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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45664
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45664
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You still want your dialogue to be real speech. It's just cleaned up speech.

If you have a critique group, read the scene out loud to them. Ditto if you have people willing to read drafts. You'll catch a lot of the worst sounding parts just in the act of reading. Your group will catch more.

You can also have someone real it out loud to you, while you sit with a separate printout and a red pen. Circle all the parts that are off.

Once you have your dialogue in decent shape, find the readers who are like the character. If you have teenagers talking, recruit some teenagers to listen or to read, but out loud. You won't have to ask twice to figure out which parts don't land right.

When you translate speech from real life to the page, you aren't formalizing it. I think that's your problem; you are changing the way the character says it. Instead, you want to do what radio interview programs do. Take out the ummm's and the stutters and the pauses. Don't have your characters say "like" 20 times in 5 minutes. It's not about making it more "bookish" but in keeping the reader's attention and making it easy to read.

Also consider code switching. A modern teenager speaks differently to peers vs adults. Even when conveying exactly the same information.

Original score: 4