Raise your hand if you struggle with dialog. Yeah, okay, we all do. Good thing we have author Tom Leveen here to give some tips for writing realistic, captivating dialog.

Theatre Techniques to Sharpen Your Dialogue

If you haven’t been involved in a live theatre production–preferably a “straight play” and not a musical — I encourage you to give it a try.  You don’t have to act, although going to an audition or two won’t hurt (you may as well get used to speaking in front of people).

After 22 years as a local actor and director, I think the dialogue in my fiction has grown considerably.  Theatre, after all, relies almost exclusively on dialogue.  Here are four “actor’s homework” techniques you can use to improve the dialogue in your fiction.

Establish the character’s Want. Every character in your story–protagonist, antagonist, leading role, or walk-on–Wants Something.

Her “Want” must be tangible.  It must be actionable.  The Want must be something you can show the character striving for, and show obstacles which get in her way.  The Want is something the story will prove she has obtained or not obtained.

I struggled with this in my debut YA novel Party.  I decided early on that one character, a bratty teen named Morrigan, wanted her father to love her.  Sounds good, right?  Who doesn’t want that?

Except there’s no way to prove it.  What actions can Morrigan take to obtain “my dad loves me”?  So I changed Morrigan’s Want to “I want my Dad to hug me.”  That is actionable; we can see (read) whether or not she gets what she Wants.  I can throw obstacles in her path for her to struggle against in pursuit of her Want.

Pick any Act and Scene from your favorite Shakespearean play.  Can you find one in which everyone in the scene is perfectly happy, with no goal?  Probably not–not until the last page, anyway.

Without a Want, there can be no conflict.  Without conflict, there is no story.  Without story, clever dialogue only sits on the page looking pretty, but accomplishing nothing.

Decide if the line is a Win or a Loss. Every line of dialogue spoken in a play is either a Win or a Loss for the character who speaks it.

When Lady Macbeth confronts Macbeth about killing King Duncan (Act I, Scene 7), her Want is pretty clear:  She wants her husband to murder the king and ascend the throne in his place.  What does Macbeth want?  Nothing to do with it, that’s what!  So his Want becomes something like, “I want my wife to stop plotting this regicide.”

Now we have conflict!  They both want something, both with equal passion.  Both try different approaches and tactics to get what they want from the other.  However, it would be a dismal play indeed if the lines read like this:

LADY M: Dude, go kill the king!

MACBETH: Well, I don’t wanna.

LADY M: Do it.  Seriously.  Do it.

MACBETH: Well . . . okay.

Macbeth’s not putting up much of a struggle in that example, which makes for weak dialogue.

In this scene, Macbeth points out that the king has given him a high honor recently, and they should enjoy it, not repay the king by killing him.  Lady M counters by calling him a coward.

Ergo, Macbeth’s previous line is a Loss — he was unable to sway his wife’s decision.

Macbeth parries back, indicating Lady’s M’s line was a Win — he’s had to change tactics.  Macbeth claims he’s a manly man, and anyone who would kill his king is not manly at all.  Lady M replies by not only attacking his masculinity, but then raises the stakes by stating that if she had promised Macbeth to kill her own child, she’d follow through because she loves her husband.  That again makes Macbeth’s previous line a Loss.

Macbeth tries one last time to change her mind by questioning their fate if their murderous plans fail.  Ergo, Lady M’s previous line was a Win — he’s against the ropes beneath her punishing verbal attacks.

The scene goes on until Macbeth agrees to go through with the murder.  Game, set, and match for Lady Macbeth!  The titular protagonist suffers a defeat in this scene, because he is unable to conquer the obstacle in front of him.  And the plot moves forward.

Your dialogue should do the same.  Your character has a goal, stated or implied, and there are obstacles in his way.  Protagonists might Win here and there, but overall, they tend to Lose, right up until the final conflict.  Go through your manuscript and mark the wins and losses in your dialogue.  If there isn’t an exchange of these Wins and Losses, chances are your dialogue is not doing the work dialogue is meant to do:  Move the story forward.

