Let’s Talk about Bad Dialogue: Examples and Solutions
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Have you ever received critique on your writing that the dialogue in your manuscript is flat or repetitive? Or perhaps you’re finding that when it comes down to it, you’re not sure how to handle dialogue that isn’t an exposition dump, or you’re worried that your characters all sound alike? Wondering what bad dialogue is?
If this is true for you, read on!
Dialogue can be a tricky element to handle well precisely because it does shoulder so much heavy lifting in our stories. Searching for flat or repetitive dialogue in your manuscript is a great self-editing tool that writers of all levels of experience can benefit from. In this article, we’ll take a look at how bad dialogue appears in a manuscript both on the story level and the technical level so you can learn to spot it right away.
Why is dialogue so important?
Dialogue is an essential tool for fiction. It can be used to evoke deep emotions in your readers, convey plot plots in a powerful way, and even capture the theme of your story in an inescapably memorable way. Stories truly come alive when there is a full cast of characters with their own mannerisms, motivations, and moods, and dialogue is a primary way that readers encounter and come to understand characters. All kinds of backstories, priorities, personalities, explanations, ironies, and twists can be revealed through conversations on the page.
It’s true that dialogue is not every writer’s forte—and that’s all right. Some writers are known for their skill with character banter (I envy them!) or their flair for making characters who sound so real that you practically forget they’re imaginary. But even if your strength isn’t bestowing dazzling wit or elegant self-expression upon your characters, you can’t get around it—your characters have to talk to each other. The trouble with dialogue comes in when readers are either jarred out of the story or they lose interest.
When either of these things happen, your audience is unlikely to continue reading.
What flat or bad dialogue in writing looks like
There’s a lot we could talk about when it comes to dialogue, but for this post, we’ll focus on three elements to look for on a story level and three technical elements.
Dialogue problems on the story level
Dialogue recreating real-life conversations
Hang on—isn’t the goal of dialogue to make characters sound like real people? Well, yes, but in fiction, there’s an important factor to keep in mind: book characters don’t actually speak like real people. Real-life conversations are often messy, incomplete, and—it must be admitted—pointless. Conversations don’t always have a central idea or purpose, and much of what people say on a daily basis falls flat on the page, including tiny pleasantries and autopilot exchanges (Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? Good…).
Written dialogue should be focused and purpose-driven. What I mean by purpose-driven is not that your characters will be curt and snappy in everything they say, doggedly sticking to just the facts, but that all dialogue in your story needs to have a reason for being included. As the author, you should have a purpose in showing this conversation to the reader. Take a close look at the conversations in your manuscript. If a conversation doesn’t move the plot along, complicate matters, or reveal new information, then it isn’t serving the story. Keep small talk to a minimum or trim it completely.
Dialogue not being true to life
Oh, what’s this now? Isn’t this simply the opposite of what we were just talking about? What we mean by true-to-life dialogue is that it has the important hallmarks of conversations that real people have, like interruptions, being unable to express feelings or ideas well, being affected by their surroundings, even misunderstandings. Depending on the characters involved, conversations might even include lying or important omissions. If your characters are always perfectly articulate and polite, always able to finish their complete thought and say just the right thing at the right time, it’s highly likely your dialogue is flat. But even more importantly, if you notice that other characters usually do not change as a result of a conversation (getting angry, for instance) or everyone agrees and shares the same mood, then that’s a sure sign you should revisit that conversation.
The context in which a conversation takes place and who we’re talking to all have an impact on how we speak, so for natural-sounding conversations, be sure that your dialogue changes with the situation. For example, a quiet character wouldn’t yell to be heard in a crowded tavern, more likely opting to flick crumbs off the table than try to join in on a conversation. A princess would speak to her servants differently than she would address the visiting ambassador she has to impress.
Take a close look at your characters when they’re speaking—are they expressing themselves in a way that fits their personality and the current situation? Are they too well spoken or too emotionally neutral? Is there any friction in the conversation (competing motives, mismatched emotions, misunderstandings, etc.)?
Conversations that exist to explain things to the reader
Type 1: Exposition dumps
Dialogue is often a convenient way to convey information to the reader, but when characters talk for extended periods of time, you run the risk of creating an exposition dump. Sci-fi and fantasy stories that involve a lot of worldbuilding can fall into this common trap because there’s simply a lot that the reader needs to know. Putting information in dialogue can help teach readers about the world, but this should be used shrewdly. Remember the previous two points about crafting dialogue that rings true to real-life experience. In real life, most people don’t like to be lectured or sit quietly while someone speaks uninterrupted for long periods of time.
First, consider the character who is speaking—are they likely to talk like this? Do they like explaining things to others, or would they really not have the patience for it? Why would they take the time to talk through this matter with someone else? Would they really know this amount of detail or have a high level of understanding about the subject? Second, consider who they’re talking to. Does this character really have an interest in this information, or is this information here simply for the reader’s benefit? If you have to ignore your characters’ personalities or goals for them to have a conversation, then you’re probably facing an exposition dump.
