you have to put into written dialogue all the fillers that we encounter in real conversation. Dialogue is a simulation of real speech, not the actual thing!

So, avoid loads of filler words that pepper everyday speech (unless you have a clear purpose for them at that moment in your writing) and do use speech contractions and acronyms.

Related: How Do You Narrate a Story

Start Dialogue In Media Res

In Media Res means beginning in the middle of a scene. This is sometimes done for comedic effect, but it can also work really well at emotional moments. It can bring unexpected twists and thwart expectations.

The same rule applies to dialogue. We don’t care about the long lead-ups that often precede key lines of dialogue in real life. We do care about the nubs of conversation that reveal something important, or effect change.

Therefore, when writing dialogue think about how to cut into the dialogue scene at the right moment – and exit it early, as a rule. Don’t hang around once the ‘business’ of the dialogue is done.

Read Dialogue Aloud

An important tip for writing dialogue is reading it out aloud. You don’t have to go full-on Shakespeare mode here, but it does help to approximate how readers will experience the dialogue you’ve written.

Reading aloud forces us to take every sentence back to its basic forms, figure out what the purpose is, and condense it if necessary.

More importantly, it prevents us from relying on the crutch of sentence fragments which is a natural tendency when writing.

Sometimes you’ll catch yourself saying: ‘Hang on! That sounds completely off!’ and you’ll delete the offending dialogue fail.

Or, other times you’ll quickly gain extra lines of great and realistic dialogue – or even a whole new conversation between your characters. Or you might realize that a line you’ve assigned to one character would be better said by another.

In this way, voices in your head – which might be the internal dialogue of your character – can turn into voices on the page.

Know What the Character Needs or Wants

A piece of dialogue that matters is usually one where there is an agenda at play.

However, for all sorts of reasons we rarely come straight out with exactly what we want from someone else. Usually, it’s pitched obliquely, at a tangent, for all sorts of reasons.

The tension lies in the difference between what the real motivation of a character is, and how that character expresses it in dialogue. Which usually is connected to the emotional subtext of a scene (something that is critical in acting, and narration).

So, for example, a character might be trying to persuade another character to abandon a course of action, and use a particular argument to bolster their case, but in fact have an entirely different agenda at stake – about which the second character might be aware, and also not state explicitly! Such are the mysteries of human communication!

Some Quick Dialogue Writing Rules to Know

• Use simple words and vernacular (slang)
• Keep meaning clear while using small grammar errors
• Use short or incomplete sentences to bounce the pace along
• Dialogue is a spoken language dance: with words and the feelings and thoughts that lie behind those words. Just because a character is not speaking does not mean that character is not participating!
• Beware of trying to write out accents. Although some writers (Wuthering Heights is a good example) have done this adroitly, usually you need to ensure clarity first and tilt at the accent/culture second. See an article I wrote about How to Write a Russian Accent as a specific example of this.
• Use dialogue sound to identify a different character; meaning the tone, pace, educational level, and so forth.

How to Write Dialogue in an Essay: Perfect Writing Guide

Writing essays is a part of every student’s life. The tool that can be useful for all composition genres with no limitations is dialogue. Typically, article writing at school and college is related to informative or argumentative intentions.

Dialogues can be included in reflective or narrative texts and creative assignments, such as screenplays. Likewise, if your paper is more on the argumentative side, you may include a dialogue when transcribing an extract from an interview to reinforce your thesis.

To get the highest mark for your paper, it is crucial to know how to write a dialogue in an essay. Keep reading this article to find out how to add it to your paper, whether for academic, informative, or creative purposes.

Usage of Dialogues in Essays

Over our educational years at school and university, we are taught to compose argumentative, narrative, informative, creative, and expository essays. Writing becomes a skill we need to develop to be successful when composing a report.

Quote, text line, or dialogue represents two or more characters talking, and can turn a dull paper into an easy-going and fun learning experience.

And just like when watching a movie, dialogues will have us more engaged in discovering the ending of the tale. Moreover, you will have a strong thesis for persuasive essay texts by including dialogues in them. How is this accomplished?

Dialogue serves more than just fiction, as we stated earlier. They transform information into a fluid and rhythmic piece of writing, providing data on an actual scenario portrayed as a conversation. This results in a direct and captivating piece that will teach and entertain the reader. That sounds like a win-win situation, right?

How to Format Dialogue in an Essay?

Here you will encounter some of the essential rules in terms of punctuation and formatting that should be followed when writing effective dialogue in your article so that it is read naturally. If you are unsure of your profile essay writing skills, keep reading this page to get accurate and precise information for composing your best paper.

• How to add dialogue in an essay: you can either use double quotation marks to indicate what someone said, or start in a new line using a Dash followed by the actually spoken phrase every time a new character speaks. This demonstrates that dialogue conversations have started.

“Elisa gave me this purse for my birthday.”

—Elisa gave me this purse for my birthday.

—It looks good on you.

—Thank you, I like it a lot.

• If you are quoting already, use single quotation marks to add another quotation within. This is useful when you depict someone describing a certain circumstance that happened to them.

“He was eating lunch next to me when Tom came by and yelled, ‘let’s go outside,’ so we went.”

• Make sure to use closing quotation marks when the character finishes talking. If dashes are used instead, end that person’s speech with a complete stop, showing that a dialogue has ended.

“I took my cat to the Vet last night to get a shot. He is alright now.”

• When a character is quoted, exclamation and question marks should be placed inside the quotation marks. If the exclamation or quotation marks refer to the greater sentence, not the quotation itself, place them outside the quotation marks.

My niece screamed, “let’s play hide and seek!”. What was your reaction when your niece screamed, “let’s play hide and seek”?.

• Do not add a period if the character pauses in the speech; in this case, write the speech, then use a comma to include a remark and add another comma before the last part of said speech.

“I couldn’t finish the presentation tonight,” he said with a tired voice, “I will tomorrow.”

• If a quote is too long, for example, longer than a paragraph in the essay, you can break it into two sections to make it easier to read. Such a situation is frequent when you write a narrative text. This type of assignment is often given to college and high school students. And it’s one of the most difficult tasks. If you need more confidence in your composition writing skills but still want to get a great mark and impress your teacher, we recommend you to buy narrative essays from professional writers. They will definitely know how to deal with complicated quotes. Here you can see an example of how a big direct quote was shortened to create a new paragraph for the text:

“Christmastime at work is very intense, and we work long shifts. Last year, we launched fifteen new products so that they were sold out during Christmastime. Luckily, it was a success. Our most popular items were: a Christmas cookie-scented candle, a new edition of the traditional elf-pet costume, and a unique knife that cuts the turkey easily and evenly.

I tried the candle immediately and loved the scent; my sister dressed her dog and three cats as elves, poor things, but she looked amused, and my mom tried the turkey knife; she genuinely said it was the best she could use to cut the turkey.”

How to Write Dialogue in an Essay?

Knowing how to put dialogue in your essay will allow you to bring out your creative side while mastering the skill of showing rather than telling. If you want to know particular features of  writing a good process essay , read to master how to write a dialogue and search for relevant sentences. Also, you’ll need to craft coherent paragraphs, use speech tags and be aware of the format and punctuation rules when writing dialogue in your paper.

Common Dialogue Mistakes to Avoid

Mistakes are easy to make when we need to learn the rules of correct essay writing, so pay attention to the most common mistakes to avoid delivering an enjoyable and compelling text.

One of the most frequent mistakes students make when they need to learn how to put dialogue in an essay is confusing dialogue with citations. The latter is adequate when directly referencing, word-by-word, other authors to support statements previously made regarding a particular topic. At the same time, dialogues are supposed to deliver information by being creative and motivating the reader to relate to a life situation described in the dialogue.

Citation: also known as direct quotes, is information written by an author and referenced to support a claim.

Dialogue: a speech between two or more characters, often portrayed to captivate the reader, and what is used is only a part of a greater conversation.

Other mistakes to avoid in your text:

• Providing too many details and unnecessary talk can be counterproductive. Keep it simple.
• Repeating information from one word to another. Describe it in your own words or show it through dialogue formatting. This will make the topic more interesting as the teacher will use their imagination. If you need help with how to do it properly, we recommend asking for help from a specialized platform, such as Edusson.com . Here you will find professional writers who will write your article quickly, plagiarism-free papers with high quality, and at a reasonable price.
• Using more dialogue tags than required can distort the readability of the conversation.
• Mentioning the characters’ names often, which only happens in real talk, decreases credibility.
• Incorrect use of opening quotation marks.

Some types of articles would benefit from dialogues to bring more dynamics into them. Check to avoid the mistakes we presented to you, compose creatively, and most importantly, just as dialogue tells a story. It describes a scenery that will make the reader learn through real-life association, so use dialogue when you think it will add value to the text.

Example of Dialogue in an Essay

Here we will give you examples of how to add dialogue to an essay:

Do thorough research on the topic by looking up reliable sources Use an online plagiarism checker to ensure that your paper is unique Explain the purpose of your study, providing supporting arguments, examples, and close by validating the thesis mentioned at the beginning. If the topic you are writing about is rather technical, define the meaning of its relevant vocabulary Teach the reader, do not assume they know everything. Otherwise, they wouldn’t come to read Verify that your composition is cohesive and informative Finally, read both your text and dialogue out loud to check they are coherent and eloquent.

Knowing these dialogue rules, you are ready to write with confidence! Whether you are writing for college, creating a dialogue for fun, or just eager to learn about this topic, you already know the essentials of how to write a dialogue in your essay with the correct format and punctuation rules. Additionally, if you are ever in need of professional help for your writing, you can always opt to pay to write an essay to ensure that you are submitting a well-written, high-quality paper.

Related posts:

• 6 Step Process for Essay Writing
• How to Write a Diagnostic Essay (Without Fail)
• How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay
• Footnotes 101: A Guide to Proper Formatting

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Last updated on Jul 24, 2023

15 Examples of Great Dialogue (And Why They Work So Well)

About the author.

Reedsy's editorial team is a diverse group of industry experts devoted to helping authors write and publish beautiful books.

About Martin Cavannagh

Head of Content at Reedsy, Martin has spent over eight years helping writers turn their ambitions into reality. As a voice in the indie publishing space, he has written for a number of outlets and spoken at conferences, including the 2024 Writers Summit at the London Book Fair.

