7 Tips for Using Quotes in Content Marketing

When you're writing articles for your content marketing, quotes from experts, clients and team members can bring your words to life. But so often, we don't make the most of the words we're given.

Many of us have been guilty of sticking in a quote and calling it a day, but that won't exactly entice your reader to stick around. When you know how to work with quotes and get the most out of them, your blog posts will start to read less like marketing and more like stories.

But first, a note on terminology...

You’ll notice that, although we’re?talking about writing for nonfiction, I say?dialogue?and not?quotes.*?I hate the word?quote.?It doesn’t mean anything in most contexts. You’ll write better if you think of the things your subject said as?dialogue?rather than?quotes,?because?quotes?make us seize up.

When we start thinking in?quotes?we start treating our piece like a police report, noting down every single thing the person said, including the?umms?and?ahhs?and unnecessary tangents. We think we have to add “he claims” or “she explains” or other overused dialogue tags after the fact. And, more importantly, we think we can just whack it in to save us having to explain anything in our own words.

Dialogue?is different, and thinking about your characters’ words as dialogue will help you write differently. In fiction, dialogue means?conversations. (Actually, that’s what it means everywhere.) And if you treat your character’s words like?part of a conversation, your writing will become a lot more interesting.

*I also use the word?character?to refer to any human (or robot, I guess?) who features in your piece. Maybe they’re your subject, maybe they’re an expert in their field, maybe they walked into the room when you were conducting another interview. In nonfiction, these are real people (who really said these things) — but?character?is the easiest way to refer to them.

1 . Use dialogue sparingly

The key to making an impact with nonfiction dialogue is to use it sparingly. This is advice that applies to most literary devices — metaphor, alliteration, exclamation marks — but I’ll bet your English teacher never warned you about using too much dialogue.

Writers overuse dialogue when they rely on it for exposition. Using dialogue to lay out established facts is lazy writing that makes for boring reading. The only thing more boring than reading facts is reading someone recite boring facts.

You can do better than this. Dialogue has the potential to make an enormous impact, so don’t waste it on facts. Use it for critical character reveals. Use it for crucial moments you want your readers to remember. Use it for shocking revelations, for a change of tone, for a break from dense prose.

Use a little, and use it well.

2. Take your time

Don’t go straight for a quote just because you can’t figure out how to open the next paragraph. The most effective dialogue takes its time coming in; the writer makes the reader wait a while to hear the voices of the characters.

The first line of dialogue in particular carries the most dramatic weight. It’s like arriving in a quiet room, and suddenly someone speaks — we’re going to pay attention. That’s why your first line of dialogue?especially?should be something good.

A caveat: this advice applies primarily to pieces that open with backstory or explanatory narrative or some kind of action. If you’re opening your piece with intriguing dialogue (see below), ignore this advice. Similarly, if your piece opens in the middle of a compelling conversation (again, see below), ignore this advice.

The only reason I suggest waiting to bring in dialogue is because many writers try to get it in near the top somewhere to get things moving. But this usually doesn’t work, because most writers use boring “quotes” instead of rich dialogue. Too much dialogue too soon can weaken the value of your characters’ words. For full dramatic effect, give your dialogue some lead time, and give it a?reason?to be there. (And, again: exposition is not a reason. Nor is “I needed a transition.”)

3. Weave dialogue into a sentence

It’s easy to get lazy with dialogue and whack a whole sentence (or even a paragraph) in there. But you should?only?use the very best of your characters’ words.

Once again, the less dialogue you use, the greater its impact — and this applies not just to how much dialogue you use within your piece, but also how many of the subject’s words you use within, say, a sentence. Many writers are afraid of touching dialogue because they don’t want to?change?it and get in trouble.

But while you can’t?change?what someone said (unless you’re scraping out?umms?and?ahhs), or completely change the meaning of it by pulling it entirely out of context or omitting necessary qualifiers, you can decide which parts to use, which parts to throw (within reason), how it sits in a sentence, and how it blends with your own words. When you’re intentional about how you use dialogue, you can take a fair bit of ownership over it. It might be their words, but it’s?your?writing.

Take a look at how journalist Stephanie MCrummen, in?A maternity ranch is born,?uses only small bites of dialogue inside her own sentences to highlight the gap between her views (and, likely, the views of her readers) from her subject’s beliefs:

From ‘A maternity ranch is born’, by Stephanie McCrummen for The Washington Post

From ‘A maternity ranch is born’, by Stephanie McCrummen for The Washington Post

Think about the way you weave dialogue into your piece, not just at the sentence level, but also at the paragraph level. Inserting dialogue at the right moments can turn a boring explanatory paragraph into what is basically an extended conversation. (A somewhat one-sided one, but a conversation all the same — and conversations are?far?more interesting than facts. What’s more tempting: reading a textbook, or eavesdropping on the gossip at the table next to yours?)

4. Use dialogue to reveal character

While you definitely?shouldn’t?use dialogue for exposition or general background information, you definitely?should?use it to give us a glimpse into who this person is.

Dialogue is your opportunity to reveal your?character,?not your topic. Your?subject,?not your subject matter. This works especially well when the subject’s beliefs seem to oppose reality — for example, a subject who believes strongly in something most readers would question, or a subject who naturally understates an enormous achievement.

Going back to our maternity ranch example, journalist Stephanie McCrummen doesn’t need to explain this about her subject: she lets the dialogue do the work.

