TIPS FOR BETTER CHARACTER DIALOGUE

✧◦﹆

1. be careful about abusing ellipse (adding time in a dialogue).

2. if a character has an accent, it's better not to spell it phonetically because readers will be confused by it (unless the point is that the character is unintelligible).

3. it's okay to give characters dialogue quirks that aren't proper grammar or writing, like having someone punctuate their sentences with 'like' ("like i've never seen anything, like, so big!"), or say "me and my friends" instead of "my friends and i". some people talk like that. make sure you do it on purpose though: doing it on accident means you don't know your grammar yourself!

4. be careful of having dialogue that doesn't either contribute to the story, flesh out the characters / world, provide valuable information to the player (including tutorials), or contribute to the tone of the story. basically, anything that doesn't improve the game can be tossed out the window.

5. i like making sure that a character's background & personality shows through their dialogue. Education is the most obvious (simple vs eloquent sounding characters), second to politeness (bluntness vs politeness).

6. someone who knows tech would be more likely to describe a machine in finer detail if they recognize it, as opposed to someone who doesn't and could only describe it as "oh hey, it's a thingy that goes 'ding', I think."

7. a character who was raised to be polite but has a hard time hiding their feelings about other people might pause a few more times while talking to prevent themselves from insulting someone else (as if they're searching for words to use to NOT insult the person they're speaking to, even though they want to).

8. a character who swears a lot casually might stop swearing when they're angry to show that they're serious about something. things like that.

9. the better you know your character, the easier you can write their dialogue. so get comfy with them!

source

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂

i honestly haven't made a chapter for 10 years i apologize

i hope this helped!