Great dialogue is hard to pin down, but you know it when you hear or see it. In the earlier parts of this guide, we showed you some well-known tips and rules for writing dialogue. In this section, we'll show you those rules in action with 15 examples of great dialogue, breaking down exactly why they work so well.

1. Barbara Kingsolver, Unsheltered 

In the opening of Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered, we meet Willa Knox, a middle-aged and newly unemployed writer who has just inherited a ramshackle house. 

     “The simplest thing would be to tear it down,” the man said. “The house is a shambles.”      She took this news as a blood-rush to the ears: a roar of peasant ancestors with rocks in their fists, facing the evictor. But this man was a contractor. Willa had called him here and she could send him away. She waited out her panic while he stood looking at her shambles, appearing to nurse some satisfaction from his diagnosis. She picked out words.      “It’s not a living thing. You can’t just pronounce it dead. Anything that goes wrong with a structure can be replaced with another structure. Am I right?”      “Correct. What I am saying is that the structure needing to be replaced is all of it. I’m sorry. Your foundation is nonexistent.”

Alfred Hitchcock once described drama as "life with the boring bits cut out." In this passage, Kingsolver cuts out the boring parts of Willa's conversation with her contractor and brings us right to the tensest, most interesting part of the conversation.

By entering their conversation late , the reader is spared every tedious detail of their interaction.

Instead of a blow-by-blow account of their negotiations (what she needs done, when he’s free, how she’ll be paying), we’re dropped right into the emotional heart of the discussion. The novel opens with the narrator learning that the home she cherishes can’t be salvaged. 

By starting off in the middle of (relatively obscure) dialogue, it takes a moment for the reader to orient themselves in the story and figure out who is speaking, and what they’re speaking about. This disorientation almost mirrors Willa’s own reaction to the bad news, as her expectations for a new life in her new home are swiftly undermined.

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2. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice  

In the first piece of dialogue in Pride and Prejudice , we meet Mr and Mrs Bennet, as Mrs Bennet attempts to draw her husband into a conversation about neighborhood gossip.

     “My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”      Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.      “But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.”      Mr. Bennet made no answer.      “Do you not want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently.      “You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”      This was invitation enough.      “Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.”

Austen’s dialogue is always witty, subtle, and packed with character. This extract from Pride and Prejudice is a great example of dialogue being used to develop character relationships . 

We instantly learn everything we need to know about the dynamic between Mr and Mrs Bennet’s from their first interaction: she’s chatty, and he’s the beleaguered listener who has learned to entertain her idle gossip, if only for his own sake (hence “you want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it”).

There is even a clear difference between the two characters visually on the page: Mr Bennet responds in short sentences, in simple indirect speech, or not at all, but this is “invitation enough” for Mrs Bennet to launch into a rambling and extended response, dominating the conversation in text just as she does audibly.

The fact that Austen manages to imbue her dialogue with so much character-building realism means we hardly notice the amount of crucial plot exposition she has packed in here. This heavily expository dialogue could be a drag to get through, but Austen’s colorful characterization means she slips it under the radar with ease, forwarding both our understanding of these people and the world they live in simultaneously.

3. Naomi Alderman, The Power

In The Power , young women around the world suddenly find themselves capable of generating and controlling electricity. In this passage, between two boys and a girl who just used those powers to light her cigarette.

     Kyle gestures with his chin and says, “Heard a bunch of guys killed a girl in Nebraska last week for doing that.”      “For smoking? Harsh.”      Hunter says, “Half the kids in school know you can do it.”      “So what?”      Hunter says, “Your dad could use you in his factory. Save money on electricity.”      “He’s not my dad.”      She makes the silver flicker at the ends of her fingers again. The boys watch.

Alderman here uses a show, don’t tell approach to expositional dialogue . Within this short exchange, we discover a lot about Allie, her personal circumstances, and the developing situation elsewhere. We learn that women are being punished harshly for their powers; that Allie is expected to be ashamed of those powers and keep them a secret, but doesn’t seem to care to do so; that her father is successful in industry; and that she has a difficult relationship with him. Using dialogue in this way prevents info-dumping backstory all at once, and instead helps us learn about the novel’s world in a natural way.

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4. Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

Here, friends Tommy and Kathy have a conversation after Tommy has had a meltdown. After being bullied by a group of boys, he has been stomping around in the mud, the precise reaction they were hoping to evoke from him.

     “Tommy,” I said, quite sternly. “There’s mud all over your shirt.”      “So what?” he mumbled. But even as he said this, he looked down and noticed the brown specks, and only just stopped himself crying out in alarm. Then I saw the surprise register on his face that I should know about his feelings for the polo shirt.      “It’s nothing to worry about.” I said, before the silence got humiliating for him. “It’ll come off. If you can’t get it off yourself, just take it to Miss Jody.”      He went on examining his shirt, then said grumpily, “It’s nothing to do with you anyway.”

This episode from Never Let Me Go highlights the power of interspersing action beats within dialogue . These action beats work in several ways to add depth to what would otherwise be a very simple and fairly nondescript exchange.  Firstly, they draw attention to the polo shirt, and highlight its potential significance in the plot. Secondly, they help to further define Kathy’s relationship with Tommy. 

We learn through Tommy’s surprised reaction that he didn’t think Kathy knew how much he loved his seemingly generic polo shirt. This moment of recognition allows us to see that she cares for him and understands him more deeply than even he realized. Kathy breaking the silence before it can “humiliate” Tommy further emphasizes her consideration for him. While the dialogue alone might make us think Kathy is downplaying his concerns with pragmatic advice, it is the action beats that tell the true story here.

5. J R R Tolkien, The Hobbit  

The eponymous hobbit Bilbo is engaged in a game of riddles with the strange creature Gollum.

     "What have I got in my pocket?" he said aloud. He was talking to himself, but Gollum thought it was a riddle, and he was frightfully upset.       "Not fair! not fair!" he hissed. "It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?"      Bilbo seeing what had happened and having nothing better to ask stuck to his question. "What have I got in my pocket?" he said louder. "S-s-s-s-s," hissed Gollum. "It must give us three guesseses, my precious, three guesseses."      "Very well! Guess away!" said Bilbo.      "Handses!" said Gollum.      "Wrong," said Bilbo, who had luckily just taken his hand out again. "Guess again!"      "S-s-s-s-s," said Gollum, more upset than ever. 

Tolkein’s dialogue for Gollum is a masterclass in creating distinct character voices . By using a repeated catchphrase (“my precious”) and unconventional spelling and grammar to reflect his unusual speech pattern, Tolkien creates an idiosyncratic, unique (and iconic) speech for Gollum. This vivid approach to formatting dialogue, which is almost a transliteration of Gollum's sounds, allows readers to imagine his speech pattern and practically hear it aloud.

We wouldn’t recommend using this extreme level of idiosyncrasy too often in your writing — it can get wearing for readers after a while, and Tolkien deploys it sparingly, as Gollum’s appearances are limited to a handful of scenes. However, you can use Tolkien’s approach as inspiration to create (slightly more subtle) quirks of speech for your own characters.

6. F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

The narrator, Nick has just done his new neighbour Gatsby a favor by inviting his beloved Daisy over to tea. Perhaps in return, Gatsby then attempts to make a shady business proposition.

     “There’s another little thing,” he said uncertainly, and hesitated.      “Would you rather put it off for a few days?” I asked.      “Oh, it isn’t about that. At least —” He fumbled with a series of beginnings. “Why, I thought — why, look here, old sport, you don’t make much money, do you?”      “Not very much.”      This seemed to reassure him and he continued more confidently.       “I thought you didn’t, if you’ll pardon my — you see, I carry on a little business on the side, a little side line, if you understand. And I thought that if you don’t make very much — You’re selling bonds, aren’t you, old sport?”      “Trying to.” 

This dialogue from The Great Gatsby is a great example of how to make dialogue sound natural. Gatsby tripping over his own words (even interrupting himself , as marked by the em-dashes) not only makes his nerves and awkwardness palpable but also mimics real speech. Just as real people often falter and make false starts when they’re speaking off the cuff, Gatsby too flounders, giving us insight into his self-doubt; his speech isn’t polished and perfect, and neither is he despite all his efforts to appear so.

Fitzgerald also creates a distinctive voice for Gatsby by littering his speech with the character's signature term of endearment, “old sport”. We don’t even really need dialogue markers to know who’s speaking here — a sign of very strong characterization through dialogue.

7. Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet  

In this first meeting between the two heroes of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, John is introduced to Sherlock while the latter is hard at work in the lab.

      “How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”      “How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment.      “Never mind,” said he, chuckling to himself. “The question now is about hemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of mine?”     “It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,” I answered, “but practically— ”      “Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years. Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains. Come over here now!” He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and drew me over to the table at which he had been working. “Let us have some fresh blood,” he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. “Now, I add this small quantity of blood to a litre of water. You perceive that the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water. The proportion of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however, that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction.” As he spoke, he threw into the vessel a few white crystals, and then added some drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar.      “Ha! ha!” he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a child with a new toy. “What do you think of that?”

This passage uses a number of the key techniques for writing naturalistic and exciting dialogue, including characters speaking over one another and the interspersal of action beats. 

Sherlock cutting off Watson to launch into a monologue about his blood experiment shows immediately where Sherlock’s interest lies — not in small talk, or the person he is speaking to, but in his own pursuits, just like earlier in the conversation when he refuses to explain anything to John and is instead self-absorbedly “chuckling to himself”. This helps establish their initial rapport (or lack thereof) very quickly.

Breaking up that monologue with snippets of him undertaking the forensic tests allows us to experience the full force of his enthusiasm over it without having to read an uninterrupted speech about the ins and outs of a science experiment.

Starting to think you might like to read some Sherlock? Check out our guide to the Sherlock Holmes canon !

8. Brandon Taylor, Real Life

Here, our protagonist Wallace is questioned by Ramon, a friend-of-a-friend, over the fact that he is considering leaving his PhD program.

     Wallace hums. “I mean, I wouldn’t say that I want to leave, but I’ve thought about it, sure.”     “Why would you do that? I mean, the prospects for… black people, you know?”        “What are the prospects for black people?” Wallace asks, though he knows he will be considered the aggressor for this question.

