What we say is important. You know that. I know that. We all know it. But! HOW we say things is even more important. When you are able to listen to a speaker and hear their tones, how rough or soft, it is a vital part in comuincation. Now, in writing our characters don't have the luxsery of literally being heard. So what do we do? How can we, the writers and storytellers of our special world, overcome this?
First, we must understand the importance of dialogue. With everything in writing, there is a fine ballance between "Wow, that sounds totally awesome!" and "Keep your day job." I read some books that have dialogue go on and on and on until my throat's raw instead of the characters. And there's the other exstreme of pages of narative that are not broken up by snippets of conversation. (Here's a side note: look over your pages. No. Don't read it. Just look at it. Is there collosal clumps of words? That's bad. Is there a lot of white space where characters talk forever? That's bad too. There should be an equal, ballanced amount of white and black threwout your pages. Keep that in mind.) Find that inbetween place and keep it.
Dialogue is wonderful for intorducing characters. In real life, first impressions are so important and your relationship with the person is set on a foundation of how good or bad the exsperience is. It is the same with your beloved characters. What the character does when they first walk onto the pages of your story is important. What they say, how they say it, who they say it to, and the feel their words convay shapes what your reader thinks of your character. Yeah! It's that heavy!
Dialogue is also a really easy way to make a story realistic. Let's say you write a scene where two characters are talking:
"Hello Mrs. Anderson. How are you doing?"
"I am doing well. How is your mother? I heard she is in the hospital. God forbid!"
"Yes, she did go to the docter. They said she will need to stay for a few weeks."
"I'm so sorry Andy! Oh! What does she have?"
Normal dialogue. Normal and sucky! That dialogue is not how people talk in real life therefore it give a sence the characters are dry and inhuman. To make dialogue real you have to spice things up, make it pop! Remember slang, combinging words, and fragment sentences. Yes, fragment sentences are not proper writing, but it is rare to find someone who speak in complete sentences. Here's the same scene, rewritten:
"Hi Mrs. Anderson. How's it going?"
"I'm fine. What about your mother? I heard she's in the hospital. God forbid!"
"Yeh, she went to the doc. They said she'll need to stay for a few weeks."
"I'm so sorry, Andy! Oh! What's she have?"
That's more like it. Dose it feel more like an everyday conversation? More real? More relatable? By writing realistic dialogue, your characters will sound real. When characters are real, the story is real. See how important it is?
Lastly, dialogue is so important because it is one of the key ways your readers will get to know the characters. How do people get to know others in real life? By many ways, but mainly conversations. It is vital to show who characters are, their quirks, what the reader should like or dislike about them, and so on. Dilaoge is a wonderful was to do that.
Now that you know the importance of dialogue, and know not to treat it as a "Oh, I might have my characters say things now and then", we can move on to the meat and potatos of the matter! All in due time, my young patawon.
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