5 Things That Should Never Exist in Dialogue

Throughout my many many years of reading and being a certified bookworm... *ancient knowing look* I've discovered several things that I really can't stand. More specifically, things in dialogue that just push all the wrong buttons.

I'm right, of course. ;)

1. Too many exclamation points.

Whenever a character always (or almost always) talks in exclamation points, it makes them sound like they're over-caffeinated or hyper or something. Nobody sounds that excited all the time in real life! Life isn't that awesome! They need to chill!

See what I mean? Ugh, I can't stand it. It's like an overload for my brain. It refuses to accept all that exaggerated emotion. >.<

2. All capitals. 

There is a time for all caps (Let's be real, it's necessary to fangirl. It's a way of life.) but that time is definitely not in dialogue. In my humble opinion. To me, it's better to use action or tags or something besides all caps. Rather than giving power to your words, it makes it seem like you're screaming.

The only situation that calls for that level of screaming is fangirling. Or you know, when you're in trouble with your parents.

3. Using "like". 

If you say something like, "You are like so awesome." It makes you sound like a middle school girl that smacks gum. I don't even know why it annoys me so much. I insert "like" into my everyday talk too, lots of the times it's totally unnecessary. But...in books, it just annoys the heck out of me.

Example: "Oh. my. gosh. Did you see her brother? He is like so hot. Like, someone hook us up." Cue giggles. Good gods, I can hear the gum-smacking right now.

I did not know octopi/octopuses could waddle-run like this. Such cool-ness. 

4. Use texting word shortcuts.

As my younger sis told me, I do in fact sometimes do this in real life. BUT, it's only to annoy her and it works like a charm. Along with using texting shortcuts in dialogue (like BRB, TTYL, FYI), it's painful to read texts that are "modern" and only use about 2 letters of the alphabet total.

R U 8? (No offense to people who are actually 8.)

5. Long boring speeches that are supposed to be deep and intelligent but in reality bore you out of your mind. 

You know what I'm talking about. Those books that are supposed to be really beautiful and lyrical and... well, kind of boring. I'm so guilty of this in some of my WIPs. I'll be so focused on finding the exact right, beautiful way to say something and then after all that work... it goes on too long. Nobody wants to read how beautiful the sunset is in fifteen different ways. The more I read, the more I learn that short and powerful is the way to go. Dialogue especially.


I hope you liked this discussion post! Are there any unspeakable things that I missed? Do you agree with me on these dialogue no-no's?