Brandon Taylor’s Real Life is drawn from the author’s own experiences as a queer Black man, attempting to navigate the unwelcoming world of academia, navigating the world of academia, and so it’s no surprise that his dialogue rings so true to life — it’s one of the reasons the novel is one of our picks for must-read books by Black authors . 

This episode is part of a pattern where Wallace is casually cornered and questioned by people who never question for a moment whether they have the right to ambush him or criticize his choices. The use of indirect dialogue at the end shows us this is a well-trodden path for Wallace: he has had this same conversation several times, and can pre-empt the exact outcome.

This scene is also a great example of the dramatic significance of people choosing not to speak. The exchange happens in front of a big group, but — despite their apparent discomfort —  nobody speaks up to defend Wallace, or to criticize Ramon’s patronizing microaggressions. Their silence is deafening, and we get a glimpse of Ramon’s isolation due to the complacency of others, all due to what is not said in this dialogue example.

9. Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants

In this short story, an unnamed man and a young woman discuss whether or not they should terminate a pregnancy while sitting on a train platform.

     “Well,” the man said, “if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to. But I know it’s perfectly simple.”      “And you really want to?”      “I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you really don’t want to.”      “And if I do it you’ll be happy and things will be like they were and you’ll love me?”      “I love you now. You know I love you.”      “I know. But if I do it, then it will be nice again if I say things are like white elephants, and you’ll like it?”      “I’ll love it. I love it now but I just can’t think about it. You know how I get when I worry.”      “If I do it you won’t ever worry?”      “I won’t worry about that because it’s perfectly simple.”

This example of dialogue from Hemingway’s short story Hills Like White Elephants moves at quite a clip. The conversation quickly bounces back and forth between the speakers, and the call-and-response format of the woman asking and the man answering is effective because it establishes a clear dynamic between the two speakers: the woman is the one seeking reassurance and trying to understand the man’s feelings, while he is the one who is ultimately in control of the situation.

Note the sparing use of dialogue markers: this minimalist approach keeps the dialogue brisk, and we can still easily understand who is who due to the use of a new paragraph when the speaker changes .

Like this classic author’s style? Head over to our selection of the 11 best Ernest Hemingway books .

10. Madeline Miller, Circe

In Madeline Miller’s retelling of Greek myth, we witness a conversation between the mythical enchantress Circe and Telemachus (son of Odysseus).

     “You do not grieve for your father?”        “I do. I grieve that I never met the father everyone told me I had.”           I narrowed my eyes. “Explain.”      “I am no storyteller.”      “I am not asking for a story. You have come to my island. You owe me truth.”       A moment passed, and then he nodded. “You will have it.” 

This short and punchy exchange hits on a lot of the stylistic points we’ve covered so far. The conversation is a taut tennis match between the two speakers as they volley back and forth with short but impactful sentences, and unnecessary dialogue tags have been shaved off . It also highlights Circe’s imperious attitude, a result of her divine status. Her use of short, snappy declaratives and imperatives demonstrates that she’s used to getting her own way and feels no need to mince her words.

11. Andre Aciman, Call Me By Your Name

This is an early conversation between seventeen-year-old Elio and his family’s handsome new student lodger, Oliver.

     What did one do around here? Nothing. Wait for summer to end. What did one do in the winter, then?      I smiled at the answer I was about to give. He got the gist and said, “Don’t tell me: wait for summer to come, right?”      I liked having my mind read. He’d pick up on dinner drudgery sooner than those before him.      “Actually, in the winter the place gets very gray and dark. We come for Christmas. Otherwise it’s a ghost town.”      “And what else do you do here at Christmas besides roast chestnuts and drink eggnog?”      He was teasing. I offered the same smile as before. He understood, said nothing, we laughed.      He asked what I did. I played tennis. Swam. Went out at night. Jogged. Transcribed music. Read.      He said he jogged too. Early in the morning. Where did one jog around here? Along the promenade, mostly. I could show him if he wanted.      It hit me in the face just when I was starting to like him again: “Later, maybe.”

Dialogue is one of the most crucial aspects of writing romance — what’s a literary relationship without some flirty lines? Here, however, Aciman gives us a great example of efficient dialogue. By removing unnecessary dialogue and instead summarizing with narration, he’s able to confer the gist of the conversation without slowing down the pace unnecessarily. Instead, the emphasis is left on what’s unsaid, the developing romantic subtext. 

Furthermore, the fact that we receive this scene in half-reported snippets rather than as an uninterrupted transcript emphasizes the fact that this is Elio’s own recollection of the story, as the manipulation of the dialogue in this way serves to mimic the nostalgic haziness of memory.

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12. George Eliot, Middlemarch

Two of Eliot’s characters, Mary and Rosamond, are out shopping,

     When she and Rosamond happened both to be reflected in the glass, she said laughingly —      “What a brown patch I am by the side of you, Rosy! You are the most unbecoming companion.”      “Oh no! No one thinks of your appearance, you are so sensible and useful, Mary. Beauty is of very little consequence in reality,” said Rosamond, turning her head towards Mary, but with eyes swerving towards the new view of her neck in the glass.      “You mean my beauty,” said Mary, rather sardonically.       Rosamond thought, “Poor Mary, she takes the kindest things ill.” Aloud she said, “What have you been doing lately?”      “I? Oh, minding the house — pouring out syrup — pretending to be amiable and contented — learning to have a bad opinion of everybody.”

This excerpt, a conversation between the level-headed Mary and vain Rosamond, is an example of dialogue that develops character relationships naturally. Action descriptors allow us to understand what is really happening in the conversation. 

Whilst the speech alone might lead us to believe Rosamond is honestly (if clumsily) engaging with her friend, the description of her simultaneously gazing at herself in a mirror gives us insight not only into her vanity, but also into the fact that she is not really engaged in her conversation with Mary at all.

The use of internal dialogue cut into the conversation (here formatted with quotation marks rather than the usual italics ) lets us know what Rosamond is actually thinking, and the contrast between this and what she says aloud is telling. The fact that we know she privately realizes she has offended Mary, but quickly continues the conversation rather than apologizing, is emphatic of her character. We get to know Rosamond very well within this short passage, which is a hallmark of effective character-driven dialogue.

13. John Steinbeck, The Winter of our Discontent

Here, Mary (speaking first) reacts to her husband Ethan’s attempts to discuss his previous experiences as a disciplined soldier, his struggles in subsequent life, and his feeling of impending change.

     “You’re trying to tell me something.”      “Sadly enough, I am. And it sounds in my ears like an apology. I hope it is not.”      “I’m going to set out lunch.”

Steinbeck’s Winter of our Discontent is an acute study of alienation and miscommunication, and this exchange exemplifies the ways in which characters can fail to communicate, even when they’re speaking. The pair speaking here are trapped in a dysfunctional marriage which leaves Ethan feeling isolated, and part of his loneliness comes from the accumulation of exchanges such as this one. Whenever he tries to communicate meaningfully with his wife, she shuts the conversation down with a complete non sequitur. 

We expect Mary’s “you’re trying to tell me something” to be followed by a revelation, but Ethan is not forthcoming in his response, and Mary then exits the conversation entirely. Nothing is communicated, and the jarring and frustrating effect of having our expectations subverted goes a long way in mirroring Ethan’s own frustration.

Just like Ethan and Mary, we receive no emotional pay-off, and this passage of characters talking past one another doesn’t further the plot as we hope it might, but instead gives us insight into the extent of these characters’ estrangement.

14. Bret Easton Ellis , Less Than Zero

The disillusioned main character of Bret Easton Ellis’ debut novel, Clay, here catches up with a college friend, Daniel, whom he hasn’t seen in a while. 

     He keeps rubbing his mouth and when I realize that he’s not going to answer me, I ask him what he’s been doing.      “Been doing?”      “Yeah.”      “Hanging out.”      “Hanging out where?”      “Where? Around.”

Less Than Zero is an elegy to conversation, and this dialogue is an example of the many vacuous exchanges the protagonist engages in, seemingly just to fill time. The whole book is deliberately unpoetic and flat, and depicts the lives of disaffected youths in 1980s LA. Their misguided attempts to fill the emptiness within them with drink and drugs are ultimately fruitless, and it shows in their conversations: in truth, they have nothing to say to one another at all.

This utterly meaningless exchange would elsewhere be considered dead weight to a story. Here, rather than being fat in need of trimming, the empty conversation is instead thematically resonant.

15. Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

The young narrator of du Maurier’s classic gothic novel here has a strained conversation with Robert, one of the young staff members at her new husband’s home, the unwelcoming Manderley.

     “Has Mr. de Winter been in?” I said.      “Yes, Madam,” said Robert; “he came in just after two, and had a quick lunch, and then went out again. He asked for you and Frith said he thought you must have gone down to see the ship.”      “Did he say when he would be back again?” I asked.      “No, Madam.”      “Perhaps he went to the beach another way,” I said; “I may have missed him.”      “Yes, Madam,” said Robert.      I looked at the cold meat and the salad. I felt empty but not hungry. I did not want cold meat now. “Will you be taking lunch?” said Robert.      “No,” I said, “No, you might bring me some tea, Robert, in the library. Nothing like cakes or scones. Just tea and bread and butter.”      “Yes, Madam.”

We’re including this one in our dialogue examples list to show you the power of everything Du Maurier doesn’t do: rather than cycling through a ton of fancy synonyms for “said”, she opts for spare dialogue and tags. 

This interaction's cold, sparse tone complements the lack of warmth the protagonist feels in the moment depicted here. By keeping the dialogue tags simple , the author ratchets up the tension —  without any distracting flourishes taking the reader out of the scene. The subtext of the conversation is able to simmer under the surface, and we aren’t beaten over the head with any stage direction extras.

The inclusion of three sentences of internal dialogue in the middle of the dialogue (“I looked at the cold meat and the salad. I felt empty but not hungry. I did not want cold meat now.”) is also a masterful touch. What could have been a single sentence is stretched into three, creating a massive pregnant pause before Robert continues speaking, without having to explicitly signpost one. Manipulating the pace of dialogue in this way and manufacturing meaningful silence is a great way of adding depth to a scene.

