Tips to Write Great Dialog
Bad dialog can kill a great book or screenplay. When I run across terrible dialog, I literally cringe and grit my teeth. In fact, when I receive submissions loaded with bad dialog, that alone can kill my interest. What constitutes weak dialog? Here are some tips. Everyone sounds the same . What happens is that every character sounds alike, which is really a problem of the author's voice is being applied to all of the characters. I've read books where you could tell the difference between the dialog and the narrative. Your characters each have to have their own voices. A great technique to solve this problem is to find words or phrases one character constantly uses while the others don't use at all. Something as simple as making one always use profanity while the other one does not (of course the profane dialog needs to also apply to the right character and demographic of that character). In my book California Girl Chronicles , Kale, a main love interest, always calls her ...