Type 2: “As you know” conversations
In this same category, be wary of inserting conversations that cover information that all of the participants in the conversation are already aware of. This is “as you know” dialogue. Sometimes these conversations already include this phrase, making them easy to spot, but if you can insert this phrase into a dialogue, then consider taking it out. When characters talk about information that everyone present knows, it becomes clear that the conversation only exists to help out anyone who might be eavesdropping, such as a security guard announcing to another security guard, “You know the security measures on the vault door are always deactivated at 1:00 a.m. sharp for five minutes while the power cycles” (So helpful, thinks the thief in the air duct above).
This way of giving information is terribly convenient and often jars readers out of the story. Even worse, if no character is present to learn the information being conveyed in the scene, then the reader becomes the eavesdropper, which is even more jarring. In these situations, the security guard in the previous scenario is effectively saying, “If anyone happens to be listening to this conversation, I’m telling you exactly what you need to know, all right?”
Technical dialogue problems
Redundant or unnecessary dialogue tags
When I’m working on manuscripts, I often note unnecessary dialogue tags and trim them out. These are often cases where the author doesn’t realize that they’ve already conveyed all of the needed information in what a character has already said or done. For example:
She jumped to her feet. “For real? Like right now?” she asked in a surprised voice.
In this case, the reader has seen this character jump to her feet, so they know she’s surprised. Also, the dialogue itself is a question, so the reader doesn’t need to be told that she’s asking. For smoother-reading dialogue, the dialogue tag “she asked in a surprised voice” can be taken out completely. Dialogue tags are at their best when they fulfill two simple jobs: helpfully indicate who is speaking or give more information about what was said that the reader can’t otherwise know. This includes things like how loud someone is speaking (“she whispered” versus “she screamed”), their tone of voice (“she drawled lazily” versus “she snapped”), and even statements about what was said (“she said” versus “she lied”).
Overuse of punctuation marks and formatting
It can be tempting to make use of the wide variety of options of formatting available to us as writers, like bold text, italics, and all caps, not to mention the plethora of fonts out there. For characters who are particularly outspoken or those who are in an absolute rage, why not use a combination of all of the above? The truth is that punctuation marks and unusual formatting are elements that can draw a reader’s attention away from what they’re reading, and your goal as an author is to keep them wrapped in the story. And like all techniques used for emphasis, they all lose their power if they’re used too much. Avoid using multiple punctuation marks (like this??? Or this!!!1), and in places where you need to express a more complicated combination, make use of a trusty dialogue tag. Instead of
“What are you doing here?!”
you might try
“What are you doing here?” he yelled.
If that doesn’t quite get it all, you can add a little more:
“What are you doing here?” he yelled, throwing his hands up.
And as much as possible, avoid using all caps in your writing. All caps text reads as loud and aggressive, and many readers find it difficult to read strings of all caps text. They are more likely to skip over reading lines of all caps, so be careful of using it. Famously, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series character Death speaks in all caps and no quotation marks, a text styling that works to great effect to indicate his otherworldliness and agelessness. There are ways, like this, to use styling to support your storytelling, but proceed carefully!
Adverbs
Unlike quite a few book people, your editors here at Ground Crew don’t have a beef with adverbs. They’re a part of the English language for a reason, but like the other bits and pieces of language, they should be used within reason. Adverbs can do a lot of work in a tiny amount of space in dialogue to indicate how something is said. Adding one can completely change a line of dialogue (and scene):
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said softly.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said menacingly.
So, like Sharpies, adverbs should be wielded with care. If you can use a verb instead of an adverb to convey the same idea, consider using the verb. And if you do go ahead with the adverb, double-check whether what you’re wanting is actually an adverb. Consider the following:
“Let’s go!” she said excitingly.
“Let’s go!” she said, excited.
In the first sentence, the adverb “excitingly” is telling you that it’s exciting she said “Let’s go!” (you may or may not agree). In the second, the adjective “excited” lets you know that the character is excited.
Just remember that if you’re relying too much on adverbs to let your reader know what’s going on in a conversation, the dialogue itself is probably not doing as much work as it should.
Remember to have fun
Dialogue is a powerful storytelling technique, and while it has a lot of work to do in your story, remember that you can have fun with it. Even if you feel like this skill isn’t your strong suit as a writer or you’re afraid you have bad dialogue, remember that all craft elements can be practiced and improved upon. The more you work on your dialogue, the better it will become!
If you’re looking for an expert eye on your writing, we can help.
For in-depth polishing of your prose, a line edit can’t be beat! Read more about how a line edit can help take your work to the next level on our service page.
Thanks to Valentin Balan on Unsplash for the photo!