From ‘A maternity ranch is born’, by Stephanie McCrummen for The Washington Post

The trick is that people reveal who they?really?are not when they’re?telling?you who they are, but when they’re in their natural state, not thinking about how they’re presenting themselves. This is another reason to catch your characters on their home turf and not in a formal “interview” setting.

We rarely believe it when someone tells us they’re smart, or trustworthy, or funny, or hardworking. We take our cues from the things they can’t hide: from their slang, the rhythm of their speech, the little observations they make, their unusual phrasings, the things we?see?them do, and the things other people tell us about them.

Most of what makes good dialogue interesting (and insightful) is not?what?your characters say, but?how?they say it.

5. Make dialogue visible by couching it in action

This is where the active interview (following your subject/character about on a normal day rather than sitting them down for a formal “interview”) comes in handy.

What was your subject doing when they told you this? Were they leaning against the counter, putting the finishing touches on a cupcake, impatiently jingling their keys in the door? Rather than pulling the impact from your dialogue by couching it in (mostly unnecessary) dialogue tags, make it feel real by slipping it into action.

Learn to take as many notes on what your characters?do?as on what they?say. This will help bring them to life on the page — they’ll become a human being, not a disembodied quote.

6. Make dialogue a conversation

Conversations are?so?much more interesting than lectures, but all too often, nonfiction writers simply type out their subject’s interview responses, giving no sense of conversation or engagement.

Don’t?just?record the long-winded professional answers your subject gives you in response to a scripted question. Note the observations they make when they walk down the hall. Note the way they greet you, the way they faux-curse when their key card doesn’t work, the way they throw a?hi, Sam,?to a colleague.

If they converse with another person, examine the similarities or differences between each person’s speech habits. Splice them together so the readers feel it too.

Don’t be afraid to include your own dialogue in there, particularly if you end up on a more interesting conversational path than your original scripted questions. Turning your questioning into a ping-pong block of dialogue can be much more interesting and easier to read than working their answers into something like:

I asked James whether…

“…because they are fundamentally different,” James explains.

“It wasn’t the first time we had spoken,” Emily claims.

These are okay, particularly when used infrequently, but many writers write?only?this. Try a conversation instead:

[Me]: “Did you ever see yourself as CEO?”

[James]: “Never.”

“Never?

“Once, actually. I was fifteen. My teacher told me I had the makings of a businessman.”

“Which teacher?”

“History. What did he know?”

Was that a little more fun to follow?

7. Start and/or end with dialogue

If you’re stuck for a strong opening (or closing) line, the right piece of dialogue can work wonders. As long as it’s not some dead-boring, long-winded retelling of the facts, most dialogue will carry enough intrigue to get readers to the next sentence, simply because we want to find out who’s speaking and what on earth they’re talking about.

Take this opening from the documentary?Breaking Boundaries:

[A dark screen, with headlight effects moving across. We hear a voiceover:]

“You could think of yourself driving in a mountainous area with the road circling up the mountain. An overpowered engine, driving much much too fast. Driving without any headlights. Cliffs — that you’re at risk of falling over. You want, of course, to turn on the headlights…”

Don’t you want to know who’s speaking and what they’re talking about?

Opening in the middle of a conversation between two characters can also be powerful. Humans love to eavesdrop, so the challenge of figuring out who is speaking and how they’re connected is an easy way to get readers hooked.

Take a look at the opening of Gay Talese’s?Mr Bad News,?a profile of a New York Times obituary writer. Notice how he opens mid-conversation, so the reader has to think fast to place themselves in the action. He gives us enough information to get an idea about who is speaking, but we still don’t?really?know who these characters are, or what this conversation really means. For that, we’ll have to read on.

From ‘Mr Bad News’, by Gay Talese for Esquire

It’s also very effective to start with a line of dialogue, and end with one that reflects back on the opening line. You set up dramatic tension in the beginning, the reader all but forgets about it on a conscious level, but then gets a nice sense of closure and surprise when you finally close the loop at the end.

Although it’s not exactly the last line,?Mr Bad News?circles back to the heart attack to finish the piece:

From ‘Mr Bad News’, by Gay Talese for Esquire

And if you’ve only got bad dialogue…

One last tip:?What can you do about crappy dialogue? I mean so crappy you can’t get a single snippet out of it worth saving — so crappy you want to bang your head against a wall and wonder why you ever thought interviewing the CEO of Boring Industries Inc. was a good idea?

Don’t use it.?Seriously. There’s no rule that says that, just because you interview someone, you have to include their words inside quotation marks. You don’t have to. You can still convey their message in your own words (making sure the attribution is clear, of course — don’t cut their entire existence from the piece). You don’t have to use someone else’s words just because journalists and nonfiction writers do this all the time. (Read: too often.) Be different. Scrap the double quotes.

But if you seem to be getting crappy quotes most of the time, it’s worth reconsidering:

• The questions you’re asking
• The research that goes into the questions you’re asking
• Where you’re holding your interviews
• Whether you’re giving your subject enough space (i.e. silence) to reflect, think deeply, or open up

Basically, the problem might be your interviewing skills,?not them. (Sorry.) The good news is that this is an easy fix, and someday soon I’ll write a post all about interviewing. Until then, make the most of bad dialogue with the tips above.

Happy writing!

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