Crafting dialogue that feels natural, purposeful, and emotionally resonant is a challenge even seasoned writers wrestle with. Every line your characters speak shapes how readers perceive their motives, histories, and relationships. Below, we’ll dive deeper into six pervasive dialogue mistakes, illustrate them with real-world writing scenarios, and arm you with practical fixes that will leave your readers hanging on every word.
1. Overly On-the-Nose Conversation
When characters state exactly what they feel—“I’m angry at you,” “I want a divorce,” “I’m scared”—the dialogue loses tension. Real people rarely announce their inner turmoil so plainly.
Consider a scene in a psychological thriller: instead of having your protagonist declare, “I know you’re lying to me,” drop in a loaded pause and a glance at their trembling hands. That unspoken accusation, combined with the physical symptom, creates suspense.
Practical fixes:
- Use a gesture or setting detail to imply emotion. (“He traced the crack in the wall instead of meeting her eyes.”)
- Let silence speak. A pregnant pause can carry more weight than any shouted confession.
- Embed conflict in subtext. Have characters talk about a trivial topic while layered resentment simmers underneath.
2. Info-Dumping Backstory in Dialogue
It’s tempting to have characters fill each other in—“Remember when we grew up in that tiny coastal town?”—but this halts momentum and feels contrived. Readers will sense the artificial instruction manual.
Instead, weave snippets of past events across several scenes. In a high-stakes heist story, drop a cracked photograph on the table or let a character’s flinch at a certain name slip in mid-argument. These breadcrumbs encourage readers to piece together the backstory themselves.
Practical fixes:
- Break exposition into bite-sized reveals across multiple chapters.
- Use environmental clues (tattoos, heirlooms, scars) that hint at history.
- Trust readers to connect the dots—curiosity often keeps them flipping pages faster than any blunt info-dump.
3. Characters All Sounding the Same
If every voice in your manuscript echoes the same vocabulary and rhythm, your world feels artificially sterile. I once read a thriller where hero, villain, and sidekick all ended sentences with “ya know?”—it obliterated any sense of individuality.
To carve distinct voices:
- Draft a one-sentence “voice profile” for each major character (e.g., “Amy speaks in clipped, formal phrases; she’s a former lawyer who hates small talk”).
- Script a short standalone scene—outside the novel’s context—between two characters, focusing solely on their unique cadence.
- Keep a running list of catchphrases or favorite slang for each character and sprinkle them judiciously.
Bonus Tip: Check out Reedsy’s blog post for some more tips on differentiating character voices.
4. Leaning on Clichés and Tropes
Those instant red flags—“We’ve got company!” or “This is the end of the line!”—signal to readers you’re relying on worn-out shorthand instead of fresh tension. In a dark domestic thriller I read, every confrontation ended with “This changes everything,” and it became painfully predictable.
Here’s a quick swap guide:
| Worn-Out Line | Why It Stumbles | More Nuanced Alternative |
|---|---|---|
| “We’ve got company!” | Telegraphed drama | “I hear footsteps in the hall—but too slow to be casual.” |
| “I’m fine” (when upset) | Feels rote and unconvincing | “I’ll live—eventually.” |
| “You just don’t get me” | Overused shorthand for conflict | “You never bother to ask why I do this.” |
| “It’s not you, it’s me.” | Dilutes emotional stakes | “I need time to figure out who I am without you.” |
5. Overusing Dialogue Tags and Adverbs
“He snapped angrily,” “she whispered nervously”—these tags can clutter your prose and undermine your characters’ voices. In one fantasy novel, every other line came with a “he growled” or “she hissed,” which made reading feel like wading through molasses.
Practical fixes:
- Swap long tags for simple “said” when the emotion is clear from context.
- Insert action beats that show emotion: “He slammed his fist on the desk” carries anger far stronger than “he said angrily.”
- Let the words themselves carry tone—tense, clipped sentences can feel angry; long, wandering ones can feel weary.
6. Ignoring Real-Life Conversation Messiness
Perfectly polished dialogue often sounds canned. Real speech is full of interruptions, false starts, and random tangents. I once eavesdropped on a street-corner conversation where two strangers debated movie plots, cut each other off, laughed, and then got sidetracked by a barking dog. That unpredictability held my attention far more than any scripted elevator scene.
Practical fixes:
- Use em dashes or ellipses to show a thought cut off mid-sentence.
- Allow occasional “uh,” “well,” or “so” at the start of a line—sparingly, for authenticity.
- Mirror pacing: break sentences into fragments during arguments; let them run on in wistful or nostalgic moments.
Bringing It All Together: A Mini Exercise
- Pick a key scene from your work-in-progress.
- Identify one line that feels flat or cliché. Rewrite it using subtext or an action beat.
- Read the entire exchange aloud, paying attention to where you stumble or feel bored. Mark those spots.
- Add at least one interruption or unfinished thought to inject real-world texture.
- Compare character voices side by side—ensure each has at least one unique verbal tic or phrasing style.
Dialogue is more than words on a page. It’s the pulse of your story, revealing hidden motivations, past wounds, and simmering conflicts. By avoiding these six pitfalls and infusing your conversations with nuance, individuality, and a touch of real-world messiness, you’ll create scenes that resonate long after readers turn the final page.
For more writing tips, check out the Creator’s Hub.
