For a lot of people, dialogue is one of the biggest challenges of writing. It's hard to present characters correctly if they sound wrong when they speak, and it's hard to have characters interact without speaking. So how to pull it off?

The specifics of how to punctuate dialogue have already been covered. As for writing it, it's important to keep the character in mind. If you're writing lines for Racetrack, you'll probably want to write things that are more sarcastic or funny; in the movie, he's the one with lines like, "He put an egg in his shoe and beat it," and "Baby born with two heads—must be from Brooklyn."

It's hard to figure out exactly how the characters speak—especially since a lot of them don't have many lines. I could give you my basic rundown of some of the more minor characters, but that's just my interpretation of them. (Though I think my Racetrack example is pretty much within canon.) The more you think about them and play with them, the more easily you can figure out what sorts of things they'd say. It all depends on your interpretation.

Spot's basically a punk; Race is basically a joker; Jack is a strong leader; David is smart. Figure out what your character is and does, and the dialogue will come much easier.

Once you think you've got something, try reading it aloud. Does it sound like how people actually talk? Keep in mind, people use contractions, and they speak in slang—if you're going to abandon the laws of grammar, dialogue is the place to do it. The newsies especially use awful grammar.

They use one other thing, too. I'd warn you to be especially careful if you're trying to write dialect and accents. So careful, in fact, that I'm giving it its own sub-section.

Accent and Dialect

Two quick definitions to start out with:

Dialect — the words that people in one region of the world use that aren't in common usage everywhere. In New England, people drink frappes; in other parts of the country, people drink milkshakes. Pop versus soda versus coke is a similar thing. Dialects include slang, and differ depending on where you are, and when your story takes place. The boys live in 1899, so words like "groovy," shouldn't show up.

Accent — accents are similar to dialect, in that they vary from place to place, but are the way the words are spoken and not the words themselves. A southern drawl, a midwestern twang, a crisp English intonation are all changes in accent. It's like my friends from Boston, who paahk their caaahs at the daaahk. People from Boston rarely use the consonant R, for some reason. That's an accent thing.

The newsies are from New York. And no matter how many times Christian Bale's accent slips (you can count them; it's fun!) they speak like they're from New York. They use slang (dialect) and have thick accents. When you're writing dialogue, you want it to fit in with their characters, of course, so you want it to read like they speak.

However.

Accents do not translate well to paper. For the most part, people know what they sound like, and so long as the words are in character, can assume the accent for themselves. Trying to read something written with a thick New York accent takes real thought to sort out, and if your reader has to stop and ponder what those words are, it's akin to bad spelling—it's frustrating and irritating, and distracting from the story itself.

I'm not saying you should never use an accent in your writing, but, well... Honestly, how incoherent was that "paaaahk their caaahs at the daaaahk" example? You probably had to stop and think about it to make it become "Park their cars at the dock." Furthermore, it's hard to write something that everyone will read the same—I chose to write it like that, but could also have done "Pa'k their ca's at the dock," and it could be read the same—but it could also have been read in someone's head as "Pack their kas," and that's totally different.

So a word of caution. Dialect works well in stories and reminds people who the characters are and how they sound. Accents do not. If you're going to use an accent in your writing, please please do so with caution.

This is about as thick as I ever lay on accent:

"So you an' Mush have a fight or what?" He played another card.
"What makes you think that?"
"'Cause you'se awake an' Mush ain't here." He flipped a card from the deck and moved it, then moved a whole pile. "An' I saw you stomp outta the alley earlier."

Using "an'," instead of "and," and "outta" instead of "out of," implies that the speakers—it's Race and Blink, by the way—have accents. But it's subtle and easy to read.

Another frequent change is "a'," for "have," and "of," since it's one thing you hear a lot. A lot of writers will also use "heah," for "here," though I don't, personally. And you can always soften any -ing ending to -in', and if you absolutely must, "da," for "the," or "dat," for "that." Again, I don't personally, and think that's a little over the top and borderline distracting, but it's a personal preference.

But never, ever write an accent so thick you have to clarify what they're saying. If you're worried you've confused someone, then lighten up the accent, or don't use it at all. In this case, always err on the side of caution. People can imagine an accent for themselves, but if they can't read what you've written, they won't read the story, plain and simple.