Writing Dialogue  

One of the members in a critique group I belong to made an interesting comment at a recent meeting. After reading one of my chapters and discussing it, he said dialogue was my strength and I shouldn't hesitate to use it.

I had never consider writing dialogue as one of my strengths. In fact, I had one reader who thought I used too much dialogue, because she wanted to be inside the characters thoughts more. I try to do both. I find writing is often a balancing act, and, although I certainly want to please my readers, I also stay true to my writing style and who I am as an author. My stories are character-driven, and I let my characters direct the writing to a large extent.

All dialogue should have a purpose and move the story along. I don't know how may books I read that have too much chit-chat and doesn't need to be there. The key to writing good dialogue is to make it sound natural, the way people talk, but make it meaningful. Reading it aloud often helps. If I tend to read a line a little differently than I wrote it, I change it to how I say it. I consciously strive to make it smooth so it won't pull the reader out of the story to think about how something is said or what it means. I hope the gentleman was right. I'd like to think writing good dialogue is one of my strengths.

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