Common Mistakes in Writing Dialogue and How to Avoid Them

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Work with Tracy Gold on your next book. Contact her via her Reedsy profile.

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As an editor, I spend a lot of time discussing dialogue. I am a huge geek about it, and so I can't wait to cover some common mistakes and how to fix them—not just pointing out what is wrong but also how to fix it.

So, once you've learned about these tips and my fixes, your dialogue will improve so much that people will ask you to hold courses about writing dialogue. That is my hope for all of you.

A Quick Overview

Dialogue is in pretty much all categories of writing, and it can help your storytelling in any category.

Dialogue has got to be great for both traditionally published and self-published books. I have worked with authors of both types of books, and the same common errors pop up no matter what publishing journey someone is on. 

So, just a quick overview: We'll discuss characters telling each other what they should already know, characters talking in long chunks, confusing paragraph spacing, too many dialogue tags, too many fancy dialogue tags, characters saying each other's names too much, and characters floating in space.

Mistake #1: Characters Telling Each Other What They Should Already Know

I had some fun coming up with an example of this mistake, and I'm going to read it aloud for you.

“Susan, remember when we went to the diner on Main Street last week?” Mary put her fork down and took out her wallet.

“Why, sure. You got your favorite, blueberry pancakes.” Susan took a big bite of her salad.

“Well, remember how I forgot my wallet, and you covered me?” Mary waved her wallet in the air.

“It was my pleasure!”

“This time, I'm paying!” Mary handed her credit card to the waitress.

So, why is this a mistake? 

Susan remembers going to the diner and paying for Mary. Mary doesn't have to tell her or remind her about any of this. And I see this kind of thing all the time. Why do writers feel inclined to do this? Susan is saying this in dialogue for the benefit of the reader, not for the other character in the scene.

As readers, we may not know about the time at the diner last week. And the writer, who is me coming up with this example, is using dialogue to fill in this past information.

So, doing this is a mistake because it can be like waving a big red flag: Hey, you're reading a book! These people aren't real! They're talking to you — the reader — not to each other!

And we don't want to do that. We want people to forget that they're reading a book and feel like this is happening in real life. So, you'll notice they use the word “remember” twice, and that's a bit of a red flag for me because it means the characters probably already both know what they're about to say aloud.

This mistake can also happen without the word “remember.” And it's not always about characters remembering something.

Another example would be two scientists telling each other information that they would certainly already know, but the readers wouldn't, like getting into the details of rocket science or genetics or something like that.

When we write a novel or a memoir, or a picture book, we want people to forget that they're reading a book, and get immersed in the world of the story.

So, how would we make this section of dialogue more realistic? Put it in prose or use a “newbie” character.

This is what it would look like if we summarized the information in prose:

“Well, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good.” Mary put her fork down.

“This is my favorite salad in town, though.” Susan took a big bite.

“This time, I'm paying!” Mary waved her wallet above the table. She still felt bad that she had forgotten it last week. Susan had been so nice to cover her. 

This is really simple. I kept a little information about last week. I personally like to compare my favorite foods at restaurants across town, so that felt realistic and not too forced. I also moved the information about forgetting the wallet to the prose and out of the dialogue.

And it's such an easy trick. Sometimes, writers think that everything is more interesting when it's said in dialogue, but it is actually okay to just let us fly through any logistical nitty-gritty information in the prose. Then, you can keep your dialogue more realistic and engaging.

Next up, let's look at what using a newbie character would look like:

“My food was delicious,” said Elizabeth.

“Well, I think the pancakes from the diner were better, but these were still pretty good.” Mary put her fork down.

“This is my favorite salad in town, though.” Susan took a big bite.

“This time, I'm paying! Mary waved her wallet above the table, then turned to Elizabeth. 

“I forgot my wallet last week, and Susan covered me.”

“That was so nice, Susan!” said Elizabeth.

Elizabeth wasn't there last week, so Mary has to explain what happened to her. I'm sticking with a low-stakes example here, but this would be more important for rocket scientists who have to explain things to the reader a lot.

When you have a lot to explain, like scientific concepts or the rules of a fantasy world, you should use a newbie character. You don't have to, but it's one option. This is part of why we see a lot of books about people moving to a new place. They can observe their surroundings with the same sense of wonder that a reader would.