Phew! We've been through a lot of dialogue, from first meetings to idle chit-chat to confrontations, and we hope these dialogue examples have been helpful in illustrating some of the most common techniques.

If you’re looking for more pointers on creating believable and effective dialogue, be sure to check out our course on writing dialogue. Or, if you find you learn better through examples, you can look at our list of 100 books to read before you die — it’s packed full of expert storytellers who’ve honed the art of dialogue.

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When it comes to writing dialogue in a story, even the best of the best writers take a pause. How to write dialogue correctly? Let’s take a look at some rules of writing dialogue to find out how you should write conversations in a story. If you need some examples of dialogue writing to ease the process, we’ve got that covered too!

But before we learn how to correctly write dialogue, we need to know the purpose of dialogue. Why is dialogue important? What does it achieve in a story?

Ensure crisp and engaging dialogues with perfect editing! Learn more

Importance of dialogue in a book

A conversation between two characters brings them to life. It provides insight into their psyche and informs the reader what they feel in that moment. It is through dialogue that different types of characters reveal themselves, other characters, and events in the story.

Of course, the chief purpose of dialogue is to develop the story. For a novel to progress, the characters need to communicate with each other. This applies not only to short stories , but also to nonfiction books!

Here is the different ways in which dialogue is useful:

• Helps develop characters and deepen their relationships with each other
• Provides space to play around with the main ideas in your novel
• Adds dramatic moments to your story, without which it is boring
• Matches the rhythms of human speech, making your characters more real
• Reveals the characters’ desires, fears, and motivations
• Lends a tone to the story and the characters
• Depicts, deepens, or reflects upon the theme of your story
• Changes the direction of plot
• Holds the reader’s attention

Knowing how dialogue is important to your book will help you better appreciate how it should be written. Now, there are a few rules of writing dialogue you must learn. Before you understand how to write character dialogue, you need to understand the rules that you need to follow.

Rules of writing dialogue

Writing dialogue in a story or a novel has a few basic rules. If you follow them well, you’ll have nothing to fear from writing dialogues. We’ve added some handy examples of dialogue writing so you can understand these rules better.

Here are the rules of writing dialogue that you should always keep in mind:

1. Use double quotation marks for your dialogue

It is the oldest rule of dialogue writing to enclose the spoken words in double quotation marks. Here’s a sample dialogue:

“Mr. Bennet, you have no compassion for my poor nerves!”

However, there is an exception to this rule. In British English, single quotation marks are used instead of double to show dialogue.

2. Use single quotation marks for quotes within a dialogue

In American English, single quotation marks are used to show a quote within a quote. So if your character is quoting someone else, that phrase should be enclosed within single quotation marks. For example:

“I heard Percy say, ‘the new teacher is absolutely brilliant!’”

3. Every new speaker gets a new paragraph

Every dialogue begins with a new paragraph. Each time a character says something, even if it is only a word, the dialogue should begin on a new paragraph. Here’s a dialogue writing example:

“Don’t worry, the information they have of our whereabouts is misleading.”

“So this was a trap?”

“Precisely.”

4. When (and how) to use dialogue tags

Dialogue tags are a means for you to connect the narration with the dialogue. The “he said” and “she said” you often come across? They’re the most widely used dialogue tags.

Take a look at this:

“Did you think it was over,” screeched Dr. Octavia. “My plan has just begun!”

In the above example of dialogue writing, the dialogue combines the narration and the speech to create the villain in our minds. However, it also provides an interruption in the character’s words. So, a dialogue tag is useful to add a pause in the dialogues.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered, “everything will be alright.”

If the dialogue tag ends the sentence, then use a period after it. But as in the example above, the tag can also occur in the middle of a dialogue to indicate a pause in speech. In that case, you can use commas to separate the speech from the narration.

5. When (and how) to use action tags

Action tags, also called action beats or dialogue beats, are short descriptions of action that break up the dialogue. You can use them to avoid repeating the usage of dialogue tags.

When it’s established that only a certain number of characters are speaking, it’s safe to use an action tag without confusing the reader. Let’s have a look at this example:

“Don’t tell me you lost it again!” She rolled her eyes, flopping down on the bean bag chair. “We’re so grounded.”

6. How to write longer dialogues

When a character delivers a long monologue, you have to create multiple paragraphs for a single dialogue. This can happen when a character narrates a story within your story, or during a flashback sequence.

In this case, end quotes are not used at the end of every paragraph. They only appear at the very end, when the character stops speaking.

“It was a long time ago,” said the old man. “The forests were yet untouched and man hadn’t succumbed to greed. I remember going to forage for produce with my mother. And then the machines came.

“By the time I was a grown man, they had already cut a long line through the forest.”

7. Use italics for internal speech

Your characters’ thoughts and internal monologue is represented through italics. This helps readers differentiate between what is said and what is thought. This is useful when you narrate your novel in the third person or through an omniscient narrator.

“I have no idea where to go,” said Martha. But I will keep you all safe.

Note that the end punctuation mark of the inner speech is also italicized. Think of it like this: instead of enclosing the sentence in quotes, we’re italicizing it.

Some writers choose to use double or single quotation marks to represent inner thoughts as well as dialogue. The key thing is to maintain consistency in your novel, no matter what style you choose to follow.

As is clear from the above examples of dialogue writing, there is much room for error while writing dialogue. Simple mistakes in dialogue punctuation can hamper the reading experience and take your reader out of the fictional world you have created. This is where an expert proofreader comes in.

Of course, any manuscript editing service will help ensure that you follow the important rules of writing dialogue. It’s their job to ensure consistency in your writing, even if you choose to deviate from the norm!

Now you understand the importance of dialogue and rules of writing dialogue. It’s time to understand how to write conversations in a story.

How to write dialogue in a story?

When it comes to writing dialogue in fiction , novelists and short story writers have a challenge at hand. They have to weave in dialogue while they construct scenes, setting, action, and context, also maintaining the flow and narrative of the story.

In his book The Anatomy of Story , John Truby says that dialogue is a “highly selective language that sounds like it could be real.” It is “always more intelligent, wittier, more metaphorical, and better argued than in real life.”

So, terrific dialogue isn’t just important when writing fiction— it’s essential. To impress the agent to win a book deal, and for your readers to keep coming back to your next book, you need to deliver superb dialogue in every scene.

 So, how to write dialogue that always hits the mark? Here are some tips to write dialogue:

1. Punctuate your dialogue properly

Writing dialogue punctuation is tricky, but extremely important. How you punctuate your dialogue determines the tone and meaning of your sentences. More than that, your use of punctuation also reflects upon the characters’ personality.

Take note of the following examples of dialogue writing:

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I really don’t know!”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I really don’t know!”

“I— I really don’t know.”

“I don’t know… I don’t know, I really don’t know.”

All the variations create different images inside your head. This is because dialogue punctuation creates a speech pattern for your character, and all memorable characters have unique speech patterns.

After all, aren’t you immediately reminded of a certain Star Wars character when you read:

“Know that, I don’t.”

So, the key to writing successful dialogue is to format it properly. Dialogue formatting hinges on five essential punctuation marks. Let’s go through them one by one.

Don’t worry, you’ll find plenty of dialogue formatting examples in the infographic below!

1. Quotation marks

Your dialogue, including all punctuation in the utterance, goes inside double quotations. If you’re in the UK, just replace this with single quotes.

US: “Whatever is said here— the deal, the discussions, the results, everything stays between us.”

UK: ‘Whatever is said here— the deal, the discussions, the results, everything stays between us.’

The end punctuation of a dialogue always goes inside quotation marks.

“When do we leave ? ” Fatima asked.

“Who goes there ! ” s he challenged.

Note that the first word of the dialogue tag is in lowercase. This is because your sentence is a combination of the dialogue and the tag. Since the sentence isn’t complete when the dialogue ends, there is no reason to write the tag in uppercase.

Unless, of course, if the first word happens to be a proper noun!

2. Quotes within dialogue

When you’re quoting a complete sentence, the punctuation remains inside the quote. But when your quote is an incomplete sentence, a book title, or an explanation of something, the punctuation goes outside of the quote

“Samantha called me up and said, ‘I want to see you right now !’ ”

“Samantha called me up and insisted on meeting ‘right now ’. ”

Commas appear with the dialogue tags. So, they connect the narration with the dialogue. Here is the correct way to punctuate with dialogue tags:

Tom said , “I will perform the main act tomorrow, when the time is right.”

“I will perform the main act tomorrow , ” said Tom. “When the time is right.”

“I will perform the main act tomorrow , ” said Tom , “when the time is right.”

Em-dashes are instrumental in setting a rhythm for dialogue. They represent disjointed speech or sentences that are abruptly broken off.

“I didn’t— I didn’t do anything!” Kyle was bewildered. “You— you have to believe me— I’m innocent!”

“They haven’t said—”

“We don’t have the time for this right now!” Anika yelled.

“I wish I could help—”

The alarm sounded: it was time for Wuxian to leave.

Aside from this, em-dashes can also be used to show when characters speak over each other. Here’s a dialogue writing example for overlapping speech:

“Mr. Jackson couldn’t see us—”

“Are you being serious right now!”

“—but he’s headed over here within the next hour.”

Sometimes, action and dialogue overlap to an extent where neither action tags nor dialogue tags are sufficient. In this case, a couple of em-dashes help the writer sprinkle narration between the dialogue.

“Little does our little prince know” — the witch stirred her potion — “what I have in store for him!”

5. Ellipsis

When a character gets stunned into silence or trails off while speaking, ellipses are the way to show it. Consider this:

“When did they…”

“Last night, when half our troops were asleep.”

He looked out at the distant stars. “I thought I had more time…”

It’s easy to deduce from the above examples of dialogue formatting that punctuation can make a huge difference. Different ways of writing dialogue in a story create different meanings. If you want to be a master dialogue writer, mastering dialogue punctuation is an absolute essential!

Also read: How to Punctuate Dialogue in Fiction

2. Character-specific dialogue

Obviously, writing effective dialogue requires a good understanding of your characters. Develop a speech pattern for your character that reflects their personality. Then, take into account their worldview, their present mental and emotional state, their accent, or some sayings they love to use.

