Dialogue. Nothing better than good, nothing worse than bad. The first thing I have to comment on in 90% of manuscripts by aspiring novelists that I read is the dialogue - it is bad.

Some people can just do it. They are blessed with a good ear for dialogue as others are blessed with perfect pitch. If you have it, you thank God for it because if you do not, it is very very hard to acquire. But you can get better. How ? This really is something you can and must work on. Read. Read, read, read and read again. Always my mantra but I mean it even more here. Read novelists who write good dialogue. Many a good plot is ruined by bad dialogue. Some crime writers are briliant a dialogue. Some people who write light comedy are. It would be easy to say that good dialogue is god because it is 'like people really talk.' But it is only a version of that. People talk sloppily, they talk rubbish, they use cliches, they ramble on about nothing, they use code and shorthand and slang, they repeat themselves. Tape the average conversation and reproduce it faithfully and you would have absolutely awful dialogue for a novel. The trick is to make it sound as if this is how people talk but to be far more economical, cut out the repetitions and the hesitations, the witterings. What we are happy to listen to as we chat is nmot the stuff we wish to read in print.

Read novels, yes. But even more, read playscripts and screenplays. If yo want to know how to do it, read the plays of David Hare. Read Racing Demon. That is how people talk in ordinary life, it is convincing and true, yet it is NOT how they talk.It is tighter, tauter, each phrase tells, the humour is sharper, the images more dramatic.

Good screenplays will teach you everything about how to write good dialogue because in a film, other than visual effects, dialogue is all there is and you cannot hide behind well-written description. Read the screenplay of Notting Hill or Oceans Eleven if you want to know how to write dialogue. (Notice I am not recommending Art Films.) The best Hollywood scriptwriters write the greatest dialogue. It coaxes out the best in even so-so actors. Read Ian Fleming. Read John le Carre. Read Graham Greene. All masters of dialogue.

Do not sit listening to people and consciously taking down whole conversations but do listen out for those great over-heards, the non-seqs. the inconsequentially hilarious remarks. My favourite over-heard ever came when I was writing in the cafe attached to a garden centre. Two women came and sat down, obviously disappointed in the plants available. One said she just couldn`t find the sort of thing she liked. She had hoped, for example, to be able fill out her hanging baskets with some Bizzy Lizzies.

The conversation then went on.

'Oh, you don`t want Bizzy Lizzies.'

'Don`t I ? Why don`t I ?'

'Because there`s nowt artistic about a Bizzy Lizzie.'

They went chattering on about nothing after that gem. A lot of people write novels in which people chatter on about nothing, neither revealing their characters or moving the story on.

I still believe that an ear for dialogue is something you are born with - but, as with good make-up skilfully applied and the art of cosmetic surgery, there is an awful lot you can do to improve upon nature.