I always think about Harry Potter when we talk about this because Harry is new to the magical world, so it is realistic that the other characters need to explain everything to him. This is probably more common in children’s literature, as we like to gently introduce kids to a new world or a fantasy world, whereas adults can be thrown into the deep end and trusted to stick with it a little bit more.

It's always a balance. How much information do you need to give, and how quickly do you need to give it? It's always balanced.

Mistake #2: Characters Talking in Big Chunks

I don't think we have time for a really extreme example of this, so we're just going to use something low-stakes and silly.

“Well, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good. I have compared pancakes at all of the diners in town. It's kind of a hobby of mine. Last week was my all-time favorite because they were just so fluffy. I've got to see if they'll give me their recipe. It probably has preservatives in it, but they tasted so good I don't even care. Second best has got to be the Seasons Diner over on Main Street. Oh, I can't wait to get back there. They include a side of bacon, and while their pancakes aren't the best, their bacon is. The science of how pancakes become fluffy is so fascinating to me.”

I think that we probably all know people like Mary, but we really don't need to know all of this about pancakes in one go. 

The problem with not really having time to show an extreme example is that this does sound like someone we know. But if you know someone who talks like this, I am willing to bet that it is kind of a defining character trait for them. And if someone talks like this, you think of that person like, Oh, they are the talker.

So, if you have a character who talks like this in one of your books, I would just say, know that that's going to stand out. 

Let's talk about fixing this issue. Cut, break up, or summarize.

If you want to cover all of this information about pancakes, there are ways to do it without letting Mary monopolize the conversation. We're talking about pancakes, but we could be talking about important world-building or scientific information. 

So, if we were to cut it, all we need is:

“Well, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good,” Mary said.

Unless we're showing a pretty serious obsession with pancakes for plot and character reasons, this is all we need. Even with high-stakes information like worldbuilding, think about whether your readers need to know everything or if that information can be spread out through the book or just cut entirely.

All right, the next possible fix is breaking it up:

“Well, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good.” Mary put her fork down.

“Do you have a favorite pancake place in town?” Susan said.

“Oh, for sure, but last week's blew everything else out of the water. Before then, I would have said the Seasons Diner over on Main Street.” Mary leaned back in her chair, rubbing her stomach.

“That's a lot of pancake knowledge.” Susan took a bite out of her salad.

“I love comparing pancakes. It's kind of a hobby of mine.”

So, that's much more realistic. I would be likely to find something like this maybe in a romance novel or a contemporary novel where we're showing a friendship developing between these characters where they're doing the more natural back-and-forth. 

All right, fix three: summary! This is one of my favorites because it can be so easy and huge.

“Well, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good.” Mary put her fork down.

“Do you have a favorite pancake place in town?” Susan said.

Mary told Susan all about her hobby of comparing pancakes, ranking the different diners in town, and speculating about the recipes. 

So, that shortened it up so much, and we can imagine that there's a back-and-forth without actually showing it if it's not about something vitally important to the plot.

One of my favorite tricks is to summarize when one character has to tell another what just happened in a scene that the readers already got to see happen. You can just say, “And Mary told Susan what happened,” and you are covered.

This is a good trick for memoir, too. In a memoir, you may not remember exactly what was said, so we might see more summary. In memoir, you can just say, “I remember the conversation went something like this,” and then use a mix of dialogue and summary. 

It is possible to use too much summary. I have seen that, and I will comment on manuscripts: “I'd love to see this playing out in scene.”

But not enough summary is way more common than too much summary, in my experience.

Mistake #3: Confusing Paragraph Spacing

This is kind of like a logistical mechanics one. Confusing paragraph spacing is pretty common as a dialogue mistake, especially in early drafts.

All right, so to get to the example:

“Well, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good.”

Mary put her fork down. “Mm, this is my favorite salad in town, though.” Susan took a big bite. “This time, I'm paying!”

Mary waved her wallet above the table. She still felt bad that she had forgotten it last week. Susan had been so nice to cover her.

So, what I did here in this mistake example is I messed up all of the spacing from the previous example. If we hadn't read this before, we wouldn't know who said what.

Let's look at what it's supposed to be like. Our fix is to use a new paragraph whenever someone new speaks, thinks, or acts.

“Well, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good.” Mary put her fork down.

“This is my favorite salad in town, though.” Susan took a big bite.

“This time, I'm paying!” Mary waved her wallet above the table. She still felt bad that she had forgotten it last week. Susan had been so nice to cover her.

Susan pulled out her wallet. “No, don't even think about it. It was my pleasure, and we can just go back to splitting.”

