Writing dialogue used to stress me out so much I took to turning off my screen and just white knuckling it through a scene. Then, I’d turn the screen back on, see what I had, and locate a line or two that seemed to flow from a given character. Then I’d revise around that. Really, it wasn’t such a bad method. It allowed me to let my subconscious do a lot of the heavy lifting. My current method is really not that far off from that previous one. It’s just that my screen is on, and I’m less anxious about the whole thing, because I’ve had a lot of practice.

I could probably write fifty pages on what makes good dialogue. But for now, I’m just going to locate two common missteps that are easy to spot—and, better yet, easy to fix.

1. Adding the dialogue tag too late.

“The trouble with you, Eddie, is you never pay attention to the small stuff, the fine print, tying your shoelaces, making sure the oven is off after you take out the roast beef,” said the sheriff.

“The trouble with you, Eddie,” said the sheriff, “is you never pay attention to the small stuff, the fine print, tying your shoelaces, making sure the oven is off after you take out the roast beef.”

Notice how, in the first example, the reader doesn’t know who’s talking until fairly late in the passage. Up until that point, the reader is trying to conjure up a mental image, but they’re confused. They might attribute the line to someone else in the room, and then they have to go back and mentally revise, which takes them out of the story. The spell is broken. Why not make it nice and clear who’s talking right from the start?

2. Characters talking not to each other, but directly to the reader.

“Genevieve,” said Cindy, “you’re my younger sister but we haven’t seen each other in five years. Not since our oldest brother Johnny hung himself in the laundry room.”

The dialogue above feels highly unnatural. Why? Because Cindy and Genevieve already know all of this. They HAVE to. It’s a big part of their lives. Why would Cindy be saying it? Well, she wouldn’t. She isn’t even actually talking to her sister here. She’s talking to the reader, breaking the fourth wall—and thus, the whole of the fiction. Why? Probably because the writer is laboring under the assumption that dialogue is more accessible and readable than narration. But that isn’t necessarily, true. AND there’s a very easy fix here. Just put it in the narration:

Genevieve was Cindy’s younger sister. They hadn’t seen each other in five years. Not since their oldest brother Johnny hung himself in the laundry room.

Now, none of these tips actually makes writing dialogue that much easier. But it does save you from making a couple of mistakes that distract from a good story.