Dialog is a tricky thing that will trip up any writer who isn’t constantly working at it. These are just a few reminders.

1. Our characters are heroes. They have important things to do. When they talk, they “cut to the chase.” If it doesn’t contribute to the story it doesn’t belong in the story. THIS MEANS: Cut all small talk and polite conversation. Be extremely careful of including banter or things not involved in the story. Our characters are welded to their goal and nothing, certainly no speaking, will come between a good story character and his or her goal.
2. Make your characters distinct in their dialog. THIS MEANS: In cold blood plan to have person one speak only in short ‘punchy’ sentences. Plan for person two to always pepper his/her speech with the jargon of his/her work. Plan for person three to use the same word repeatedly (I have a character in one novel who frequently says “I mean—” I use this habit to show her lack of self-confidence.) You get the idea, make each person an individual by their speech patterns.
3. Create dialog that is sufficient in itself. Well written dialog between two individuals won’t need a lot of description. An occasional, “Morgan (or whoever) said.” is enough. THIS MEANS: Just reading the dialog should let the reader know if the character is angry, sad, hurting, etc. Use your thesaurus or Word’s version of the same thing to pour anger, sadness etc into the speech the character says. Don’t write: Morgan said angrily, sadly, passionately or use any other adverb after “s/he said.”
4. Write natural dialog. THIS MEANS: Don’t be pretentious. Don’t make your characters stuck up (Even if they are pompous or conceited, there are better ways than pretentious writing to show it.) Do use contractions and partial sentences.

Good writers eavesdrop continuously. Don’t feel guilty about it; it’s part of a writer’s toolkit; it will hurt no one. Pay attention to the tables near by in restaurants, at meetings, even listen in on your own conversations.

Be listening for the flow of words from other people’s mouths. The rhythm of normal speech is a beautiful thing. Listen for it, revel in it. Learn to transfer the rhythm, but not the usual mundane content, to the page. Our characters are heroes, their words have the rhythm of normal speech, but more momentous things to talk about.