: Re: How to write natural-sounding dialogue? Writing dialogue for my novel has proved to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. It all seems clunky and unnatural. Any tips for writing natural

@Sue2132873

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Natural sounding dialogue is a contradiction in terms. Well written dialog is more like the 'Best of Conversation' rather than like real people talking.
Tips for writing good dialog:
Reverse Engineering: read other writers you enjoy reading and try to see how they structured their dialog.
Eliminate the Negative: A common source of clunky dialog the writing trying to push exposition into the story through characters talking about stuff they'd already know about their backstory, or their common world, their situation, and so on. If you are doing this, then read through your dialog and scratch out every word that conveys information all characters in the conversation would already reasonably know about anything in their world. Interesting people don't tell other interesting people what they already know.
Minimization: People make idle chatter. "Hi. How are you? Fine. That's Great." Characters that do that are boring and dull. Have your characters only speak to move the story forward or create empathy for the reader or react to events (actions, dialog, movement, things happening in the environment). Ideally, every piece of dialog should do two or three things -- evoke interest or engagement with reader, communicate the character of the character, move story forward, etc. That's hard to do all the time, so at a minimum it should do at least one of those things.
Character's speak like they want to be heard: Just like vain people who speak in blustering praise of themselves or in humble brags, the characters reveal their nature or character in their lexicon. Each character should sound like a different person, unless they are raised and educated to the same level and blah blah. So dumb characters ought to sound dumb and highly educated characters should sound very well educated. Highly educated characters trying to communicate with dumb characters should sound like ... Well, I am sure you get it by now. One method to learn this is to use writing level tools to assess the grade level of your writing. Then try to raise and lower your writing.
Lastly, don't worry about dialog on your first pass of the story. Just get it on paper. Then re-read your work and think about the juiciest core of what your characters are trying to communicate in that bit of the story. Then distill it down to be the most effective and shortest dialog needed to communicate the character want, reaction and feelings in that moment of the story.

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