I think one of the most challenging aspects of writing is dialog. It has to sound natural, but not as natural as a normal conversation. It has too many \u201cums\u201d or \u201cbuts\u201d or interruptions or awkward pauses. Nobody wants to read that. There\u2019s also the question of how much dialog to use. Some authors use it sparingly or not at all. It\u2019s easy to overuse, as well.<\/p>\n
Dialog is important to me because I\u2019ve always been one of those people who thinks of the perfect thing to say in a conversation hours after the fact. A witty retort, or a profound punchline, a clever segway or a thought provoking question. I always want to go back to that person and be like \u201chey, remember when you said this? Bam!\u201d and hit them with my brilliant line.<\/p>\n
But that would be lame. So I file those conversational gems away and use them in stories (although sometimes I\u2019m lucky enough to have the opportunity to use them in another conversation).<\/p>\n
My dialog used to be stiff, though, even with my cataloging of awesome lines. All of my characters sounded the same. They used words nobody would actually use in conversation.<\/p>\n