Remember two things when you write dialogue for your characters:

Characters aren’t mouthpieces for the writer

Your characters have a life of their own. The dialogue you write for them needs to reflect this. Beware of setting two heads talking in space: scene and setting influence dialogue as much as they influence plot and story.

Dialogue between characters can engage with the surrounding to build tension and add drama. Don’t settle for anything less than the most character-specific, setting-influenced conversations between your characters!

All your characters can’t sound the same

Some characters talk a lot, some talk a little. Some talk wisely, and some talk frivolously. Effective dialogue writing lets the readers know exactly who is speaking.

A stuttering child will obviously have a different style of talking from a hotheaded matriarch. Idioms, catchphrases, accent: it all goes into the making of great dialogue.

3. Balance dialogue with narration

Dialogue from stories and novels is always more intelligent, metaphorical, and sassy than it is in real life. The simple reason for this is that dialogue is not real talk. It is a highly vetted language that is cleverly constructed to depict action, movement, and conflict.

Consider this:

“Hey, Eric,” Wendy said.

“Oh, hi! What’s up?”

“Do you know where Kenny is? He hasn’t been home in two days”

“I’ve been busy lately, don’t have a clue”

Your texts with random colleagues are more interesting than this, right? The dialogue in this example sounds realistic, but it’s also boring because it has no weight.

It does not contain any tensions and adds nothing to the plot. It tells you nothing about the characters, aside from the surface information.

A dialogue writing sample

Dialogue and internal monologue are necessary to the story but can quickly turn boring. So, your dialogue needs to be rich in conflict. More than this, it needs to be balanced with conflict in action and narration!

Make sure that your dialogue has an impact. It should change the direction of the plot, the movement of the story, and the behavior of your characters. If characters talk and nothing happens, your readers will lose interest.

This is how you can achieve a balance between narration and dialogue to depict a better picture:

“Hey, Eric,” Wendy said, trying to play it cool.

“Oh, hi!” Eric said brightly, rubbing the back of his neck. “What’s up?”

“Do you know where Kenny is?” She observed his expression. “He hasn’t been home in two days.”

Eric won’t give away anything so casually, she thought. I must corner him after the meeting.

“I’ve been busy lately,” he smirked, shrugging. “No clue.”

See how some well-placed narration makes the same lines more engrossing? A drab conversation takes on more meaning if you use the right dialogue tags and action beats.

4. Avoid exposition

Exposition is the writer’s way of giving context to their readers. It tells the readers more about the setting, the backstory, and the recent or distant events before the story begins.

It’s important for the readers to know where the characters come from and where they are going. But this doesn’t have to be told through a dialogue between two characters. Too much exposition in dialogue makes your characters talking heads, rather than the real people they’re supposed to be.

Relying heavily on your dialogue is as harmful as not using it enough.

Ideally, a large part of the exposition should be set in the story’s narrative. Other developments like suspense, revelations, or secrets can unravel through dialogue. This adds dramatic effect to your narrative.

5. Revising your dialogue is important

No one can write good dialogue in one go. If it’s impactful, it tends to be unrealistic. If it’s believable, it becomes lackluster. This is why revising your dialogue is so important. Aside from the content, even changes in dialogue formatting and punctuation can make it more substantial.

It’s natural to come up with a clunky length of conversations in your first go at writing dialogue. But a round of revision helps you refine it by leaps and bounds.

Go through individual dialogue segments and inspect them carefully. Ask if the dialogue is logical for the character’s disposition. Is it true to the story’s time and character’s maturity? Does it fit the character’s credible thinking?

Create a list of such questions to suit your individual process. Include things that you often forget to consider. Add considerations like personality, slang, rhythm, mood, and emotion to your list.

If you lack the critical eye to examine and correct your writing, seek expert help. As always, your novel editors and proofreaders are here to help ! 

6. Study and practice 

Finally, the most important advice from anyone who has mastered any art: practice!

Observe how your favorite author writes dialogue in their books. Note down all remarkable examples of dialogue writing and study them for why they work. You can also make use of some dialogue writing exercises.

A dialogue writing exercise can be as simple as starting with a prompt and making it intriguing. Basic as it sounds, there’s nothing like some good old writing practice to get you going! So, here are some quick dialogue writing prompts that can help you practice:

• “I heard you’ve been missing something.”
• “Ah, how the mighty have fallen!”
• “I never said—”
• “Have you heard? Old man Lan is dead.”
• “Her mother knew. All this time.”
• “Did they help? You don’t look any better.”
• “It’s time to finish what we started.”
• “I never thought it could go this wrong.”
• “How did you…”
• “How old are you again? I keep forgetting!”

We hope these dialogue prompts get you excited to write. Of course, knowing what you need to do isn’t enough to make powerful dialogue. You also need to know what to avoid .

Avoid these dialogue writing mistakes

There are two reasons that dialogues become boring: either writers expect dialogue to do the heavy lifting, or they don’t rely on it at all. There is a fine balance for dialogue in a story: it needs to do enough, but never too much.

But how can you achieve this? Where does the limit lie? Now that we’ve told you how to write dialogue, we’ll also inform you about some common dialogue mistakes you need to avoid. It’s all about that balance, isn’t it!

Avoid these pitfalls in when you write dialogue in a story:

1. Boring dialogue tags

There is a wide variety of tags you can use, aside from “he said”, “she said”, and “they said”. The common mistake to make while writing dialogue in a story is using the same or similar tags too often. This gets repetitive and boring for the reader.

No one wants to read something like this:

“Barry,” said Melanie, “I didn’t know you were in town!”

“You hardly know yourself these days,” he said.

“Hey!” she said. “No fair!”

Let’s make some corrections:

“Barry,” beamed Melanie, “I didn’t know you were in town!”

“You hardly know yourself these days,” he mocked .

“Hey!” she protested. “No fair!”

You know what? I still feel like this is lacking, and we’ll soon see why.

2. Too many tags, not enough beats

Using an abundance of dialogue beats and no action tags make for poor dialogue. The reverse is also true; what you need is a proper mix of both.

Tags tell you how the words are being said, but beats tell you what action is happening alongside the words. For engaging dialogue, you need both! Here’s our previous dialogue writing example, edited, proofread, and improved:

“Barry!” Melanie hugged him, smiling brightly. “I didn’t know you were in town!”

“You hardly know yourself these days,” he mocked.

“Hey!” She punched him on the shoulder. “No fair!”

3. An abundance of the same style

We’ve seen multiple ways to write and punctuate dialogue. You can write it with a tag, a beat, or an interruption. Find ways to mix and match between these styles, so the repetition doesn’t become boring.

Here’s an example that mixes various styles of dialogue writing:

“Barry!” — Melanie hugged him, smiling brightly — “I didn’t know you were in town!”

4. Scene-blindness

A scene is a moment in your story: it includes action, conflict, and some immediate consequences. To maintain the flow of action, nothing should interrupt the scene.

Let dialogue build tension, and cut back on it when the tension is highest. Too much dialogue can dilute the scene and create no impact. Assess the needs of every scene, and write your dialogue accordingly.

Now that you know how to creatively use dialogue, you can create intriguing dialogues to hook the reader to your text. The next step after writing is editing. As experts in editing and proofreading services , we’d love to refine your text! 

Here are some other articles that you might find useful: 

• How to Write a Novel in Past Tense? 3 Steps & Examples
• How to Write Unforgettable Antagonists

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Thanks for sharing this valuable information with us, it is a really helpful article!

Thanks for this. It will help me write better stories.

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Examples of Dialogue Tags

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• Dialogue Cheat Sheet

Dialogue is an exchange of conversation between two or more people or characters in a story. As a literary style, dialogue helps to advance the plot, reveal a character's thoughts or emotions, or shows the character's reaction within the story. Dialogue gives life to the story and supports the story's atmosphere.

There are two types of dialogue that can be used in an narrative essay.

Direct dialogue  is written between inverted commas or quotes. These are the actual spoken words of a character 

Indirect dialogue  is basically telling someone about what another person said

Formatting Dialogue

Dialogue is an important part of a narrative essay, However formatting dialogue can be troublesome at times.

When formatting dialogue use these rules and examples to help with your formatting:

Place double quotation marks at the beginning an end of spoken words.  The quotations go on the  outside  of both the words and end-of-dialogue punctuation.

• Example:  "What is going on here?" John asked.

Each speaker gets a new paragraph that is indented.

      “hi,” said John as he stretched out his hand.

           "Good Morning, how are you?" said Brad shaking John’s hand.

                      "Good. Thanks for asking," John said.

Each speaker’s actions are in the same paragraph as their dialogue.

 A  dialogue tag  is anything that indicates which character spoke and describes how they spoke.

If the tag comes before the dialogue,  use a comma straight after the tag. If the dialogue is the beginning of a sentence, capitalize the first letter. End the dialogue with the appropriate punctuation (period, exclamation point, or question mark), but keep it INSIDE the quotation marks.

• Examples Before: 

James said, “I’ll never go shopping with you again!”

John said, “It's a great day to be at the beach.”

She opened the door and yelled, “Go away! Leave me alone!”

If the dialogue tag comes after the dialogue , Punctuation still goes INSIDE quotation marks. Unless the dialogue tag begins with a proper noun, it is  not  capitalized. End the dialogue tag with appropriate punctuation. Use comma after the quote unless it ends with a question mark or exclamation mark.

• Examples After: 

“Are you sure this is real life?” Lindsay asked.

“It’s so gloomy out,” he said.

“Are we done?” asked Brad . 

“This is not your concern!” Emma said.

If dialogue tag is in the middle of dialogue.  A comma should be used before the dialogue tag inside the closing quotation mark; Unless the dialogue tag begins with a proper noun, it is  not  capitalized. A comma is used after the dialogue tag, outside of quotation marks, to reintroduce the dialogue. End the dialogue with the appropriate punctuation followed by the closing quotation marks. 

When it is two sentences, the first sentence will end with a punctuation mark and the second begins with a capital letter.

• Examples middle: 

“Let’s run away,” she whispered, “we wont get another chance.”

“I thought you cared.” Sandy said, hoping for an explanation. “How could you walk away?”

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Jerry whispered. “I’ll miss him.”