So, this is an extremely short and simple example, but if we go back, you can just see that the unedited version is confusing when Mary and Susan both have dialogue on the same line, and also at the end with Mary waving her wallet above the table. We don't have a way to know that that's connected to “This time, I'm paying!”

I really do see this all the time. Sometimes, it happens when writers are writing more in a stream of consciousness and just writing dialogue as it comes out. But adding a new paragraph space is an easy fix every time someone new acts or thinks. 

Along the same line, don't use too many paragraph spaces. If you add a space when it is the same person, we are then suddenly going to doubt whether it is the same person talking and acting. When you have an action like Mary putting her fork down, you can keep that action in the same line, and it serves as a dialogue tag.

Mistake #4: Too Many Dialogue Tags

I see this all the time, and I think people are out there thinking, No one is ever going to be able to tell who is speaking in my book, so I've got to use all of these dialogue tags.

Yes, sometimes I do get confused about who is speaking because there aren't enough tags, but too many tags is the more common error by far.

I actually don't think this is a bad idea. You can include too many tags in your first draft, but then just know that you'll have to go through and remove them as you refine your work.

All right, here's our example:

“Well, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good.” Mary said. She put her fork down.

“Mm, this is my favorite salad in town, though.” Susan said. She took a big bite.

“This time, I'm paying!” Mary said. She waved her wallet above the table.

So, I added all of those saids, and none of them are needed here.

Our fix is to use a dialogue tag OR action/thought (not both).

I joke that when I'm doing a copy edit, half of my time is spent just deleting “she said” where it's not needed. I really don't even think that is a joke. That's true of a lot of copy editing. All right, here is the fix. You can delete either the action or the tag. 

“Well, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good,” Mary said.

“Hm, this is my favorite salad in town, though.” Susan took a big bite. 

“This time, I'm paying.” Mary still felt bad that she had forgotten her wallet last week. Susan had been so nice to cover her.  

You can also see here that you use a comma with someone who is being described as speaking, so with a word like said, so for Mary said.

But when someone is doing an action like Susan took a big bite, you use a period.  

For the third paragraph, Mary is really the point of view character here. So we only get a thought from her. We don't need to hear that “she said” or “she acted.” We just hear how she feels. Mary still felt bad.

Here's a little caveat for picture books. Because words are limited in picture books, and the illustrations do some of the work for you, it is often best to use a dialogue tag rather than an action. You don't always have full control of your paragraph spacing in picture books, so I wouldn’t worry about substituting actions as much as you would for fiction. 

Mistake #5: Too Many Fancy Dialogue Tags

The problem in any category is when you have too many fancy dialogue tags. That's the best way I can describe them; they're just fancy.  

“Well, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good,” Mary said snobbishly. 

“This is my favorite salad in town, though,” Susan salivated. 

“This time, I'm paying!” Mary exclaimed. She waved her wallet above the table. 

I have added spice or fanciness to each of these dialogue tags.

Mary said snobbishly, could be useful because she could be saying that same dialogue nicely or snobbishly, and it adds a little more detail, but it's kind of an awkward way to do it. I have a little red flag up anytime I see the letters -ly. So, a word that's an adverb in a dialogue tag, like snobbishly. So check when you see an adverb, check to make sure you need it.  

Susan salivated is an action and not a dialogue tag. Tight right after though, there should be a period and not a comma (“This is my favorite salad in town, though.” Susan salivated.) That's so common, especially with words like smiled. I think people kind of see smiled in the same way as said or sometimes sighed.

Salivated is a little extra. That's got to be a pretty good salad, right? Is Susan a dog? Unless she's a dog, she is not salivating.  

The third little-too-fancy tag here is exclaimed. (“This time, I'm paying!” Mary exclaimed.) Why would you make readers say that whole mouthful? We've got the exclamation point. 

Remember, we want readers to feel immersed in the book and not spend any time being impressed with the author's vocabulary. This is especially true for picture books, where it's actually more important to keep things simple and not distracting. Picture books are not tools for teaching kids vocabulary words, like exclaimed. They're supposed to be good stories. 

Our fix is just: to keep it simple.

“I don't even think I can eat these pancakes,” Mary said. “They don't hold a candle to the ones from last week.”

“This is my favorite salad in town, though.” [note the period] Susan smiled. 

“This time, I'm paying.” Mary waved her wallet above the table. 

