The Parchment and Quill Collective

Dialogue is an integral part of any prose piece. It is a way for Writers to relay important information about the characters, the setting and the overarching story without being insanely explanative to readers.

However, without a proper layout, dialogue can get clunky very quickly, and that leads to very quick disinterest in readers. Sometimes, the simplest way is the best. This is a quick how-to guide on how I personally organise dialogue to avoid clunkiness.

Let’s start with a very quick and simple scene that we can reference. Because I’m lazy and too tired to think of names, we’ll just call our characters Jane and John Doe. Jane will walk into the room, greet John and initiate conversation, and there are a number of ways our dialogue can be presented.

Jane walked into the room, seeing John waiting. She smiled widely and waved. “Hi, John!”

John smiled back at her, waving in response. “Hi Jane,” John greeted with a grin, “How are you?”

Jane sat down next to him, holding her handbag.

“I’m doing okay. How’s the family?” She asked.

“Oh, they’re doing great,” John said, leaning back in his chair.

So, in that little excerpt alone, I’ve used 3 different ways to break up my dialogue. I’ve used no dialogue tag, breaking dialogue with a dialogue tag, and ending dialogue with a dialogue tag. It’s good to alternate between these three to keep the dialogue interesting. Of course, there are other general rules as well:

• Dialogue should always start a new paragraph when a new character talks.
• If a Dialogue tag breaks the dialogue, use a comma before going back into dialogue.
• If dialogue ends with a comma, use a dialogue tag. If it ends with a full stop, don’t use one.
• Try to spice up dialogue tags. Don’t get repetitive.
• Don’t be afraid to use ‘said’ either. It’s good to have it scattered throughout, dialogue tags don’t always need to be complex.

If you use these in your writing, your writing will become less clunky and begin to flow better, I can practically guarantee it. But remember, you know your writing best, trust that you know what is best for your writing.