How Do You Write Highly Realistic Dialogue? The 10 KEY Steps…

One of the biggest humps to get over when writing for film or television is dialogue. Even if you have a perfect story, outline, and characters, bad dialogue can bring the whole operation down. 99% of the time, what you need is to have realistic dialogue.

Of course, not every project needs realistic dialogue all the time (see: The Grand Budapest Hotel). But unless your premise and tone align along wacky lines or you have a specific stylistic remit, it’s often best to stick close to real life with your characters’ words. Moreover, realistic dialogue can be a good guiding north star for writing, a way to ground the dialogue and focus it.

So What Constitutes “Realistic Dialogue”?

Take a moment to think back to some of the worst films you’ve ever seen. Are there lines that made you laugh out loud, not because they were comedic, but because they were laughably unrealistic?

Unrealistic dialogue breaks the viewer’s focus. Realistic dialogue, meanwhile, is almost unnoticeable; it draws the viewer further in, so they forget they’re watching a film.

In a sense, realistic dialogue is a misnomer, since all dialogue exists within a fictional setup. And oftentimes the more realistic the dialogue the less smooth and seamless it is. Dialogue in real life overlaps, trails off, stops and starts. This isn’t well-matched to the smooth flow of a movie or TV show. We want the dialogue in what we’re watching to flow and make us forget we’re indulging in fiction in the first place.

That all being said, dialogue that doesn’t feel natural sticks out like a sore thumb. So it’s a tricky balance, creating dialogue that sounds realistic but that isn’t so wedded to realism that it hinders the progression and digestion of what’s on-screen.

Realistic dialogue ultimately captures something true to life about dialogue between human beings. It may not be directly comparable to our conversations in day to day life. But it gets at the core of what it is to communicate. And it does so by using language and patterns of speech that we recognize.

So if it’s your goal, how do you make sure you’re achieving realistic dialogue? Let’s take a look….