So what I did here is I changed the actual dialogue, the words coming out of Mary's mouth to be snobby.

So we don't need Snobbishly. I added Susan's smile because that's more realistic than salivated — but also to show the period, not a comma. 

Then, I just cut Mary exclaimed. Never be afraid to just use said. It disappears and blends into the background.

All right, on to the next one. This is another one that should be a really easy fix to level up your writing.

Mistake #6: Characters Saying Each Other's Names Too Much. 

Here is my mistake example: 

“Well, Susan, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good,” Mary said. 

“That may be true, Mary, but this is my favorite salad in town.” Susan took a big bite. 

“Susan, this time, I'm paying!” Mary still felt bad that she had forgotten her wallet last week. Susan had been so nice to cover her.

All right, there are so many names. I would really like to say that this is an exaggeration, but I see dialogue that looks like this all the time. Sometimes, I think it's people trying to get around providing a name for their character when they're writing in the first person, so they're doing this so that we can learn the character names. Sometimes, they're using names to clarify who is speaking, but you really want a light touch on names in dialogue.

People do say each other's names, so maybe when they're saying hello or goodbye, or if they're in a large group and they need to specify who they are talking to, or they're speaking a hard truth, or it's a really serious moment or maybe one character has a habit of saying a lot of names. I do know people who are like this, and they always stand out to me.

But people normally don't say names as much as in this example. Listen to this next time you are in the position to eavesdrop, and you won't hear all of these names. 

All right, so my fix is pretty easy: Cut the names!  

We can cut all the names in the spoken dialogue here, and we still know exactly who is talking.

“Well, I think the pancakes last week were better, but these were still pretty good,” Mary said. 

“That may be true, but this is my favorite salad in town.” Susan took a big bite. 

“This time, I'm paying!” Mary still felt bad that she had forgotten her wallet last week. Susan had been so nice to cover her.

We don't need the names to know who is talking. In 90 percent of circumstances, you can cut the names from your dialogue. It is so quick and easy and it will make your writing seem instantly more professional.

All right, we are going to switch up the example when we go to our next topic. 

Mistake #7: Characters Floating in Space

I'm going from one of my favorite topics, pancakes, to another, dogs. 

“Did you make an appointment for the vet for Bobo?” Laura said.

“Oh, shoot,” Joe said. “I forgot.” 

“I was really counting on you to do that,” Laura said. 

“I know, I know, and I'm so sorry,” Joe said. 

“Just another thing to add to my list,” Laura said. 

So there's nothing wrong with he said, she said. Nothing technically wrong. But this is kind of boring, right? We don't know where these characters are or what they're doing. 

So the fix is to add action, thoughts, and descriptions.  

Laura scratched behind Bobo's ears. He didn't seem to have as much energy as normal. It was nice to snuggle up on the couch, but she was worried that he wasn't running around like he normally would be this time of night. “Did you make an appointment for the vet?”

“Oh shoot.” Joe barely looked up from his phone. “I forgot.” 

“I was really counting on you to do that.” Laura sighed and shifted away from Joe.  

“I know, I know, and I'm so sorry.” Joe didn't sound very sorry. He was chuckling at something on his phone.  

“Just another thing to add to my list.” Lara stood up and stomped away. Bobo followed her, tail tucked between his legs. 

So see how pretty simple actions and thoughts can really change this dialogue. In the previous example, Joe was definitely in the doghouse, but now that he's buried in his phone and Laura is stomping away, we know that he's really in big trouble. 

So, just by adding a little bit, you no longer have characters in space. We know that they're on the couch, and then they're getting up and moving away, and we have a lot more cues for the emotions here.

So one thing I would love for you all to think about as you write: what balance are you hoping to build in your writing between dialogue, action, and white space?

It's weird to judge this on slides in a presentation, but when you look at a Word doc or whatever you use to draft, you should be getting a sense of the balance that you want.

There's no real right answer or exact formula here, but you want to get a sense of this as it's part of your voice as a writer. 

All right, so we made it! Instead of focusing on the mistakes, let’s recap our fixes and our key takeaways: 

• Summarize info characters would already know 
• Break up big chunks of dialogue 
• Use a new paragraph for a new character speaking or acting
• Cut unnecessary dialogue tags 
• Keep dialogue tags simple (don't be afraid of ‘said’) 
• Cut unnecessary names 
• Show the physical world around the dialogue

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Work with Tracy Gold on your next book. Find her here on Reedsy.