When we're writing dialogue, we want it to sound natural – but actual natural speech, in real life, is freighted down with tangents, filler words, dead-end sentences, and an astonishing amount of general burble. If you've ever transcribed real-life conversation, like I had to do at uni in Linguistics, you'll know what I'm talking about! It makes for a dreadful read. So in stories, we want to give the flavour of natural speech, without quite as much clutter.
We also want to give a sense of the relationship between the characters: dialogue's a dynamic between people. And a sense of their individual points of view, what they know or don't about each other and what's happening, how they feel about it.
This Writing Skill is perfect for practising all of that, and you can use it with your story in progress OR with fresh characters, plus I've got a suggestion for writing groups / buddies. So give yourself the gift of ten minutes' writing time, grab your pen, notebook, and cuppa, and scribble away!
To start with, you need two people who know each other well, and are equals. They can be best friends, partners, siblings, whatever works for you. You can pick two from your story in progress, or whisk up two new characters with this quick character generator.
Something seismic has happened for Character A. How seismic you want to go depends on their age. It could be that they got / lost a job, the person they liked asked them out, they discovered their parent isn't their bio parent, they're moving city, etc.
- If you're using your story in progress, see if you've got anything like that already to use; if not, just make up a scenario that fits them, as a way to play with their voices – you don't have to put this bit in the actual story.
- If you're not using a work in progress, you can pick any of my suggestions above or anything else that appeals to you.
For the actual writing, assume that the reader already read the scene when the Seismic Thing happened, so there's no need to recap. Character B doesn't know it's now happened, but does already know all Character A's hopes / fears about the whole situation.
Write their dialogue / any physical reactions (eg whistling, etc) as elliptically as possible. Some possible starting lines could be…
- "So… I got it."
- "It's happening."
- "She asked."
- "It's time."
- "They admitted it."
A tells B it's happened, but super elliptically, because B already knows so much. They're both reacting to the news / each other, they're discussing repercussions / next plans, etc.
Some tips for writing super natural dialogue here:
- Give as little extra explanation as humanly possible.
- Sentence fragments are great.
- Casual language / slang are great.
- Opaque references are great.
Writing groups / buddies: If you want to do this exercise together, each do your own then swap. See what you can work out about what's happened without the scene before. If you're working in a group, each write down your guesses for everyone before you confer. It's always amazing to see how little exposition readers actually need!
Have fun!
If you want to explore more ways to bring your stories and your characters to life with vivid, distinctive dialogue, the Writing Dialogue workshop is running on Saturday 8 August 2026, in Oxford. You’ll explore how to make your characters’ voices distinctive and natural, give their conversations
purpose in the plot, and refine
the nuts ‘n bolts so the writing is
easier and more elegant. All in a friendly, supportive atmosphere, with plenty of fun! Read more about the workshop and book your place here.
