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I finally caught why my dialogue sounded so fake after 7 years
I was reading through a scene in my WIP set in a busy diner in Nashville and something just felt off. Then it hit me - every single character was talking in complete, grammatically perfect sentences. Real people interrupt themselves, trail off, say "uh" and "like" constantly. I rewrote that whole chapter with fragments and run-ons and suddenly it actually sounded like people talking. Has anyone else had that moment where you realize your characters are too eloquent for their own good?
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finleym434mo ago
That diner scene is a solid example of the problem lol. What helped me was reading my dialogue out loud and if I stumbled over a line I knew it was too stiff. Also something that worked was giving each character a verbal tick like one who trails off with "you know?" and another who interrupts themselves mid sentence. It feels forced at first but once you get the rhythm down it makes everything sound way more natural.
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