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Dialogue is one of my favourite things to write. Maybe you love it, too.

It's great to get to "hear" our characters speak, and dialogue can move the plot along quickly and engagingly. Dialogue can also be funny, with humour or sarcasm coming through ... and as you write, you might feel energised by crafting passages of dialogue.

One really common issue that I see with dialogue (and I'm guilty of this myself!) is having too much "chit chat" in there.

This happens when characters are either:

• Chatting about something inconsequential, like the weather, what to eat, or information they should clearly already know and not need to discuss with one another.
• Or ... they're talking on and on about a real issue, but the dialogue doesn't really go anywhere. Nothing's resolved; nothing changes.

We all do both of these in real life! Plenty of our conversations are small talk, perhaps at the school gates, or when buying groceries, or at the start of a meeting. It's normal and often considered polite.

But in fiction, chit-chat can kill the pace and lose the reader's attention.

When you're drafting, don't worry if your characters are chatting without saying anything much. Let them talk! It might be that you need to get that chat down to dig into the heart of the conversation.

As you come to edit your work, look for passages of dialogue where there's a lot of chat. Ideally, all your dialogue should be either advancing the plot or revealing character. 

Do you need all the information in the dialogue? If you genuinely do, then perhaps you can make the conversation more important to the plot by adding extra tension: a subtext that acts like an undercurrent to what's being said.

But often, you can simply cut out lines of chat. Pare it back, or begin a scene at a slightly later point, once the initial pleasantries are out of the way and characters are ready to talk about what really matters.

When you cut out the chit-chat, you let the rest of your dialogue come through strong and clear. That way, you can move the story along, developing both your plot and your characters.