Writing dialogue can be hard. How do you make a character say something realistic? How do you make the characters all sound different? How can you keep your own speech patterns from taking over all the characters’ voices?

The first hint I can give you is to pay attention to the way people talk, both people you know, and people you don’t (yes, this means you have permission to eavesdrop). Notice how each person talks, especially differences and similarities.

The second thing I can tell you, is that although dialogue sounds like real speech, it is not. Omit sounds like “uh” or “oh.” Cut phrases that don’t further the conversation. Dialogue enhances the plot line and breaths life into your characters. If it doesn’t do that, cut it.

Keep lines short. Too much information at one time can become cumbersome, or difficult to get through. A good rule to remember is the three-sentence rule: never allow a character to have more than three uninterrupted lines of dialogue.

A few don’ts to remember:

• Don’t go overboard with dialogue tags, such as “she exclaimed” or “he postulated.” Most readers don’t even read the tags, and too many complicated tags interfere with the flow of reading.
• Don’t write endless pages of dialogue. Readers get board if there is no action, so try to break up the dialogue.
• Don’t use stereotypes. Readers assume characters have the accents of the region where the story takes place, so using too many stereotypical phrases, like “y’all” and “dawg,” is rather redundant and annoying
• Don’t overuse slang and profanity. Slang may be hard to understand, and too much profanity may alienate some readers, and makes you sound vulgar and unintelligent.
• Don’t underestimate the importance of proper punctuation. Punctuating quotations is hard, but a few guidelines can simplify things for you. 
  1. The punctuation goes inside the quotation marks.
  2. Use a comma to separate dialogue tags with the actual dialogue, unless the dialogue is an exclamation or a question.
  3. Do not capitalize the dialogue tag that comes after the dialogue.