Questions in dialogue.  

if there is a dialogue tag, the question mark will act as a comma and you will then lowercase the first word in the dialogue tag 

• Example: What are you doing?" he asked.

if there is simply an action after the question, the question mark acts as a period and you will then capitalize the first word in the next sentence.

“Sarah, why didn't you text me back?” Jane asked.

“James, why didn’t you show up?” Carol stomped her feet in anger before slamming the door behind her.

If the question or exclamation ends the dialogue, do not use commas to separate the dialogue from dialogue tags.

• Example:  “Sarah, why didn't you text me back?” Jane asked.

If the sentence containing the dialogue is a question, then the        question mark goes outside of the quotation marks.

Did the teacher say, “The Homework is due Tomorrow”?

If you have to quote something within the dialogue.  When a character quotes someone else, use double-quotes around what your character says, then single-quotes around the speech they’re quoting.

• Example: 

"When doling out dessert, my grandmother always said, 'You may have a cookie for each hand.'"

Dashes & Ellipses:

Dashes ( — ) are used to indicate abruptly interrupted dialogue or when one character's dialogue is interrupted by another character.

Use an em dash  inside  the quotation marks to cut off the character mid-dialogue, usually with either (A) another character speaking or (B) an external action.

• Including the em dash at the end of the line of dialogue signifies that your character wasn't finished speaking.
• If the speaking character's action interrupts their own dialogue . 
• Use em dashes  outside  the quotation marks to set off a bit of action without a speech verb. 

Examples: 

• Heather ran towards Sarah with excitement. “You won’t believe what I found out—”
• "Is everything—" she started to ask, but a sharp look cut her off.
• "Look over there—" She snapped her mouth shut so she didn't give the secret away.
• "Look over there"—she pointed towards the shadow—"by the stairway."

Use ellipses (...) when a character has lost their train of thought or can't figure out what to say

• Example:  “You haven’t…” he trailed off in disbelief.

Action Beats

Action beats show what a character is doing before, during, or after their dialogue.

“This isn't right.” She squinted down at her burger. “Does this look like it is well done to you?”

She smiled. “I loved the center piece you chose.”

If you separate two complete sentences, you will simply place the action beat as its own sentence between two sets of quotes.

“I never said he could go to the concert.” Linda sighed and sat in her chair. “He lied to you again.”

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9 Dialogue Tips for Writing Good Conversation

Written by MasterClass

Last updated: Aug 10, 2021 • 6 min read

Writers and screenwriters constantly refine their skills for writing dialogue and multi-person conversation to ensure that their characters sound realistic and relatable. Use these tips from leading authors to learn how to write a conversation between the characters in your novel, short story, or screenplay.

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How to Use Dialogue From a Script in an Essay in MLA

Quoting dialogue between two or more characters from a script can seem like a daunting task, but knowing the origin of your script will make the task less challenging. Guidelines set forth by the Modern Language Association will also help make the process manageable.

Quoting Dialogue

Dialogue is the exchange between two or more characters within a script, whether for the purposes of a theatrical play or film. To format your quotation, begin the quote on a new line and indent it one inch from the body of your paper. If the quotation extends onto the next line, make sure to indent the second and subsequent lines another 1/4 inch, or about three spaces. Lines should be double spaced, and character names should be written in all capital letters, followed by a period. You should not use quotation marks when quoting dialogue from a script, play or film.

In-Text Citations

Because plays are often published differently from prose, MLA guidelines indicate that in-text citations should be contained in parentheses and consist of the act, scene and line number of the script, rather than the page number. To cite dialogue, begin with the broadest division and work toward the smallest division -- for example, from act to scene to line. Separate each of those divisions with a period. If you have noted the author and title of the script elsewhere in your paper, you do not need to include it again in the in-text citation. For example, the parenthetical citation (4.1.5-12) denotes that the quotation is from act 4, scene 1, lines 5 through 12.

Works Cited List

Published plays are generally found in either an anthology, a collection of a single author's works or a single volume. The source will dictate how the citation appears in the Works Cited list. However, scripts often have not been published in one of the previously listed formats. In this case, MLA considers it to be a manuscript and recommends that it be cited as such.

Works Cited Examples

A citation for an unpublished script is set up with the author's name (last name first), followed by a period; the title in italics, followed by a period; the type of work, followed by a comma; and the year. For example:

Baker, Stephanie. The Night Came. Unpublished script, 1998.

A script found online is more complicated to cite. It is set up with the authors first, followed by a period. Then, in italics, include the title, followed by a period. Then include the version of script, followed by a period. Then add the date of completion, followed by a period. The name of the site where the script was accessed, followed by a period, should come next. Then include the date of access, followed by a period. Finally, include the website address. For example:

Hill, Walter and David Giler. Alien. Revised Final Script. June 1978. The Daily Script. 3 Mar. 2008. http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/alien_shooting.html.

Published scripts or plays by a single author are formatted with the author first, followed by a period. Then include the title in italics, followed by a period. Then add the publication city, followed by a colon. Then include the publisher, followed by a period. Then add the year, followed by a period. Finally, include the format, followed by a period. For example:

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. New York: Random House. 1945. Print.

• University of Toronto: MLA Formatting and Style Guide
• Georgia College: MLA Style
• Montgomery County Community College: How to Cite a Film Script

Alicia Anthony is a seasoned educator with more than 10 years classroom experience in the K-12 setting. She holds a Master of Education in literacy curriculum and instruction and a Bachelor of Arts in communications. She is completing a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing: fiction, and working on a novel.

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How to Write a Dialogue in an Essay with Example

This article will reveal all you need to know about how to write a dialogue, types of dialogues in an essay, and formatting . In addition, in this article, you will find several examples of English essay dialogue and dialogue between two characters.

What Is a Dialogue?

The definition of a dialogue is as simple as it gets. Dialogue is a conversation or discussion between two or more people in a book, play, or film. If you are wondering where the surprise part is coming in, here it is: it is not just any conversation. If you include a dialogue in an essay, it has to convey some kind of conflict, emotional tension, a surprising fact, or an interesting turn of events.

Dialogues in essays are not focused on mundane things because mundane things are just not interesting to read about.

There is a range of things NOT to include in your dialogue, such as:

• Throat-clearing sentences – parts of dialogue that do not add to the plot, but simply take space
• Rambling – this is the least relevant and interesting type of dialogue, which your readers are most likely to skip
• Words like “um”, “hm”, “like”, “sorta”, “kinda” – while it is important to speak the language of your readers to engage with them, avoid making them feel like they listen to a discussion between two people on the street.
• Profanities and slang – keep it classy instead of crassy.

  It is surely rare to hear people in real life speaking like characters in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books, but this doesn’t mean dialogues shouldn’t be refined to sound realistic.

Types of Dialogues

While choosing how to convey the words of characters in an essay for the readers, you have two options: active and passive dialogue . Active dialogue includes quotes and quotation marks, while passive dialogue implies paraphrasing of the quotes and telling them from the narrator.

Examples of these types of dialogue are below:

1 Active dialogue example

Peter asked, “Joanna, can you take kids to your mother tonight?”

“Sure, I will drive them there as soon as they get back home from school,” she replied.

2 Passive dialogue example

Peter asked Joanna whether she would be able to take kids to her mother tonight. Joanna was exhausted by a long ride, however, agreed anyway, taking the chance to avoid the serious talk she needed to have with her husband.

From these short dialogues, we can see that active dialogue allows readers to imagine the situation much better, while passive dialogue can provide more details just by adding extra facts to the narration.

How to Put a Dialogue in an Essay?

The purpose of a dialogue in an essay is to create a more vivid picture for the audience. The functions of a dialogue in an essay include:

• Providing extra information about characters
• Unravel interesting or surprising plot twists and details about the story
• Attract readers’ attention

If your dialogue meets at least one of these criteria, it is a good dialogue to put in an essay. In fact, dialogues can help you tell a lot of information about the story and characters in a relatively short abstract. Adding descriptions of how people say something or why they say it is the key to describing their own behavior.

How to Format a Dialogue

Now let’s move on to the most intriguing part of writing a dialogue – punctuation and formatting . When you stumble upon a dialogue in any narrative essay or text, punctuation might seem to have a lot of different styles, which is confusing.

Of course, common errors in English are still relevant here, but dialogues have evolved their own punctuation rules.

There are three simple steps you need to follow in order to format your dialogue correctly in an essay:

1 In a dialogue, commas, exclamation marks, and question marks are inside the quotation marks:

“How could you do this? Moving a couch across the room isn’t a job for a fourteen-year-old girl!” Diane’s mom yelled in despair. “These macaroons are just exquisite! I would love it if you would give me a recipe,” my aunt asked me. “This movie was so scary that I could barely look at the screen!” her son complained after watching Jaws.

2 Use commas to set off dialogue tags, such as “he said” or “she exclaimed”:

“Enough of this,” he said, “I am absolutely tired of repairing this car! I will rather save up and buy a new one.” “Pepsi has too much sugar in it, this is diabetes in a can,” the grandmother said in a sad voice. “I have been reading The New York Times for years now,”the teacher said. “This newspaper has never disappointed me.”

3 If your quotation is at the end of the sentence, put a period inside the quotation marks as well:

Uncle Joe frowned, scratched his forehead, and finally replied, “I have no idea why my car keys are in the fridge.” He then told her the biggest lie he could ever tell, “I never left the wet towel on the bathroom floor.” Sarah pointed at zebra and asked her father, “Daddy, I have never seen a black and white horse.”

Pay attention to the following: if one person’s speech takes more than one paragraph, use opening quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph, however, do not use closing marks till the end of the speech .

My new neighbor always seems to be the most enthusiastic to tell me about her perfumes. One day, I asked her, “How did you come to like and wear perfumes?” She replied, “I have always wondered about where perfumes came from. This huge industry has grown from our scent preferences, experience with different smells, and scent associations. Probably, this is connected to our evolution as species, where detecting specific smell would mean choosing safe food. “Until recently, I have never been wearing perfumes myself, but admired them from a distance. Now I have a small collection of fragrances. I have learned a lot about fragrance industry and notes used in perfumery.”

