Dialogue can be used to develop characters and progress plot but also needs to be dramatically necessary: characters need good reasons to impart information. Characters’ voices need to be differentiated. Dialogue injects energy; too much reported speech and action saps it. How to deliver information through dialogue without it feeling artificial. The value of what is not said and what stands behind the spoken words. The significance of silence. The constructed nature of ‘realistic’ dialogue. The debate over ‘said’. A guide to conventional and unconventional ways of punctuating dialogue. Managing accent and dialect. The problem of ‘other world’ speech. Managing a character’s thoughts.

‘If dialogue in fiction faithfully reflected speech in real life it would often be boring – full of repetitions, non sequiturs, digressions, irrelevancies, trivia and hesitations; it would also take up far too much space. The writer’s aim is to make dialogue appear authentic.’