Does Dialogue Require Good Grammar in Fiction Writing?
Grammar is important, but it’s not everything. In fact, it can really get in the way when you’re writing dialogue. Misspellings, typos, and ill-placed punctuation are like road bumps for readers, each one jarring and interrupting the flow of a piece. The exact opposite is often true for dialogue in fiction writing. Too much proper grammar will come off sounding forced, even inhuman. It can be a distraction, and that’s a problem. The reason for this is simple: Dialogue represents speech, and speech is rarely grammatically correct. We don’t talk the way we write.
