Dialogue

Writing convincing dialogue is one of the hardest things for new writers to master. In fact, it s so rarely done well in any form of fiction that when it is done right, people rally around it. The movie Pulp Fiction, Terry McMillan s novel Waiting to... More

Writing convincing dialogue is one of the hardest things for new writers to master. In fact, it s so rarely done well in any form of fiction that when it is done right, people rally around it. The movie Pulp Fiction, Terry McMillan s novel Waiting to Exhale, and the TV series My So-Called Life were all remarkable in large part because of how believably the characters spoke. Here s the kind of dialog you read in many beginners stories: "What happened to you, Joe?" "Well, Mike, I was walking down the street, and a man came up to me. I said to him, `What seems to be the difficulty? He replied, `You owe me a hundred dollars. But I said I didn t. And then he hit me. " Here s how real people talk: "Christ, man, what happened?" "Well, umm, I was goin down the street, y know, and this guy comes up to me, and I m like, hey, man, what s up? And he says to me, he says, `You owe me a hundred bucks, and I m like no way, man. In your dreams. Then -- pow! I m on the sidewalk. " See the d Less