As a writer, I’m also a huge reader—something I think is necessary for producing new and exciting work. So, as such a lover of words, it’s slightly embarrassing to admit that if I pick up a book, peer in and don’t discover any dialogue on the page, I’m a little disappointed. It’s like judging a book by its insides, not its cover.

 

Dialogue is my literary passion for a bunch of reasons, but in these peek-into-the-page sessions, it often has to do with the visual breakup of text that dialogue offers. It chunks the page into manageable, bite-sized pieces that are helpful for my anxious, easily distracted brain. I also love dialogue because it offers that perfect balance of exposition opportunity to convey lots of necessary detail, while also giving us that “show don’t tell” insight into a character’s life. Who, what, where, when, why and how a character speaks says so much about them and gives readers personal and lifelike knowledge of the people on the page.

 

For me, there’s nothing that speaks to talent quite like writers who are able to perfectly capture the twang of a southern drawl or showcase a character’s educational background through flowery, highbrow language. In these instances, I feel like I’m peeking into the world experienced through the character’s eyes. Think of your favourite television episode: if the doctors on Grey’s Anatomy didn’t spouting a bunch of incomprehensible medical jargon, would we trust that character’s knowledge and experience? “Put in one of those tube things to help our patient breathe,” is a lot less confidence-building than; “INTUBATE! STAT!” Or, imagine settling into Bronte’s Jane Eyre. If Jane, who presumably lives in the late 1700s, popped onto the page to say—“Hey, Uncle Reed, what’s up?”—readers would know something was amiss. Words matter.

 

With that said, dialogue is also one of the places that I find good books have a tendency to go awry. Maybe the dialogue sounds leaden or too perfect. Or there have been occasions where I read a segment of conversation and think, “Well, that doesn’t sound right for that character.” As writers, it is our job to build a world that our readers can sink into, and snapping them out of it with dialogue that doesn’t ring true, well, that can be hard to return from.

 

My love for dialogue is a little odd, some say, considering most of my writing is in the genre of non fiction. There are lots of arguments out there on the presence of dialogue in non fiction because it raises issues of validity, memory, and truth.

This argument has played out countless times and I usually answer with this: We can never really know. We can never remember with perfect clarity. I am flawed as a person and my work is directly influenced by my own biases and memories, which are inherently fallible. Yes, I recall the essence of conversations, and sometimes full, hurtful or happy sentences, but for the most part, the dialogue I write is a creation that stays as close to personal truth is possible. My only hope is that I have portrayed myself in a manner that shows the reader I am flawed as much as the other characters who share my pages.

 

To me, the life of a book is in its dialogue. I love a gorgeous scenery description as much as the next person, but I gobble up the words tossed back and forth between characters. To me, it makes the story come alive.

 

I have a few dialogue tips that I often share with my creative writing students to help your dialogue sing, too.