I hate to write dialogue...

[Dan is Dead]

So i want to be a writer, if not only in hobby, so ive been writing alot lately. But one thing i hate is to write dialogue. I realize the importance of it so the other day i thought id try to write a story with alot of dialogue, alot for me anyway. I found started writing it i just got bogged down and i hated it. I was pure drudgery. I was so glad to be done with it. a bad experience. I don't think I'm too bad at it. How can i get better at writing natural, flowing dialogue?

[Moderator]

Steve has said that he learned the most about writing realistic dialogue from the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter).

[Srbo]

Steve has said that he learned the most about writing realistic dialogue from the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter).

I think he also said that Lovecraft sucked in dialogue, but was still an out of the world writer.

[Bad Writer]

I go all el-dorko with it and write down actual conversations verbatim.
Also, I know this sounds really stupid....but reading plays really helps.
Try some Tennessee Williams....that's my personal fave. Any contemporary artist would do. Just devote like a whole weekend to reading nothing but plays, *really* reading them...and try writing another dialogue again.
Good luck, friend!

[smerdyakov]

read dostoevsky -- he's the master of dialogue

[staropeace]

I love writing dialogue. I think you can make your characters seem real that way. I find simple sentences work the best.

[Bryan James]

I used to avoid dialogue. To be honest...I just wanted to avoid the "words," and "more words."

When I started writing fiction again I jammed out a veiled horror short that was nothing BUT dialogue. It was a self-imposed writing exercise. It turned out fine, and I went back and addited a few normal writery things, and it was good. Once I jumped off that waterfall, I've been more than adequate.

PM me with what you have.

~BJS

[Charms7]

There was an exercise a teacher long, long ago once asked the students in a class I attended to do. It involved taking a subject and someone says something. Then a person responds to what was said, then the next person comments and so on. I suppose it was easy for me because my family of origin were such talkers, the women anyway. Other than that, I would read more books with lots of dialog in them.

[StoryTellerRose]

I tend to get inside my characters' heads and think like they would think. If, in a given situation they would say something, say it. YOU aren't talking, THEY are....so the more you think like your characters, the easier it becomes to make them speak....at least in my experience.

[Sigmund]

Maybe you can try "The Empty Chair" technique. Put two chairs facing each other and sit in one. As one of your characters "Tell" the other person, your other character (the one in the empty chair) what you want to say. Then change chairs and "Talk" to each other, YES, do it out loud. After a few minutes, you can get into it and really start having a discussion . (Use a recorder or better yet a video cam so you can hear what you said and what your face and body looked like while you were in "character')
Good Luck