What goes into writing effective dialogue?

Well, there are social skills, making friends, solving conflicts, being pleasant and polite.

We won't be using any of those today.

Instead, we 'll be working on, let's call them " anti-social skills ".

If you're a writer, you may already have a few of these.

The first is eavesdropping.

If you 're riding a bus and hear an interesting conversation, you could write it all down.

Of course, when you write fiction, you 're not describing real people, you 're making up characters.

But sometimes the words you overhear can give you ideas.

" I did not," says one person. " I saw you," the other replies.

Who might be saying those words?

Maybe it's two kids in a class and the boy thinks the girl pushed him.

Maybe it's a couple, but one of them is a vampire and the woman vampire saw the man flirting with a zombie.

Or maybe not.

Maybe the characters are a teenager and his mother and they 're supposed to be vegetarians, but the mother saw him eating a burger.

So let's say you 've decided on some characters.

This is anti-social skill number two : Start pretending they are real.

What are they like?

Where are they from?

What music do they listen to?

Spend some time with them.