Revising Dialogue II
When you revise a short story or other narrative, evaluate how well you've depicted your characters and the relationships between them. You may be able to add or improve the
dialogue—direct quotations of spoken words or conversation—to move the action along and to make the people in your writing come to life.
Your characters, real or fictional, depend on you to portray them accurately. Therefore, you must choose words that sound natural, given the characters' ages, backgrounds, and personalities. In the first example below, Harry's words sound stilted and formal. Notice what a difference revision makes! The use of contractions helps make the dialogue sound natural.
Unnatural
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"If we do not move more quickly, we will be late," Harry called to his friends.
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Natural
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"If we don't hurry, we'll be late," Harry called to his friends.
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To make your dialogue sound realistic and to bring your characters to life, remember that you may sometimes use sentence fragments as well as slang words and idioms. Slang words, such as cool and dis, and idioms, such as give me a break and on easy street, are words or phrases that have special meanings that are different from their standard or dictionary meanings.
