I’m currently reading The Help and enjoying Kathryn Stockett’s use of dialogue to paint a picture of her characters. Some of Stockett’s characters have a dialect and use slang and incorrect grammar; if she didn’t write them this way, they wouldn’t be authentic. So how can writers get inside their characters’ heads to make them realistic? One way is to use your ears. Listen to how people talk and the way they interact with each other. Studying people is a fascinating business. A showcase example of effective dialogue is Ernest Hemingway’s short story Hills Like White Elephants. Told primarily in dialogue format, it’s absolutely brilliant and is my favorite Hemingway…