writing dialogue

"Dialogue is super important," she said with a yawn. But, truthfully, dialogue is so important. It can reveal so much about your characters; their personalities, internal thoughts, body language and backstory. It can divulge important information, reveal secrets, set scenes, the possibilities are endless.

So how do you write dialogue that is interesting and moves the story forward? Well, don't take cues from everyday dialogue. Most of what we say in our daily chats doesn't necessarily make for interesting reading. Which means, you get to be creative and use your imagination! Here are some tips that have been helpful when I've been writing dialogue:

1. This is where all your character backstory comes in handy. If you know your characters really well, you can give them dialogue that's authentic to their backstory. That shows their personality. You don't want all your dialogue to sound the same, because unique voices make it interesting. It's awful to have to go back and be like, "Wait, who said that?" Because you literally can't tell from the dialogue itself.

2. A few of Luna's biggest events happened through dialogue. When divulging a major happening (like, finding out you're a Protectress, NBD), it's fun for your reader to get this information in real time with the character. It also gives you a chance to share internal thoughts from the character on their reaction to the event in question.

3. It's okay for your characters to not answer questions directly. To go off on tangents. To add information that doesn't answer a question but does move the plot forward. This can be hard to deal with, but it's not very interesting if Luna asks Gwenny where she got a mysterious book, and Gwenny just tells her. It's way MORE interesting if Gwenny points out information from the book and avoids the question because then we, the readers, learn that perhaps the book was procured under circumstances Gwenny would rather keep secret.

Hope some of these tips are helpful! And, now, since I mentioned the scene with Gwenny and the book, here is a snippet from the scene, complete with dialogue.

Luna looked closer at the photo, trying to tell if the young girl with white blonde hair could actually be Star. Below the photo was the caption, “Star’s End Girls’ School club, 1908.”

“There are seven of them,” Luna’s heart was beating too loud. “That can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

“Probably not,” Gwenny’s voice was a whisper.

“So they’re...they’re...Protectresses? Star is a Protectress? And she’s over one hundred years old?!”

This didn’t make sense. Star wasn't ancient. She looked barely older than sixteen. And, if she was a Protectress, why hadn’t she told Luna...

“What if you’re related to her?”

Luna’s breathing was too shallow. She couldn’t grasp why Star would have kept all of this information from her. If she could keep her real identity and age a secret, what else was she lying about?

“Hey, hey. Take some deep breaths. It’s okay, we’ll get this all figured out,” Gwenny rubbed Luna’s back in small circles. Something else was bothering Luna about this whole situation, though.

“Where’d you really get the book?” Gwenny’s hand dropped from Luna’s back. “You didn’t pull it off a shelf at the library, did you?”

Gwenny’s shoulders sagged, “I was looking for anything I could find in the Archives, any books on the town’s history, any mention of Protectresses. But after I’d poured over everything that could possibly be related, I had nothing.”

She gazed out the window, continued, “I guess I sat down at a table, piling up the rejects from my search. And then things just went hazy. The next thing I know, I’m blinking and there’s this book,” Gwenny held up the tattered black book, “sitting in front of me. I know it wasn’t there before. I know I didn’t pull it off of a shelf.”