If your dialogue feels flat, overlong, or oddly unreal, ten minutes, done properly, is often enough to spot the real problem. Here is a simple, repeatable way to improve your dialogue quickly — without second-guessing your voice.
Good dialogue doesn’t come from clever lines. It comes from clarity, restraint, and knowing what each exchange is doing.
If your dialogue feels flat, overlong, or oddly unreal — you don’t need to rewrite the whole manuscript. You need a focused pass. Ten minutes, done properly, is often enough to spot the real problem.
Here is a simple, repeatable way to improve your dialogue quickly — without second-guessing your voice.
Minutes 1–2: Read One Scene Aloud (Properly)
Choose one dialogue-heavy scene and read it aloud at speaking pace, not silently and not under your breath. If you stumble, rush, or feel embarrassed saying a line — that’s your first clue.
You are listening for friction, not perfection. Dialogue that works on the page should:
- sound natural when spoken
- have rhythm
- feel purposeful
Minutes 3–4: Cut the Obvious Lines
Look for lines that explain what the reader already knows.
Common culprits:
- characters restating emotions
- dialogue that summarises recent events
- “As you know…” information exchanges
If a line exists only to clarify, not to reveal character or tension, it likely belongs in narration — or nowhere at all.
Australian editorial standards (including those used by the ABC) consistently prioritise economy of language. Dialogue benefits from the same discipline.
Minutes 5–6: Check Who’s Really Talking
Ask one quiet question of each speaker: What does this character want right now? If you can’t answer that, the dialogue will drift.
Characters don’t speak to be helpful. They speak to get something — even if that something is silence.
Strong dialogue is driven by desire, resistance, avoidance and/or power shifts.
Minutes 7–8: Remove the Politeness Layer
Real people rarely speak in full, tidy sentences — especially in moments of tension. So look for unnecessary greetings, filler phrases and overly complete explanations.
You don’t need to strip dialogue bare, but you do need to let it breathe. Slight incompleteness often feels more real than grammatical correctness.
This is where clarity matters more than correctness — something the Australian Government Style Manual highlights repeatedly in contemporary communication.
Minute 9: Replace One Line With Action
Choose one line of dialogue and delete it. Then replace it with one of the following:
- a physical action
- a pause
- a gesture
- silence
Dialogue doesn’t have to carry everything. In contemporary and general fiction, what’s not said often holds more weight than what is.
Minute 10: Read It Again — Then Stop
Read the scene aloud one final time. If it moves faster, feels clearer and/or sounds more distinct between speakers you’ve done enough.
Stop there.
Over-editing dialogue is how it loses life.
A Small but Important Reminder
Improving dialogue isn’t about making it clever. It’s about making it believable.
Believability comes from intention, restraint, and trust in the reader — not from explaining everything out loud.
Ten focused minutes won’t fix everything. But they will usually fix the right thing.
And that’s what good editing looks like.
References (Australian sources)
Australian Society of Authors — Craft development for fiction writers
https://www.asauthors.org/
Australian Government Style Manual — Clarity, voice and contemporary language
https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/
ABC Editorial Policies — Dialogue, realism and language use
https://about.abc.net.au/how-the-abc-is-run/what-guides-us/editorial-policies/