How to Write Natural Dialogue in Fiction Stories

In creating novels and short stories, it can sometimes be difficult to create natural and realistic dialogue. In this article, I'll show you ways you can solve this problem.

1) The first step involves taking a look at your characters.

Keep in mind traits such as personality, where they are from, their ages, and their education. Dialogue is a tool that you can use to show these traits to your reader without directly telling them. Taking the time to do this will help you determine not only what a character might say, but how they would say it.

2) Second, mentally picture your characters interacting as if they were on a TV show or a play.

Is there anything about what they're saying to each other that seems odd or out of place? Sometimes a sentence may be correct from a grammar standpoint, but you may have to reword it for dialogue because of how people speak in reality.

3) Third, read the dialogue out loud.

This will help your pacing. If you feel like you're out of breath after a string of dialogue, you may want to shorten your sentences. Likewise, if you feel like the dialogue is too short for the situation, you can smooth it out.

4) Last, do a check of your overall story.

Do you have a lot of "he said" and "she replied" after each sentence? You can eliminate a lot of those after you've established who is talking. This makes the story as a whole flow a lot better.


More Tips

• Try paying attention to the conversations of people. You'll begin to pick up on patterns such as rapid subject changes.

• Think of ways you can show your character's personality by how much they speak and how much they listen.

• On the other extreme, you don't necessarily want your dialogue to completely reflect how people talk--especially filler words such as "um."

• Avoid phonetically spelling out accents of characters if at all possible. This can annoy your readers after a certain point. Mention the accent, but make the words themselves easy to read.

• Also avoid modern slang if you intend for the story to be longer-lasting.

Get more character development tips at The Fictional Character Development Template.

How to Make Extra Income

When you train your mind to look for opportunity, it is amazing how much income you can make solving the problems of others. There are a lot of great ways out there to make money, both short-term and long-term. The Internet in general has opened up the ability for an average person to do really well, and fast-paced lifestyles have opened up the opportunity for other people to fill new needs in service-based side businesses.

Here are what I believe to be some of the fastest and easiest ways to make money. Not all of them are glamorous, but they can help you gain extra income for a better life:

1) Sell Online:

Whether it's Ebay, Amazon, or your own site, the ability to have a store that never closes is why this appeals to a lot of people. You can make extra money while you're physically at work or even asleep. They do take work, but they're flexible enough to fit into most people's lifestyles. Just do some research ahead of time so you know you are selling something in demand.

2) Start Your Own Writing Business:

You can do this more than one way, based on your skills and background. There's article writing for sites such as Ehow.com, Helium.com and Associated Content. There's also the option of e-books if you're an expert in almost anything. I personally do both and enjoy it. You can find resources on how to do this for free at Web Writer Central.

3) Clean Houses:

I know people who make great money doing this. Basically you can do this by word-of-mouth and build up as many clients as you can handle. If you're willing to do the work and build a reputation, you'll never have a shortage of customers.

4) Paid Surveys:

I used to do these quite a bit before I transitioned into other things, but they're good for $5-10 a survey. It just takes time finding sites that are legitimate and worth doing. I know Pinecone Research is probably the best one I've ever came across, but I'm sure there are others as well.

5) Mow Lawns:

This is more of a summer side job, but again it's something you can build up into a steady stream of income if you have enough clients. This is assuming you have your own mower or have the ability to use one belonging to the home owners.

6) Have a Yard Sale:

My husband and I did this when we wanted to jump start getting out of debt. It's amazing the stuff we all have and rarely use. Certain things you may want to try looking up on Ebay first, just because it may get you more money. At yard sales, you have to assume that people are there to get a bargain. This is mainly to make a little extra cash and clean at the same time.

7) Babysit:

Most of us have friends with children who would like to have a break every once in awhile. They would most likely rather have someone watch them that they know as opposed to someone they have to screen. Just let people know you're available and charge a reasonable rate.

8) Offer to Teach Something You Know:

I've had some wonderful older people ask me if I would teach them enough about personal computers to get them caught up on how to send e-mail, download photos from a digital camera, etc. If you have any type of skill that's in demand (computers, foreign language, music, etc), you may be able to turn it into extra money.

9) House sit/Pet sit:

Pick up people's mail and take care of their pets while they're traveling. This can be fun and pay well.

10) Build Web Pages for People:

If you have this skill and do it well, it's another field that has a lot of demand. You can do it on your own time and charge a rate based on the complexity of the web page. You can market this to individuals, churches, businesses, schools, and other community organizations.

11) Build a Web Page for Yourself:

Design a site about something you're passionate about and sign up for affiliate programs such as Google Adwords and Amazon.