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PenelopetheSpider This is super helpful, thank you!

I'll post this scene here and let me know what you guys think. Also, suggestions, tips and criticism is much appreciated.

"Yes, a noble that was travelling into town yesterday heard loud thunder-like noises as they were passing by in this forest," William briefly paused, before resuming. "Concerned about the potential of a monster horde or a new monster that had taken residence, they had decided to put a quest on the guild for adventurers to investigate."

"I see." Replied the man behind him as the cold feeling of metal finally eased on the back of his head. William let out a silent sigh of relief, However, he was still worried about his companions because of the strange metal thing still pointing at them.

"Alright boys, put your weapons down. Rimmers, get our CO over here," The man ordered the other men as they finally removed their guns. "Oh and also, I'm sorry for the aggression back there, we just didn't expect any people in this damn forest."

"I hope we can move this past us. I'm Sergeant Rogers by the way." Rogers put his hand out as William turned around to finally get a good look of him. The man wore strange green patterned clothing that helped him blend into the environment.

Pointer that helped me: Read it out loud. Does it flow? Even without the action tags in between, does the conversation sound right? Reading it out loud and feeling it on your tongue can help you tell if your word choices are too stiff or unnatural.

And remember that “said” IS NOT actually dead. Too many flowery verbs to replace said (ex.: screamed, questioned, bellowed,) can be a distraction.

Watch a movie. Notice how often the camera focuses on only the face VS when it shows the whole body. Ask yourself why this choice was made. When the camera is showing only the face, imagine that it is dialogue with no extra body movement (“she said.”) But when it pulls out, imagine it is dialogue with an action attached (“she screamed, gesturing at him accusingly.”) This helped me, at least, to get a feel for how to use actions to heighten a scene.

Lastly, ask yourself how quickly the conversation is flowing. If it’s fast, don’t put many descriptors in between. Treat every sentence you write in a dialogue exchange as a few seconds of conversation. The time in between dialogue can feel like awkward silence to your reader’s mind. Do you want that awkward silence? Sometimes it’s good. It gives your reader time to really think about what was said. But sometimes it gives that information time to go cold.

I’m not an expert, obviously! But these were some tips that helped me a lot when I was starting!

BeriAH Thanks for the suggestion! Though it may take a while for my brain to process this as it is currently late in the evening.

PassingWriter

There's something clunky about it. A part of it is that every dialogue-chunk starts with the actual dialogue. You're also using non-standard dialogue-tags. In English all ending full stops are replaced by a comma, and the following tag starts with a lowecase letter.

So: "I see." Replied... is wrong. "I see," replied... is correct.

The part about lowercase is also valid for questions and exclamations. Eg: "What are you doing?" he said.

While you will need to disguise exposition as dialogue from time to time, if overdone readers are likely to notice spoken exposition in the end. The reason is that it comes out as a speech rather than one part of a dialogue -- for rather obvious reasons. The only time when spoken exposition comes natural is when you literally have a questions and answers scene. The stereotype would be when the heroes ask the professor how the new gadget works.

In the scene you provided someone (or several someones) has the MC under gun-point, which is a high tension scene. However, the dialogue reads as a debriefing, which pretty much gives the impression of a lecturer with a Power Point and students neatly lined up in their seats listening and taking notes. The discrepancy is huge.

PassingWriter No problem! I also wrote this kinda late in the evening, so my wording may be funny. I hope it helps?? If you need me to clarify, then let me know. I got these tips from a teacher and they helped me break some old dialogue habits.

PassingWriter

Technically yes. The book recommended above "Never date a man in pink" is by one of my favourite author and my reader. Her dialogue delivery is good track down her style.

@Aysel_Inara thanks dear
@PassingWriter Who is William? Depending on who he is, his vocabulary, his ability to remain focused and calm under stressing conditions, there's nothing wrong with his speech. IMO. You see, it is a bit stiff if you don't know why he talks this way.
Good luck!

If so, just relax. It's perfectly fine. Unless he's most of an informal man in his average speech. In this case, change accordingly.