Reddit reviews How to Write Dazzling Dialogue: The Fastest Way to Improve Any Manuscript

It's a skill. Study it:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Dazzling-Dialogue-Manuscript/dp/0910355142/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541268843&sr=8-1&keywords=dialog&dpID=51ZYq6RLA1L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

https://www.amazon.com/Dialogue-Verbal-Action-Stage-Screen-ebook/dp/B017RQP30Q/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1541268843&sr=8-7

There's no "top tip" for it. It's a hard fucking skill to master. Before just plowing through on your own or based off reddit advice, seriously read those books. Both will be at your local library.

This is going to sound like really flippant advice, but I swear it's not: buy this book. There is a lot of basic stuff you need to know - how to build character and setting and plot, how to outline, and yes, how to market and publish - and this will spell it all out a lot better than any of us could do in a short post on Reddit. It is definitely an intro book, so it's not like this is all you'll ever need, but it's a good place to start, get your bearings, and figure out what you need to focus on next.

When you do figure that out, there are tons of books dedicated to everything from plot structure and scene structure to dialogue and character arcs; buy those too. Use them to improve your craft and fill in your gaps.

Also, read! Read a lot. Pay attention to how the authors you love set a scene, how they describe things (and to what extent), how they structure their chapters and scenes, how they write dialogue. All books contain real, solid examples for you to study and learn from. Figure out what you admire, and mimic it. Figure out what you hate, and avoid it.

And last, keep in mind that your writing probably won't be amazing right away, and you might have to rethink and rewrite your book a few times as you're learning (or maybe even start a new one) before you really feel like you've gotten the hang of it. Don't give up, just keep learning and keep working.

So, I have figured out a way to write stories that works for me. But my method isn't the only way, and it's certainly not canon. You should regard what I say as suggestion rather than edict.

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Your #1 priority in the first 200-250 words of your story should be making your reader empathize with your main character, Teleka. You need to establish this emotional bond before you can get on with anything.

To this goal, you want to get a little more inside Teleka's head and concentrate less on everything else. Right now, you're mostly using her POV like a camera, reporting objectively on what it sees. Instead, you want to use her POV like a documentarian or journalist, subjectively layering her personal opinions over everything she sees.

Your reader should know how she feels about everything she talks about. Grilled steaks, yea or nay, dragon's breath, yea or nay, etc. Having the entire crew in the mess hall at once, does this make her feel just a little apprehensive? Probably. I mean, if we're being real, she's probably a mess of emotions at this point. You want to communicate exactly that to your reader.

Step 1 in establishing the bond is, you want to prove to your reader Teleka is a real, live person just like you or me. You do this by showing she has the small idiosyncrasies we all have, little anxieties and annoyances. You want to get to a place where your reader says subconsciously, hey, I know exactly how she feels.

Step 2 is that immediately after you establish this bond, you need to load her up with problems. To start, some kind of problem big enough that it requires her immediate attention.

That's it. From this point forward, your reader will be reading your story from Teleka's viewpoint. Your reader will have to keep reading to make sure Teleka's going to be okay.

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There is some pretty strong frontloading, infodumping at the start. There's a writer's instinct that wants to inform the reader of all the information they are going to require to enjoy the story. This is a misplaced instinct and should be killed. Making your reader informed is reasonable if you're writing a report, but when it comes to fiction, it's fine to leave your reader in the dark. Some of the best stories in the world are the result of withheld information. Starving your reader of essential info can create a sense of mystery.

At the beginning of your story, you want to introduce your MC, throw her into some kind of a pickle, and have more problems, even bigger, waiting in the wings. All the rest of the stuff can come later.

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Over the next few pages you introduce the squad. There's way too much information here. It's practically like you're reading off their D&D character sheets complete with hit points. It's obvious what you're doing, and it's not holding the reader's interest.

I think you've got a choice here. You can strip the 'round the table' way down, to where you're only describing each character with a few quick brushstrokes. Or you can choose 2-3 characters to describe, and save the rest for later.

Or actually, since this is just a short story, you can cut characters...

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Right now the opening of the story is too calm and relaxed. It's static. You need to inject some form of narrative tension into the proceedings. Something that will make your reader sit up and take notice.

One idea could be to light a fuse of some kind. Right now your opening sentence:

>Teleka had never seen anything quite like it.

Doesn't grab your reader or pop, or really do anything. You could replace it with something similar to:

>Teleka knew she had 30 minutes to get off the ship.

or

>Teleka knew one of her crew had to be a spy.

or

>Teleka looked down at the test strip she was holding white-knuckled. She was pregnant.

Granted, all of these openings would require some extensive re-writing. But my point is it starts the story by pulling the rug out. So things are already dynamic and in motion from the start.

You need to hook your reader's interest. Never take that interest for granted; it's a fickle resource. If you don't hook your reader, you risk them putting your book back on the shelf.

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The dialogue in general doesn't feel realistic or genuine. I think there are a couple things that might help.

The first is that at present you are primarily using dialogue to convey verbal information. You should also be using it to convey character. Dialogue is arguably better at the latter than the former.

Readers love dialogue. Dialogue allows you to showcase the personalities of your characters. And it helps bust up the large, indigestible paragraphs of infodump.

Every dialogue is a form of competition, even among the best of friends. Your speakers are competing for limited resource of talk time, power, and often physical tangibles.

A speaker doesn't stop speaking to allow another person to talk. In a dialogue, people interrupt each other to talk. That's part of the natural patterns of speech.

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And the second thing that might help is understanding the patterns of dialogue. Most people instinctively think dialogue happens like this:

A speaks.
B speaks.
A speaks.
B speaks.

But the real rhythm of dialogue is closer to this:

A speaks.
B responds. B speaks.
A responds. A speaks.
B responds.

The responses can be non-verbal, verbal, even virtual the room suddenly grew cold. The responses are just as important as what's being said.

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If you've never read a book on writing dialogue, I recommend you have a look at James Scott Bell's How to Write Dazzling Dialogue. He has an easygoing style, and I've picked up a lot from his books.

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Best of fortune! 🚀🐲