: Re: How can one write good dialogue in a story without sounding wooden? I began an assignment to write a short story for a Creative Writing submission to a publication and although it was accepted,

@Hamaas631

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Writer and former editor Jenna Moreci has a great series of YouTube videos that delve into lots of different writing topics. Some of them discuss dialogue, and here are a few cherry-picked tips of hers that you might find helpful:

Avoid banal pleasantries. If you're reading a story that has lots of small talk, it may have been poorly written. Small talk may be realistic, but it's boring to read and you should almost always leave it out-- unless it serves a narrative purpose. (Jenna uses the example of a character who wakes in a cold sweat from night terrors; her mother asks her the next morning how she slept, and she responds, "Oh, just fine." In most situations, this conversation is banal and shouldn't be included in a story, but here it tells you something about the main character.)
Read it out loud. To address your question more specifically, one way to make dialogue seem less forced and more natural is to read it out loud to yourself. If it seems clunky, rewrite it.

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