How to Write a Dialogue Between Two Characters

Now that you know all about the purpose of a dialogue in an essay as well as how to write it and use punctuation, learning how to write a dialogue between two characters will be a piece of cake.

The rules you should follow are:

• Give your characters a setting . Just like in movies, mise-en-scene is often as important as the dialogue itself. Set the scene for the dialogue by briefly describing where and when the dialogue takes place. This will help your readers imagine the picture more vividly.
• Keep it realistic . Unless it suits your essay style, there is no need to be smarty pants and write dialogues with words and scientific facts that are hard to understand for an average reader. While writing a dialogue, reread it several times and make sure it doesn’t make you think “nobody talks like that!”
• Let the dialogue flow naturally . Put yourself into your characters’ shoes and imagine how you would react to something being said to you. This is how you will find the way for the dialogue to seem natural and flow seamlessly.
• Don’t overuse it . While dialogue is a great tool for an essay, turning an essay into a play script with only quotes is another mistake you want to avoid.
• Make your characters human . Add details about feelings and emotions into the dialogue, both from the narrator and from the dialogue itself. Let your audience understand the tone and mood of the dialogue.
• Give the dialogue a purpose . By all means, discussion about whether a cake is tasty or not can be passionate, emotional, and tense altogether. However, this is not something to include in a dialogue. Your dialogue should have a purpose in the plot and affect the characters involved in it.
• Make sure to indicate who is who . This might seem like a rookie mistake in writing a dialogue in an essay, however, it happens. Have you ever read a long dialogue where you couldn’t understand anymore who talks? If your dialogue in an essay is longer than 5-6 quotes, make sure to add narrator’s text that will clarify who says those lines.

In a dialogue between two characters, it is easy to do because the readers do not need to remember many names or attributes. To avoid repetitions, use “he” or “she”, or specific features and roles, such as family member name (aunt, uncle, grandmother, nephew, etc.), significant appearance characteristic (blonde girl, tall man, lady in red, etc.), and specific roles people have (student, cashier, sale associate, doctor, nurse, etc.). In case you use any of those, make sure that you mention these attributes earlier in the text to avoid confusion.

Following these tips will help you write a truly meaningful dialogue between two characters and help readers understand additional information about them, their mood, features, preferences, role in the story, and relationships between them.

English Essay Dialogue Example

John finally returned home after a long day at work. It was raining cats and dogs and his raincoat was soaked. He opened the door, entered his apartment, and put his bag on the floor. suddenly , his phone started ringing. John took it out of his pocket and picked up. “Dad, itl burned down… I am so sorry,” he heard his daughter’s sad voice. She was crying. “What are you talking about?! Jen, are you alright?” “Dad, your summer cottage, it burned down to the ground” she was clearly devastated. John asked, “How did this happen?” “Just an accident, dad. You must have left the fire in the fireplace,” Jen replied. At this moment, John sighed with relief, even though his daughter might have thought he was very upset by the loss. She had no clue that her father insured their summer cottage and now the word “accident” meant lining his pocket from insurance money for sure.

So, now you know everything you need to write a dialogue in your essay successfully! Still, I strongly recommend to consider whether you need it at all — even when tutors assign such a creative writing, they are very meticulous in its evaluation. Moreover, pay attention to editing — due to sophisticated punctuation, dialogues are a never-ending source of students’ errors.

Did you know that Homework Lab is a student task sharing platform? You can work on tasks on your own or ask professional Geeks for help. Join anytime, anywhere for free.

If you have any questions about dialogues unanswered, please share your comment — I will get back and resolve any issues you have 😎.

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How to Write Two Characters Talking at Once

If you’re writing a conversation between two or more characters, you may run into the issue of characters talking at the same time. This is an easy thing to pull off in a TV show or a movie, but slightly trickier in a novel or a short story, so I thought I’d address it!

(By the way, I’m going to share a related post next week on how to write a great, believable argument between two characters. If you don’t want to miss it, be sure you’re subscribed to the blog—there’s a signup on the lefthand side of this page.)

Let’s look at some examples. You’ll notice that the solution to this issue usually involves just telling the reader that the characters are talking at the same time.

Examples in Back and Forth Dialogue

(“Back and forth dialogue” meaning, of course, that two people are talking and exchanging lines of dialogue.)

“Are you seriously considering stealing his car?” he asked. “He’s got eighteen other cars,” I pointed out. “It’s still a crime!” he said at the same time I added, “He’ll never notice.”

Now, if you wanted to have our protagonist friend interject right after our protagonist says, “He’ll never notice,” it would look like this.

“Are you seriously considering stealing his car?” he asked. “He’s got eighteen other cars,” I pointed out. “He’ll never notice—” “It’s still a crime!”

You can have a character cut off another character mid-word , but only if it’s a long word and the context lets the reader know what the complete word would’ve been. For instance:

She threw her hands up in the air. “Why did you even volunteer if you weren’t going to show up?” “I didn’t exactly volun—” “This is so typical of young people!” she said. I considered pointing out that I’d turned fifty the month before.

If you have two characters who are cutting each other off and talking over one another, it looks like this.

She threw her hands up in the air. “Why did you even volunteer if you weren’t going to show up?” “I didn’t exactly volun—” “This is so typical of young people! You think the world revolves—” “Young people? I’m fifty years old!”

Now I’m going to point out something very important.

The dash used for interrupted dialogue is called an em dash.

It’s not a hyphen. It’s not two hyphens. It’s an em dash, sometimes called a long dash.

Here’s how to type an em dash.

If you’re working on a Word document on a Mac, you type it by pressing the Option key, the Shift key, and the Minus key at the same time. This is cumbersome at first, but it may very quickly become muscle memory, so you won’t even have to think about it.

If you’re working in Word on a PC, you press the Alt key and type 0151, which is genuinely a hassle. I’m adding an explanation here: in my own experience, if you type in two hyphens that Microsoft Word turns into a long dash, that can create formatting problems when you’re putting it in an ebook file. Programs are getting updated all the time, so if this is no longer an issue, let me know!

Examples With Two or More People

It can be very funny to have two people give different answers to a third person’s question, and it looks like this.

His mouth fell open. “What are you doing in my office after midnight?” “I left my phone here,” I said, at the same time Jacinta said, “We’re investigating you.”

Let’s say you want to show a few people talking at once. If we know who the characters are in the story, it could look like this.

Marianne’s pulse quickened. Hoping her voice wouldn’t shake, she said, “You’re a bunch of online bullies.” They all objected at once. “I wouldn’t call it bullying,” Brandon said, at the same time that Helen snapped, “Give me a freaking break.” Anna said something about having the right to share her opinion while Christopher was sputtering about how he’d been quoted out of context.

You probably noticed that this passage was in Marianne’s point of view, and she didn’t catch everything they said word for word. When you’re writing in one character’s point of view, the reader only perceives what that character perceives—and that character can only hear so many things at once!

What if you’re writing a story in which several people in a crowd simultaneously speak up? Just tell us they’re all talking at once, and then make each line of dialogue its own paragraph. Like this!

Linda took in a deep breath and concluded, “And that’s why Katie Craig should resign as mayor.” Among scattered applause and boos, several voices rang out from the audience. “No way!” “ Yes !” “You’re the one who should resign!” “That’s right, you tell ’em, Linda!”

I hope these dialogue examples have been helpful! If you have any other questions about dialogue, or some advice of your own about writing a conversation between characters, please share them in the comments.

Thanks so much for reading, and happy writing!

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19 thoughts on “ how to write two characters talking at once ”.

In Word, at least the older version I use, in order to get an em-dash, you type two hyphens and the program converts them to an em-dash.

All my writing programs work the same way, just type in two hyphens and boom! Em dash ?

Here’s why I don’t recommend doing it this way, but it may not be a concern to you! I’ve had issues in the past with em dashes being made with two hyphens causing formatting woes when we’ve put it in ebook form, like creating weird big spaces where they don’t belong. It’s so aggravating for a formatter to have to go through the whole book correcting those. It’s not a problem when an em dash is put in the way I’ve described above. That being said, programs are always being updated and it’s possible that this issue has been corrected.

Thank you. So many options to consider!

🙂 Thanks for reading, Tanya!

This is a topic I’ve never seen addressed before and have been stumped by. Thanks!

Glad it was helpful. 🙂 Thank you for reading!

This was wonderful! Thank you.

Thanks, friend!

This post led me to a rabbit hole trying to insert em-dash using my laptop. I found a simpler way. In your word, go to Insert –> Symbol. Select “General punctuation” from “Subset” dropdown. You will find em-dash on the lower corner. And now the best part… you can assign a desired shortcut to it so that you don’t have to repeat this process again.

Oh, very nice! Thanks for sharing—I didn’t know. On the Mac I’m so used to the other way that it doesn’t slow me down, but it certainly did at first! 🙂 That’s going to help some people out!

I put a space before the – and a space after. In my Word program it automatically changes to an m dash. When I don’t put the before and after spaces it remains the single dash. If it happens automatically, will that create problems with formatting? Thanks so much for this post. It’s good to know how to handle it. People don’t always take turns talking.

Hi Jessie! Thanks for reading! So, in American books, the em dash has no space before or after. Pretty much every American publisher uses Chicago Manual of Style, and that’s how it’s done there. I believe in British books, they more often use an en dash (a shorter dash that’s longer than a hyphen) with a space before and a space after, and I think that’s what you’re getting. If your work gets published with an American publisher, they will probably go through and switch all of those. If you self-publish, some American readers may notice that the dashes look different, but I don’t think it will trip them up. 🙂

I hope everything’s going well with you!

I had no idea about the em dash. I work in Pages. I will have to do a little research. Thanks for such a great post. I will be linking to it on my blog.

Rosi, thank you so much for linking. I really appreciate it! I’m sure you already know this, so I’m saying it for others’ benefit: if you submit work to a publisher, you’ll probably have to convert from Pages to Word, since most publishers use Word. I don’t think it’s too hard, though. 🙂 Thanks for reading and for the kind words!

Always good to read things in such a clear way even if you’ve figured it out already. I enjoyed this confirmation of how to handle this matter. Thanks a lot!

Ah, thank you, Akomachi. Thanks for reading! Happy Friday!

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Using Word on Windows 11, the em dash is ctrl+alt and the minus sign on the number pad.

