Don’t Overuse Your Character’s Names In Dialogue!

You’ve worked hard crafting the dialogue for your characters. Make sure your readers enjoy every word of it by making it as natural as possible! The easiest way to make your dialogue sound unnatural and robotic is to overuse your character’s names in your dialogue.

What do I mean by that? Let’s take a look at an example.

How does this conversation sound? Read it out loud to get an even better feel for it.

“Nenia, how has school been?”
”Oh, Marie, it’s been amazing! Thanks for asking!”
”You’re welcome, Nenia.”
”What have you been up to, Marie?”
”You know how it is, Nenia.”
”I get it, Marie.”

This conversation takes on a mechanical, robotic, and rigid feel because of the repetitive use of the names. Granted, this is a made-up conversation to use as an example, but this is what happens to your real dialogue.

Try reading it again, this time without the repetitive use of the names. Does it feel different now?

“How has school been?”
”Oh, it’s been amazing! Thanks for asking!”
”You’re welcome.”
”What have you been up to?”
”You know how it is.”
”I get it.”

The elimination of the names makes this conversation feel more human and natural.

Occasionally, you’ll use a name to emphasize passion or anger or to get someone’s attention. But you’ll do this sparingly and intentionally. Again, think about when you use people’s names in real life. The same rules apply to writing your dialogue.