FINE-TUNE YOUR DIALOGUE

Check that every piece of dialogue you have written performs at least one of the following functions:

• 1.Conveys essential information.
• 2.Moves the story forward.
• 3.Reveals the character and mood of the person who is speaking.
• 4.Establishes the relationship between characters.

Although the mode of speech provides clues to a character’s era, geographical origins, and social class, dialogue should not be used to convey these alone. Dialogue that does not perform any of the above four functions should be cut. Skillfully handled dialogue can perform several of these functions at once. Work at making yours more economical in this respect. Check also that the dialogue is distinctive – that only the person in question could have said those words. If any section still sounds like dummy dialogue – i.e. anyone could have said it – it needs fine-tuning. This is very important to remember as the ‘anyone could have said it’ fault is an extremely common one with novice writers and is one of the most frequent reasons for having work rejected.