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15 Movies Screenwriters Should Watch to Study Dialogue

Welcome to the inaugural installment of our series 15 Movies Screenwriters Should Watch where we explore different subjects of screenwriting and feature some of the best cinematic examples that screenwriters can study and learn from. Here we feature the subject of dialogue .

The best dialogue is lightning in a bottle. There's no real formula. It's not a paint-by-the-numbers process that everyone can follow.

We've explored the "secrets" of writing great dialogue.

Read ScreenCraft's The Single Secret of Writing Great Dialogue !

Lack   of dialogue is where you start — that's the first key to unlocking the mysteries of memorable movie dialogue. The best practice is less about injecting those great one-liners and speeches and more about cutting and cutting and cutting every line of dialogue that you can until you find that great one-liner, fragment, or phrase hiding amidst the noise — that diamond in the rough that encapsulates the moment at the core.

Learn how to write great movie dialogue with this free guide .

The second and final key to unlocking the secret of writing great dialogue is to understand that  there is no secret . There is no single final secret. And the moment you realize that will be the moment that you’ll feel a heavy weight lifted from your shoulders.

There are no dialogue rules that can apply to each and every screenplay.

Some scripts require expositional dialogue — others would suffer from it.

Some scripts require the added touch of stylistic dialogue — others don’t need it.

Some scripts require no dialogue, letting actions speak louder than words ( Dunkirk ,  The Road ) — others would benefit from it.

But that doesn't mean you can't learn from the best cinematic dialogue that has graced the big and small screens. Part of the learning process of writing is seeking out the best inspiration you can find. Then you can build on that inspiration and apply your own style and choices.

Here we offer fifteen movies — in no specific order — that screenwriters should watch to study cinematic dialogue. We'll also briefly break down what you can learn from each.

1. Annie Hall

Woody Allen is a master of neurotic and eccentric banter. If you have characters that match those characteristics, Annie Hall is the first movie you should watch to get a sense of the rhythm that those types of characters utilize in their speech patterns and exchanges.

Dismiss the controversy surrounding Woody Allen's personal life and just embrace the work, which is masterful.

2. Pulp Fiction

Quentin Tarantino's films are known for their dialogue. This is because he writes words that aren't wasted. Each and every line of dialogue serves a purpose. He creates humor without making jokes. He builds tension with quietness and calm before unleashing any rage of intimidation.

But even more memorable is the fact that many of his lines are cool, sly, and slick. If you have a script that is populated with characters that have those traits, Pulp Fiction is the must-see film to study.

3. No Country For Old Men

If you have a screenplay that requires tension, silence is often the best place to start. This Coen Brothers movie exudes tension. And it does so by holding back dialogue to the point where the moment a character does speak, you're completely on the edge of your seat to hear what they do have to say.

If one of the keys to great dialogue is lack of dialogue, this film is one to study.

The protagonist and antagonist don't say much. But when they do talk, it matters.

4. The Social Network

Aaron Sorkin is the master of rapid-fire dialogue — and it's not just about characters talking fast. It's a marriage of fast-paced lines and narrative information, both of which combine to create a medley of cinematic dialogue that plays like an action movie for the ears.

If you have characters that are smart and can spar with words, Aaron Sorkin's work is a must-watch list of rapid-fire dialogue. But The Social Network is special because the characters spouting the lines are smart and savvy. There is a melody to their exchanges. And the way Sorkin crafts each line of dialogue with misdirection and ulterior motive is nothing short of brilliant.

5. The Man From Earth

A goodbye party for Professor John Oldman becomes a mysterious and intriguing debate between colleagues after he poses a strange scenario.

This is a talking heads film. It could very well have been a stage play. One location. Multiple characters. All offering their own take on a single question posed to them.

The film offers screenwriters the perfect example of how to handle a cinematic debate or discussion where characters try to solve a mystery through intellect. If your script has a full story like this, look no further for the best example of how to pull off that dialogue. If it's only a single scene, you can still use this example in a condensed fashion.

6. The Big Chill

Another talking heads movie, but with a different dynamic. The film follows old college friends reuniting after the suicide of one of their own.

Each character is going through their own stages of grief, reconciliation, and midlife crisis. The dialogue exchanges affect each of them in different ways. And that dialogue is equal parts philosophy and humor.

If you have a script with old friends talking their way through life and their personal struggles, The Big Chill is where you should start.

7. Silence of the Lambs

The intensity of every scene that Clarice and Lector share is built through each line of dialogue. Hannibal Lecter is one of cinema's greatest and most horrific villains, yet he hardly ever speaks above a calm noise level.

If your script has a character that hides their lethal true self behind charm, intellect, and persuasion, this suspense thriller classic is a must-watch.

8. Reservoir Dogs

You can't have a dialogue-related list without Quentin Tarantino (and other greats) appearing more than once.

This film was revolutionary when it came to dialogue. Martin Scorsese's early gangster films of Mean Streets and Goodfellas certainly stood out as outstanding examples of machismo character dynamics at their best, but Reservoir Dogs really displayed how Alpha Males could co-exist in the same space.

And that's an interesting question. How can you write scenes that contain characters that all command the room? Look no further than Tarantino's debut feature.

The dialogue behind the character of Juno, written beautifully by Diablo Cody, is lightning in a bottle. You're not going to be able to replicate it without coming off as a copycat or wannabe.

However, you can study it to learn how Cody formulated a different style of speaking. A style that was unique to her own voice. And in screenwriting, a unique voice goes a long way.

When you watch the film, imagine how the scene would have been handled with more rudimentary and average dialogue. Then analyze how Cody pushed the envelope. After that, imagine how you can push the envelope yourself.

10. Good Will Hunting

What happens when you pair brilliance with brutality? Enter Good Will Hunting , the story about a brutal Southie band of brothers, one of whom happens to have a brilliant mind. He's wicked smart, but he lacks the ability to connect emotionally with anyone. And that fact is tested when he falls for a girl while being forced to undergo therapy with an intrigued therapist.

The dialogue is a course in character exploration. Will and Sean learn from one another. They weren't ready to do so. They are two intellectuals from the same brutal streets of Southie and are constantly sparring. Sean wants Will to open up. Will wants to do nothing of the sort.

And on a side note, if you want to learn how to craft a brilliant monologue, this movie is the place to learn.

11. Glengarry Glen Ross

There are so many dialogue lessons to be learned from this David Mamet script, which was adapted from his own stage play of the same name.

You learn how a character can control the room. You learn how to handle many different versions of what would otherwise be a stereotypical character — in this case, a salesman. Each of these salesmen has a different philosophy and confidence-level. And all of that is communicated by the way they speak. What they say and how they say it.

12. Before Sunrise

This was the first installment of a trilogy of films that focused on the interactions between the same two characters. It's a perfect example of how to handle a talking heads script — or how to handle a scene that explores two characters getting a feel for one another.

The dialogue feels natural, although it's cinema-natural. They interrupt each other. Their trains of thought go down different paths through different tangents.

If you need to learn how to handle two characters having an otherwise uneventful — plot-wise — moment together, Before Sunrise can lead you down the right path. And its sequels do the same.

And if you want to learn creative ways to drop inner feelings — the no-nos of screenwriting — check out this scene in particular.

13. Moneyball

If we have two Tarantino scripts, we need to have two Aaron Sorkin ones, right?

Aaron Sorkin once said, “Anytime you get two people in a room who disagree about anything, the time of day, there is a scene to be written. That’s what I’m looking for.”

The best dialogue comes from two or more characters in one scene that want different things. It’s as simple as that. If you have that present in almost every scene of your script, the dialogue will pop off of that page and eventual audiences will be engaged by the back and forth, waiting to see who is going to win the argument.

We go to  Moneyball   for a perfect example of characters wanting different things.

You have the GM of a poor team that is sick of playing the same game each and every season pitted up against a room of veteran scouts set in their traditional ways that clearly don’t work anymore.

And that conflict is enhanced at the climax of this storyline.

14. The Big Lebowski

If we're going to double-up with Tarantino and Sorkin, we have to go back to the Coen Brothers as well. While Fargo is a tempting and worthy selection, it would cause an uproar if we didn't feature The Big Lebowski . His Dude-ness deserves a mention.

This film thrives with its one-liners that are embedded with the DNA of characterization. Each line from each character fits that character perfectly. And The Dude gets the cream of the crop.

If you're writing unique and "out there" characters, this is a must-see flick.

There is no single formula for creating a quotable line. You just have to do what the Coen Brothers did, write lines that only those particular characters could say.

15. The Shawshank Redemption

Don't believe what you've heard or read — narration can be an effective cinematic tool.

Sure, it can be a cheat. Screenwriters can use it as a crutch.

However, when used right, it can offer the audience an elevated cinematic experience. And The Shawshank Redemption is perhaps the finest example of how to properly use narration.

It's not excessive. It's not a crutch. It's not a cheat. The narration is used as a way to create a more intimate story.

So if you're tempted to use narration without your script, here's the perfect example of how to do it right.

Wild Card — Exorcist III

While this may leave some readers scratching their heads, the script for this severely underrated sequel to The Exorcist — adapted from the direct sequel novel of the original's source material — has outstanding dialogue.

The scenes between old friend Detective Kindermann and Father Dyer contain dialogue that is rich and funny, without being overly self-aware. And it offers a perfect example of how to lighten up an otherwise dark and moody atmosphere.

Sadly, no clips of said dialogue are available online. You'll have to watch the whole movie. But it's well worth it.

Our selections are based solely on their merit of the subject at hand with the full knowledge that many other movies are worthy to be featured — we're just selecting our own fifteen. If you have additional suggestions, please share in the comments and retweets to spread the word.  

Ken Miyamoto has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades, most notably as a studio liaison for Sony Studios and then as a script reader and story analyst for Sony Pictures.

He has many studio meetings under his belt as a produced screenwriter, meeting with the likes of Sony, Dreamworks, Universal, Disney, Warner Brothers, as well as many production and management companies. He has had a previous development deal with Lionsgate, as well as multiple writing assignments, including the produced miniseries  Blackout , starring Anne Heche, Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Zane, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Brian Bloom, Eric La Salle, and Bruce Boxleitner. Follow Ken on Twitter  @KenMovies

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