My officemate Jan loves to play Magic: The Gathering digital collectible cards. He’s very competitive and has earned money from national competitions. I can sense the passion in the way he explains the rules of the game to dunces like me. He talks about his obsession with obtaining the rare Black Lotus card and its power of giving the player additional mana. He’ll keep talking about his card game exploits as long as you care to listen.

He explains according to the way ideas pop into his head. Often, dialogues in a real conversation need polishing if it is to be written as a film or fiction dialogue. In writing dialogues for characters, writers often turn to real-life conversations to simulate the reality of how people talk. Still, the writer needs to observe some important approaches when it comes to crafting dialogue. Here are some pointers to help polish character dialogue.

1) Write what you hear

Raw dialogues from real conversations contain gap fillers and pauses. It’s easy to omit these obstructions in the process and extract the message of the person talking. The great thing about listening to real dialogues and writing them down is that you develop a good ear for what sounds natural.  Moreover, it gives you ideas on unique lines. Dialogue defines character. In fact, you can write a short story or even a novel that is pure dialogue. Philip Roth’s Deception runs entirely on the dialogue between an American man and an Englishwoman having an affair. The plot and their lives are revealed through their conversations.

Dialogue helps to give you an idea of what your scene is going to be about. It can even swerve you into a better idea that you never thought of before. When this happens, explore that idea. Give in to the flow of the dialogue. Your characters are suggesting creative ways to explore a scene, so keep them talking.

2) Learn from the playwrights

You can watch or read plays and see how playwrights handle dialogue. Shakespeare had a good ear for how people talked during Elizabethan times. In the same sense, contemporary writers can handle the craft of dialogue by listening and improvising.

For sure, you’ve had plenty of episodes in engaging in a one on one conversation with a friend, a colleague, or a family member. Have you ever thought about what made the conversation engaging or boring? A writer in search of writing a good dialogue can learn from two people talking. Make a scene of two people in a conversation. Many popular stories are built on two characters in exchange.

After writing, act it out. Ask a friend or someone to read the dialogue of the other character and have a scene. See if your dialogue sounds natural. If something tells you that it doesn’t, chance are, you’re right.

3) Drop the dead giveaway

A common mistake that writers make is stating in dialogue what is already obvious to the reader. I once saw a local movie wherein the scene is between this wealthy guy and his friend talking in a bar. At the start of the movie, the wealthy guy’s financial status is established through a collage of scenes showing his villa, sports cars, and designer clothes. Then the scene with his friend goes something like this:

“Why the long face, Mike?”

“I don’t know. I feel like something’s missing in my life?”

“A girl?”

“She’s different.”

“Why worry about it? You can have any girl you want. You have a great house at the Hamptons, your car collection makes everyone drool in envy, and you always wear designer clothes.”

Yeah, we get it. Despite his wealth, he can’t get the girl. The friend becomes annoying instead of reassuring. The dialogue would have been better if the friend was more empathetic.

“Why the long face, Mike?”

“I don’t know. I feel like something’s missing in my life?”

“A girl?”

“She’s different.”

“Care to talk about it?”