What an editor checks
The 10 things an editor checks in an dialogue
Dialogue is not people saying what they mean. It is people saying what they can. These 10 checks test whether it carries subtext, distinguishes speakers, and does work the narration would otherwise have to. They are specific to a novel, because the same element is doing a different job in a thriller and in a textbook.
Score yourself
One point per check. 10 checks, 10 points.
| Score | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 8–10 | Ready to show a reader | Send it to two people who will be honest with you. |
| 6–7 | Sound, needs a pass | The failures here are usually the last three checks — the ones about restraint. |
| 3–5 | The material is there, the execution is not | Usually fixable without rewriting from scratch. Work top to bottom; the early checks unlock the later ones. |
| 0–2 | Start again from the structure | Almost always check 1. This is the most common state of a first draft and it is not a verdict on the book. |
A separate free preview: A free outside view of your own pages
A separate editorial preview of one extract; it does not read the whole book or do the specialist job this page describes. Send up to 5,000 words. You get back what the draft appears to be doing to somebody who wasn't there when you wrote it, the strongest thing in it named, the exact place a reader starts to drift, and three revision priorities in order.
A separate editorial preview of one extract; it does not read the whole book or do the specialist job this page describes. An AI-assisted read of your own pages. Not a human edit, not a line edit, and not a scored report.
Why this list
An editor reading a book is not asking whether it is good. They are asking 10 specific questions about the dialogue, mostly without noticing they are asking them. This is that list.
It is worth having because a book's dialogue fails in predictable ways. Score yourself honestly — the checks you want to skip are the ones to look at first.
These 10 checks are the same whether you are writing fiction and script — an editor is asking the same questions of the dialogue in each. What changes is what counts as passing, and the examples below name that where it matters.
1. Distinct voices
Can you tell who is speaking without the tags?
Passes when: Cover the names and each character is identifiable.
Fails when: Everyone speaks in the author's voice.
The fix: Give each person one verbal habit — a rhythm, a vocabulary, a thing they never say.
2. On the nose
Do characters say exactly what they mean?
Passes when: People evade, deflect and answer a different question.
Fails when: "I am angry because you forgot my birthday and it made me feel unimportant."
The fix: Have them talk about something else entirely while the real subject sits underneath.
3. Tags
Are speech tags doing too much work?
Passes when: Mostly 'said', occasionally nothing.
Fails when: "..." he expostulated, gesticulating wildly.
The fix: Replace with 'said' or with an action. If the line needs an adverb to land, rewrite the line.
4. Exposition in speech
Are characters telling each other what they both know?
Passes when: Information reaches the reader some other way.
Fails when: "As you know, Doctor, we have worked together for fifteen years."
The fix: Give it to the narration, or to a character who genuinely does not know.
5. Length
Are speeches too long?
Passes when: Most exchanges are short; long speeches are deliberate and earned.
Fails when: Half-page paragraphs of uninterrupted talking.
The fix: Interrupt. People do.
6. Silence
Is what is not said doing any work?
Passes when: Pauses, refusals and changes of subject carry meaning.
Fails when: Every question receives an answer.
The fix: Delete one answer and let the silence stand.
7. Dialect
Is accent rendered readably?
Passes when: Word choice and rhythm suggest the voice; spelling is left mostly alone.
Fails when: Heavy phonetic spelling that slows every line.
The fix: Two or three markers, then trust the reader.
8. Purpose
Does each exchange change something?
Passes when: Someone learns, decides or shifts position.
Fails when: Pleasant conversation that could be cut without loss.
The fix: Cut it, or give one of them something to want.
9. Realism versus readability
Is it too realistic?
Passes when: It reads as speech without being a transcript.
Fails when: Every 'um', repetition and false start preserved.
The fix: Real speech transcribed is unreadable. Dialogue is the illusion of speech.
10. Reading aloud
Does it survive being spoken?
Passes when: You can say each line without stumbling.
Fails when: Lines nobody could physically deliver.
The fix: Read the whole scene aloud. The problems announce themselves.
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Running these 10 checks on one chapter by hand takes about half an hour and is worth doing. Running them across a whole manuscript is what Detailed Editorial Feedback does — the same checks, applied at once, reported as a diagnosis of where and why.
A human developmental editor adds market judgement on top of the checks: whether this kind of opening is being acquired this year, and what an agent's reader will do with page one. The checks are transferable; that judgement is not.
If you are not writing prose
These checks are written for a book of any form, and most of them hold whatever you are writing. Three do not travel unchanged. In poetry, lineation is the unit, so judge the line and the break rather than the paragraph, and never let a tool reflow the lines. In a script or screenplay, the scene heading and the speech are the structure, so read these checks against scenes rather than chapters. In a picture book or graphic novel, the page turn and the panel carry what prose would narrate, so what looks like a gap in the text is often the image doing the work.
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