Dialogue is a key part of every story. It speeds up the story, your characters get a chance to speak for themselves and it even breaks up long paragraphs – dialogue does all that and more. Readers – especially on Wattpad – love dialogue.

And, it is fun to write.

Dialogue can also make or break your story, so here are some tips on how to write it well.

First of all, for your characters to have an authentic voice they need to be . Okay, this means we probably need another chapter on Characters and Viewpoints. For the moment, it might be enough to note that before your protagonists open their mouths you need to have given them a shape, a face, quirks, characteristics, flaws. They need to be 3-D human beings. Even if you're writing fantasy thrillers .

For your readers are human, and that's what counts. They want to read about people they can relate to. People they care for, they want to learn more about. If you don't engage your readers from the start, they might not even make it to the dialogue.

You don't solve this challenge by telling us somebody is 7ft 9 inches tall, has fantastic abs and wears tight jeans. That is only one dimension of your character. We also need to know what's going on in the head of that person before he (I assume that would be a he) opens his mouth. Their backstory, their mindset - all that makes for the second dimension. You need to have thought of a history for this person, where he comes from why he is who he is. And no, you don't slap all that backstory into the first chapter. But first chapters is something else we will need to talk about.

The third dimension is the morals, their beliefs, the deeply ingrained core of a person. All this is behind the character, makes him sound the way he or she does.

One way to solve this problem is to create a character map. Who is your main character, background, what does he/she want, what are the conflicts, who are the antagonists, who are the sidekicks, the walk-ons etcetera. The role a person plays in your novel defines what he/she says. And how much time in the limelight they get.

Okay, so you have created a 3-D character you know from the insight out. The person has a goal, a motivations, there are problems standing in the way and antagonists to cause problems. How does this influence dialogue?

A famous author who wrote a lot about writing, James Scott Card, once wrote "That pretty much sums it up. All your characters have their agendas and they will want to voice them. They are in their little life bubble and they are constantly bouncing against others. They are shooting across each other. Hopefully, only verbally. But all that will or rather: should show in your dialogue.

John: What are you doing in my car?

Ann: Oh, this is your car now, is it?

John: Well, I paid for it, didn't I?

Ann: And why does that make it your car? What I do isn't good enough, right?

John: Uh, What are you doing in my car?

Ann: Ah, I'm going to drive to the hairdressers, like.

John: Oh, I see.

Ann: Yes. I'm going to have a different hair colour.

John: Oh, how nice.

Ann: Yes, I'm looking forward to that.

John: Yes, me too.

Argh, and so on and so forth.

Story writing is all about Your dialogue has to bring the conflict to the forefront. Now, you will argue that your characters are not always tearing each other's hair out. They don't have to. There are variations on a theme and in a mystery/thriller dialogue is a great way of exposing clues, rejecting red herrings and moving the case along.

Court cases are prime example of dialogue-based stories. And there is a lot, I mean a LOT of conflict at court. Law courts are true war zones.

Here's another tip regarding dialogue – what it is NOT. It doesn't reflect normal speech patterns, dialogue in fiction is condensed speech. So all the fillers "Um, huh, ah, well, etc" have to be used with caution. When we speak, there's a lot of white noise. You need to cut all that out and instead make every word count.

In the first example it took only four well-chosen sentences and we had a full blown argument between John and Ann. In reality, it wouldn't have quite worked like that, but even you need to be REALISTIC in your story , so you are not mirroring reality.

Instead, you are firing snappy little broadsides from the pages of your novel.

A great example of how this can work, and work well, are the chat stories. Think snapchat, only a bit more elaborate. There's an example a bit further down but we still need to talk a bit about format.

Okay, here are some basics, and I really mean basics to get you started.

Speech tags – quotation marks closed by a comma (or a question mark, period or exclamation mark) plus "said X"

"What are you doing in my car?" said John.

"I don't like that song on the radio," said John.

There are variations on the theme depending if you write American or British English, but this is the most common approach.

The speech tag "said John" will help to identify who is saying what. If you only have two people, you don't always need it. If more people talk, it becomes quite important, otherwise your reader is lost.

without very good reason: "That's not your car," howled John. "Oh, yes it is," huffed Ann.

There's a reason - "said" is invisible. Readers don't really notice it. Replacing it by a different verb raises attention to the fact that this is written dialogue.

Or worse, use words that are not about speaking in any form.

"I love my car," minced Ann. "This song is horrid," underlined John.

You will tell me that successful writers do this. Yes. Sometimes they even do it successfully. However, 95% of the time it is done wrong, so I would suggest to be a bit more conservative.

.

"I hate that song." John leaned across and turned off the radio.

Action beats are used a lot in modern fiction writing. They help to create, setting, atmosphere and even movement. "I can't wait any longer." John slammed the door shut and started the car.

If you want dazzling dialogue, action beats go a long way. Both speech tags and action beats are linked to each speaker, otherwise it gets messy

"I can't wait any longer." John slammed the door shut and started the car. "Hang on, hang on." Ann panted across the car park.

Ann's action beat needs to be on a separate line.

If you want to write good chat stories, you don't have either action beats, nor speech tags. You also don't have any narrative. Your chat lines need to carry all the weight – give us a snapshot of character, create setting, tension – all of it.

John: Where are you?

Ann: In the cellar, why?

John: Could you come up?

Ann: Up where?

John: I'm in front of the door.

Ann: You've forgotten your key again?

John: It's worse.

Ann: Worse? Come on.

John: That's the problem. I can't. Not without legs.

Okay, you can figure the rest out XDDDD