If you spend some time listening to various groups of people having a conversation, you’ll invariably notice a few of the following points:

1. Variation

Some people are natural conversationalists, for whom words flow easily and discussions are clearly and logically presented. Others battle to find the right words and make themselves understood easily.

People who are speaking about a subject they’re passionate or very knowledgeable about can suddenly become a lot more eloquent and confident in their speech, even if they were battling a moment before.

How you can use variation in your writing

Do your characters all sound the same? Spend some time working on each of your main characters and trying to “hear” what their speech sounds like. Are they shy or confident when they speak? Does it change if they’re talking to different people?

2. Fillers

Most people use fillers like “um” and “uh” when they speak. There are gaps in natural speech, that we as listeners have learnt to ignore or tune out unless we’re listening for them.

Should you use fillers in your writing?

Try to avoid verbal fillers as much as possible. Just as we ignore “um” in someone’s speech, we don’t expect to read it, and it will jump out at the reader very noticeably.

If you really need to indicate hesitancy in speech, consider using an ellipsis or other punctuation, or even nervous actions and body language, to indicate a pause in the speech. Only use a filler like “um” if it is very important to the story to show the character losing their words at that point.

3. Body language

Many people talk with their hands, body, and face in addition to their voice – watch someone on the phone and their hands are probably still gesturing to someone who can’t see them.

Using body language in your writing

Use your character’s actions and gestures to punctuate their dialogue. In addition, actions can be extremely useful for breaking up the monotonous “he said” dialogue tags, while giving you a chance to show who is speaking.

4. Fiction versus reality

Notice that an actor playing a character on TV or a movie tends to deliver the lines with a little more eloquence then your average conversationalist. But if the lines are delivered too “perfectly” it can sound wooden, like he’s reading off a cue. A good actor will vary his tone and add some tiny hesitations, but most of the difficulties faced (forgetting words, not having your speech worked out in advance, speaking off the cuff) in spontaneous conversation are cut out due to lack of audience time and interest.

Fictional dialogue is a careful blend of natural sounding speech and more eloquent “lines” pre-written for the character, and made to make the most of dramatic effect. A story wouldn’t work half as well if the character only thought up a really good retort a hour later in her bathroom – unless such a concept was a focus of the plot (like Bridget Jones’ Diary).

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For more help with your dialogue skills, try Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella, or Dialogue : Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Effective Dialogue by Gloria Kempton