Block the Actors. “Blocking” is a term referring to the physical movements actors make on stage.  It could be an entrance, exit, sitting, standing, a cartwheel . . . whatever.  Blocking is physical action, motivated by emotional responses.

Your characters have blocking, too.  It’s most often found in the narrative surrounding your dialogue.

There are two important “blocking” elements in fiction.  First, we don’t always communicate with words alone.  We have cultural and personal expressions and movements to indicate what we mean or how we feel.  Try using these movements from time to time instead of sheer dialogue, which can start to look like a script.  At the same time, be careful not to double up.  For example:

“I told Richard what you said about him,” Jenny said.

Susan shot up from the couch, her mouth falling open.  “You did what?” she screeched.

“You heard me,” Jenny said, smiling wickedly.

Nothing wrong with that, per se (although the adverb is awfully weak).   But doesn’t Susan’s leap up from the couch — her blocking — pretty much indicate what she’s thinking?  The dialogue works just as well if you eliminate Susan’s line:

“I told Richard what you said about him,” Jenny said.

Susan shot up from the couch, her mouth falling open.

“You heard me,” Jenny said, smiling wickedly.

On the other hand, you can also consider removing some blocking to keep the dialogue moving:

“I told Richard what you said about him,” Jenny said.

“You did what?”

“You heard me,” Jenny said, smiling wickedly.

Whether you replace dialogue with blocking, or vice versa, remember there’s never any need to have both dialogue and blocking at the same time (as in example 1).  We get it.

The second thing to understand about blocking and how it impacts dialogue is this:  Every time there is an entrance or an exit, relationships change.

Imagine a teen protagonist in her room with her best friend, talking about an upcoming date with Chuck Fullback, All-Star Hottie.  Suddenly Dad enters the room, asking if her chores are done.  She tells him they are.  Dad leaves.  Teen resumes talking about the date.

Play the scene in your mind.  Can you hear how the teen’s vocabulary, attitude, and inflections change as soon as Dad appears?  Be aware of this in your fiction.  How you speak to your boss is not the same way you speak to your child, your spouse, or a police officer.

Set the Scene. Where your scene is taking place and what is happening will impact your dialogue.

Imagine Tim and his friend are being chased by a police helicopter one night.  The beam of the searchlight is scrambling across the ground as they race full speed down an alley. Tim spots a large trash bin.  He decides to ditch the searchlight by hiding behind the trash can   Would he say the following?

“I believe we ought to consider taking refuge, my friend.  Perhaps we should conceal ourselves behind that refuse container.”

No!  More likely, he’s going to say something like:

“This way!  Behind the trash can!  Behind it!  Go!”

His word choice, cadence, rhythm, and so on indicate his mental and physical state; out of breath, in a hurry, maybe panicked.  And, as his narrative “blocking” no doubt will show, there’s generally no reason to add tags and descriptors to this:

“This way!” Tim panted, clutching his chest.  “Behind the trash can!”  He put on a burst of speed toward the trash bin.  “Behind it!  Go!”

Nothing wrong with that, but the extra narrative clutters up the space.  Try to reserve narrative blocking for before and after dialogue as needed.  And it’s only needed if it furthers the story.  Unless Tim is going to suffer some sort of heart attack after this, there’s no reason for us to see him clutching his chest.

I hope these tips have been helpful.  As with any article on writing, take what you like and leave the rest.  Do spend some time at your local theatres; get to know how dialogue on the stage can make your dialogue on the page really shine!

Tom Leveen is the author of PARTY, a debut young adult novel released as the lead Spring 2010 title by Random House Children’s Books.  He has 22 years of theatre experience as a director and actor, and was the Artistic Director of both Is What It Is Theatre in Phoenix (1995-2006) and Chyro Arts Venue in Scottsdale (2007-2010).  His second YA novel is due out in Spring 2012.