: Re: How to avoid turning dialogue into Q&A session? I noticed a problem I have in my fictional writing. My dialogues quickly turn into interrogations. Here is an exaggerated example. "How did

@Karen856

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I'm somewhat surprised nobody has mentioned yet-another-trick that works well: break the dialogue with descriptions, actions or anything else that could be appropriate.

"How did you do it?" he asked.
"..."
"Will it kill us all?"
"..."
"What about your family?"
"..."

Would turn into:

"How did you do it?" she asked, scratching her head.
"...", Bob said. He was getting this question a lot lately.
"Will it kill us all?", Alice followed-up.
"...", although he had his doubts about it himself. Something about this situation stinks.
"What about your family?" She recalled losing her own family just weeks ago.
"..."

This is of-course a poor example, but I think it gets the point across. It works even better if you put some of the actions at the front of the paragraph, before your character speaks instead of after. In essence, you're wrapping the dialogue into a proper scene.

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