Do you talk? Of course you do. Some people talk a lot (like me) while others don’t talk as much. Some people talk about anything and everything (again, like me) and others don’t like chit-chat.

But how do you get your conversation to sound real in your writing?

Here are a few ideas.

Make your characters live.

• Some people talk with their hands a lot. If you have a character like that, make sure your reader knows.
• People don’t usually stand still when they talk. They might sway, or turn their head, or fiddle with their button or their purse strap. They might tap their foot or sit down.
• People sigh, yawn, don’t pay attention, look around, etc. during conversations.
• People react to things. We jump when startled, we scream, we freeze up, cry, get angry, walk away.
• We laugh, hug, smile, get excited. Little kids, and sometimes the not so little ones, jump up and down, or at least bounce on our toes.

Don’t have talking heads.

• If you have an entire page of just back and forth conversation with little to no movement from your characters, nothing else happening, just words, chances are good that it’s going to feel like talking heads.
• Some conversation without things like movement can be okay, but usually that needs to be longer things people say, not just quick back and forth, but don’t skip life and movement forever.

How they speak is important.

• There are a host of words to use to show the feelings of your characters and how they responded to something. Things like Bill shouted or Alice begged.
• There are just as many ways to show how your character is feeling during a conversation without using dialog tags such as Joe said, or asked Jane. Something like Susie twisted her hair around her finger again.
• Use them both.
  (More about things like Said in the next post.)

Mix up your actions and your conversations. Blend them together for living characters who don’t just appear to be talking heads. If there are just two people talking, don’t say who is talking every single line. Most readers can follow who is saying what if you remind us now and then. If it’s a large group talking, you might need to drop hints about who is talking. You don’t have to use conversation tags each time

How do you write conversations? Do you have trouble making your conversations feel real? Have you ever read a story where it felt like there were talking heads?