Say It Like You Mean It: 20 Exercises to Write Better Dialogue

Dialogue is the lifeblood of fiction. It breathes movement into still scenes and reveals character without description. But crafting dialogue that rings true and pulls the reader in—without sounding like a robot or a Shakespearean time traveler—takes practice. Whether you’re writing a novel, screenplay, short story, or memoir, these 20 exercises will help sharpen your dialogue-writing chops.

1. Eavesdrop and Transcribe
Find a café, park bench, or public space. Listen (ethically and discreetly!) to snippets of conversation and jot them down. Pay attention to how people interrupt each other, pause, use slang, and trail off. Real speech patterns are irregular and layered with subtext.

2. Two People, One Secret
Write a scene where two characters talk, but one is hiding a secret. The trick? Show the tension through what’s not said. Use awkward pauses, deflections, and evasive responses.

3. Argue Without Yelling
Write an argument between two people who love each other. Avoid shouting, insults, or name-calling. Make it emotionally charged without going melodramatic. Think “The Notebook,” not “The Jerry Springer Show.”

4. Change the Context
Take a scene from a favorite book, movie, or your own writing and transplant it into a new setting. What if the “I love you” scene from your romance novel took place during a bank robbery?

5. Mute One Character
Write a conversation where one person cannot (or will not) speak. The other must carry the conversation, interpreting the other's gestures, expressions, or silence.

6. Text Message Tango
Write a dialogue in the form of a text conversation. Emojis, abbreviations, typos, and all. This helps you explore voice with extreme brevity.

7. Age Swap
Create a conversation between a 7-year-old and a 70-year-old. What words do they use? How do their concerns differ? Can you make it funny, tender, or surprising?

8. Overheard in a Fantasy Tavern
Drop two characters into a magical or futuristic setting—elves in a coffee shop, robots in therapy. How does the setting influence their vocabulary, tone, or urgency?

9. Use Only Subtext
Write a scene where the characters are talking about dinner plans, but the subtext is about their crumbling marriage. The surface words are boring—the meaning beneath is everything.

10. Cut the Stage Directions
Write a scene with just lines of dialogue—no tags, no actions, no “he said/she said.” Can the reader tell who’s talking? Does it still make sense? This strengthens voice and rhythm.

11. Try the Hemingway Challenge
Write a conversation using only short sentences and plain language. Avoid adjectives and adverbs. Let simplicity carry the emotional weight.

12. One Sentence Each
Create a scene where each character can only speak in one sentence at a time. This forces clarity and punch in each line.

13. Switch Genres
Take a horror scene and rewrite the dialogue as if it were from a romantic comedy—or vice versa. Same situation, wildly different voices.

14. Read It Aloud (in Funny Voices)
Read your dialogue out loud in different character voices. If something feels clunky or stiff, your ears will catch it even when your eyes don’t.

15. Interruptions Galore
Write a conversation between two characters where they keep cutting each other off. Use em dashes, ellipses, and line breaks. Real speech is messy.

16. Dialogue as Action
Create a high-stakes situation—like disarming a bomb, giving birth, or hiding from zombies. Let the dialogue move the action. Avoid exposition; keep it breathless and reactive.

17. Character Swap
Take two characters from different stories and write a dialogue between them. What happens when Sherlock Holmes meets Katniss Everdeen? Conflicting speech styles reveal character fast.

18. The Silent Third Wheel
Write a two-person dialogue but imagine a third person is in the room. How does that change what’s said and what’s left out?

19. Make It Weird
Give your characters a bizarre setting or context: one’s a mime, the other a parrot. Or they’re underwater. Or in a dream. Weirdness loosens creative inhibitions.

20. Back-to-Back Monologues
Instead of writing a back-and-forth, write two characters talking past each other—like they’re both waiting to speak, not listening. This reflects how people often really talk.

Bonus Tip: Steal and Remix
Borrow lines of dialogue from books, movies, and real life. Rewrite them for your characters. Changing context often reveals new meaning and voice.

Good dialogue doesn’t just “sound” real—it feels real. It has rhythm, purpose, subtext, and most importantly, voice. Like music, it takes time to develop an ear for it. But with consistent practice, you’ll start to hear the beats that make conversation compelling.

So open that notebook. Let your characters talk. Interrupt each other. Dodge questions. Whisper secrets. And most of all—say something worth hearing.

Now, go write something they can’t stop reading.

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