Dialogue is a significant part of most stories—whenever two or more characters come together, they're likely to start talking. It's not unusual for stories to be as much as half dialogue...or more.
Even in naturalistic work, dialogue is never 100% faithful to life—in life, we pause a lot, don't finish our sentences, put in "umms" and "uhhs", interrupt each other, and so on. Naturalistic dialogue can do a little of this to suggest what real conversations are like...but if you try to do as much as happens in real life, the result will quickly become annoying. (If you don't believe me, get a tape recorder, record a real conversation, then transcribe it. You'll find the result is hard to follow, and all the people sound like idiots.)
In non-naturalistic modes, dialogue stays true to the mode. For example, in mythic mode, you can't have a noble knight enter an inn and call out, "Yo bitch, get me a heap of that wayfarer bread, and hustle your bony ass!" On the other hand, mythic mode doesn't force you to use "thee's" and "thou's" either. You can be perfectly true to the mythic mode with standard contemporary English; you just have to avoid slang that's too jarringly modern to fit the milieu.
Different characters speak differently. There's bound to be a marked distinction between the speech of a lord and of a gutter-thief. Even different lords will have different ways of expressing themselves. This is yet another facet of characterization. Some people will be blunt and to the point; some will be more garrulous; some will tell jokes (or try to); some will only speak when they have something intelligent to say.
You don't have to set up explicit rules of how a character talks (although you can if it helps you). Just pay attention to what you're writing, and never let someone speak "out of character."
Every dialogue passage should have a purpose. If you reach a point where it's natural that characters would converse but the talk won't contribute to plot or characterization, don't write the conversation explicitly. Just brush past it:
We talked for most of the afternoon about what had happened since we'd last seen each other. The women we'd won. The women we'd lost. The women we'd fought to a draw.
These few quick sentences show the passage of time and provide a bit of characterization without wasting space on irrelevant chatter.
When there is a point to explicit dialogue,
make sure you know what the point is. You may be
advancing the plot; you may be supplying background
information; you may be demonstrating the nature of the
characters; you may be doing all three, and more besides.
(It's nice when writing serves more than one purpose at a
time.) Know what job you're doing, and do it.
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Copyright © 2001, James Alan Gardner