Dialogue - Voice - Word Choice
By shaping distinct voices, you create characters who feel real, distinct, memorable.
Voice doesn’t just hold up a scene—it shapes the soul of your story.
✨Who’s your favorite fictional character? What do you notice about the way that character speaks?
If you’ve ever reread your draft and thought, Something’s off, chances are, your character’s voice is whispering (or shouting) for attention. Maybe your dialogue hits the right beats, but the phrasing feels too polished for a character who’s falling apart. Maybe the prose hums with lyricism but forgets to say what actually matters. Or maybe your characters sound like they were all raised in the same writers’ workshop instead of wildly different worlds.
Today, we kick off our series on engaging dialogue with the first of a doubleheader on voice—crafting dialogue that does more than “sound natural.” We’ll unpack how word choice reveals emotional tension, and how trimming the right words can make a line resonate like truth. This is for writers who want every sentence to earn its place.
Engaging dialogue breathes life into characters. Readers don’t just want to be told who characters are—they want to experience them through their speech, tone, and rhythm. The right words and quirks in a character’s speech can reveal personality, background, and even internal struggles—often more effectively than descriptive narration.
Think about your favorite characters in fiction. How many characters do you recognize in the phrases below?
“Great snakes!”
“May the odds be ever in your favor.”
“I am Groot”
“Zoinks!”
“My glasses! I can’t find my glasses!”
Even without context, the words alone evoke distinct characters.
✨Can you create a signature phrase or style for your characters?
Pitfalls
Without individual voices, characters blur together, dialogue creates yawns, and readers begin to skim.
Here are a few specific pitfalls:
Echoing the Writer’s Voice – Writers often slip into crafting dialogue that reflects their speaking style rather than considering how different characters would naturally express themselves. If the writer favors poetic language, every character might sound overly lyrical. If they prefer blunt speech, everyone might sound too terse.
Over-explaining: People don’t usually narrate their thoughts in full sentences while talking. If a character’s dialogue is overly precise or full of exposition, it can feel robotic.
Pointers
Great dialogue does more than inform—it defines. The right words make them memorable and vivid, setting them apart in every exchange. When you craft dialogue, ask yourself: Can I recognize who’s speaking just from the words alone? If the answer is yes, you’ve built a strong, distinct voice.
By shaping distinct voices, you create characters who feel real, distinct, memorable.
Have fun using the pointers below. Read your dialogue aloud or ask a friend to read it for you. Listen carefully for examples of the following:
Vocabulary—Choose words with precision.
Signature phrasing—maybe one speaks in metaphors, while another keeps things short and direct. The complexity or simplicity of a character’s vocabulary can reflect education, social status, or personal experience. A scholar might use precise, technical language, while a street-smart character might favor slang.
Highly educated/formal speech: “It would be most advantageous to reconsider the consequences before proceeding further.”
Casual/everyday speech: “You sure this is a good idea? Might come back to bite us later.”
Regional or subculture-specific speech: “Ain’t nobody got time for that nonsense.”
Sharp, Realistic Dialogue—In real conversations, people don’t explain their emotions in full detail.
Trust your readers. Instead of spelling everything out, let context do the work.
Over-explained: “I’m anxious because this speech is important to my career, and I don’t want to mess it up.”
Better: “I’m going to mess this up.” (The anxiety is clear without explanation.)
Imply Through Subtext—People rarely say exactly what they mean.
Subtext is the art of dressing silence in layers of meaning and wrapping small talk around emotional dynamite.
Over-explained: “I’m sad that you didn’t come to my party. I was looking forward to seeing you, but you disappointed me.”
Better: “You didn’t show up.” (The hurt is implied without outright stating it.)
🌿Write a conversation between two characters deciding where to go for dinner—each character has a vastly different background (culturally, socially, or generationally).
Their word choice alone should make it clear who is speaking.
Punctuation!
Last week, we asked: Do we place a question mark inside or outside quotation marks when writing dialogue?
🖊️The answer is: Both
Inside—if the question is part of the dialogue or quotation (e.g., “Where are we going?”).
Outside—if the overall sentence is a question but the quote itself isn't (e.g., Did she really say, “I’m leaving”?)
Unless otherwise noted, all answers to the punctuation questions will be based on the After Dinner Conversation magazine’s style guide, which follows the Chicago Manual of Style.
The Journey Continues…
🖊️ Which punctuation mark is used to indicate interrupted dialogue? A pause or hesitation? A trailing off?
Next week, we’ll answer this question and continue our exploration of dialogue and crafting voice by combining vocabulary with pacing and rhythm to make your characters become more alive on the page.
Until then, may your pages hum with purpose and clarity.