I find that dialogue is something that should come easily. It is something that we all do everyday without really thinking about it. We should be able to write dialogue just as easily.

Think about it. What would your characters say to each other? It doesn’t have to be all that profound. Most people are not profound. They say things as the words come to them. So should your characters.

There are a few things to stay away from though. The biggest is the word “UM”. We say “UM” a lot… probably too much. If you use the word “UM” in your dialogue you will not have a character trying to find the words to use. You will have a character who sounds ignorant or slow. Don’t use it unless that is the effect you are trying to achieve.

Make sure you read the dialogue out loud to yourself. This will help you pinpoint whether or not it sounds believable or not. Do people really sound like that? You will be able to answer this question when you read it back to yourself.

Try not to spell words phonetically. This may work once in a while, but if you use it throughout the work, your reader will become exhausted and may stop reading entirely, no matter how good your book is.

See More Writing Tips.

If you have other ideas on how to find story ideas, write a comment. I would love to hear how you are inspired.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Writing Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.