Hi i´m am a new author on here, and I am trying to post my first ever story. I want to ask if anyone here can help me figure out how to format dialogue and make it feel natural, because its so bad that it caused my story to fail moderation witch sucks because now I´m not feeling as excited about it. So if anyone could show me an example or give feed back on how to ease into a conversation or make it feel natural I would appreciate it.

Thank you.

read this guide

I'd check the guide too, it helped me a lot with my story.

7960252
Formatting the dialogue has been explained in the links. Making the dialogue natural as you asked for is slightly different from making it readable.

It's easy to write dialogue as you hear it spoken or as you would express yourself (colloquial style). According to my personal taste that often leads to bad prose, and even though I write conversations as I would speak it; I fix it during editing to be more succinct and focused.

Just as actors on stage in the theater has to exaggerate movements so the audience in the back can see what’s happening, a writer needs to adapt the speech so it becomes easy to follow what’s said.

This is a quick and dirty example, don't take it literally.
How I imagine it during my draft:

"Yeah, well, I was kinda hoping you would know what I mean," she said.
"Hum, I- I..." he paused for a while. "Maybe... well, I think I know what you mean."

How I would fix it during editing to be more readable:

"I was hoping you would know what I mean. Maybe you do?"
"I think I know. But I can't be sure," he said.

A lot of the dialogue between people is body language (including facial expressions).
If the reader is well aware of the feelings/mood of each character and what their goal is, they can usually imagine how it’s said without additional gestures or descriptions.
Add action tags and variations to the said tags to be part of the communication or to complement/reinforce it, when needed. Avoid tossing in all kinds of adjectives and switch verbs, to make the text "richer".

(Remember that prose is about taste and mine has changed a lot during the last two years and I (hopefully) no longer write as I once did. Go with a style you like and don’t try and cater to everyone’s taste because it’s impossible.)

7960252

When it comes to simply formating dialogue, the guide 7960256 gave is a great place to go. But generally, when it comes to a story passing moderation, it's less about how "natural" it feels and more about simply following grammar rules so it's not hard to read and follow. For example, there was one story a user asked me to look at that failed moderation, and it took a number of liberties in following grammar rules, which just happened to be particularly bad in dialogue. It also had quite a few misspells throughout making it worse. which didn't help its chances of passing moderation.

But in addition to using at least decent or even half-decent use or grammar and grammar rules to pass narration, one dialogue rule in particular that is best to always be followed until you're more used to it is this: when character "B" takes an action or says a line, make sure to put it in a new paragraph from character "A"s line or action. As for examples, here's a short and simple one:

DO NOT

Pinkie stood on her hind legs and cheered, "This is the best week ever!" Fluttershy nodded her head. "Hehe, you said that about last week."

DO

Pinkie stood on her hind legs and cheered, "This is the best week ever!"

Fluttershy nodded her head. "Hehe, you said that about last week."

For a longer example from one of my stories:

DO NOT

Rarity shot her head out from the water, wearing a scowl over her eyes. “Hey! Rainbow Dash, what is the meaning of this?! Explain yourself this instant!” Rainbow spat her pin onto the ground. “If my idea worked, you’ll understand once you fish yourself out and see your Cutie Mark.” While grumbling quite unladylike words under her breath, Rarity swam out of the lake. She shook herself off, firing drops of water from her mane and coat out every which way, then turned her head toward her Cutie Mark. Said Cutie Mark had lost its flashing. Her apparent plan successful, Rainbow smiled in smugness. “Yep, I knew it.”

ALSO DO NOT

Rarity shot her head out from the water, wearing a scowl over her eyes. “Hey! Rainbow Dash, what is the meaning of this?! Explain yourself this instant!” Rainbow spat her pin onto the ground.

“If my idea worked, you’ll understand once you fish yourself out and see your Cutie Mark.” While grumbling quite unladylike words under her breath, Rarity swam out of the lake. She shook herself off, firing drops of water from her mane and coat out every which way, then turned her head toward her Cutie Mark. Said Cutie Mark had lost its flashing. Her apparent plan successful, Rainbow smiled in smugness. “Yep, I knew it.”

DO

Rarity shot her head out from the water, wearing a scowl over her eyes. “Hey! Rainbow Dash, what is the meaning of this?! Explain yourself this instant!”

Rainbow spat her pin onto the ground. “If my idea worked, you’ll understand once you fish yourself out and see your Cutie Mark.”

While grumbling quite unladylike words under her breath, Rarity swam out of the lake. She shook herself off, firing drops of water from her mane and coat out every which way, then turned her head toward her Cutie Mark. Said Cutie Mark had lost its flashing.

Her apparent plan successful, Rainbow smiled in smugness. “Yep, I knew it.”

But even with a paragraph of only one character having dialogue and acting, if it's a very long paragraph that has reached or is risking "wall of text" territory, try to find a way to break it up into 2 paragraphs. Using another example from one of my stories:

DO NOT

“Why, I have never been so insulted, and by a friend no less!” Rarity ranted as she stomped back and forth. “I act perfectly reasonable and always speak in an acceptable voice tone, thank you very much! Fine, I will admit that I sometimes get a little carried away, such as when I screamed and cried after I thought I had lost a diamond-encrusted purple ribbon, and I even called losing it the ‘worst possible thing.’ Okay, there was also the time I cried in my room when a stallion I had a crush on formed one on Applejack instead, or…” That fury from Rarity’s face and stomps deflated like a big balloon. “How every once in a while ponies suffered minor headaches after I had gotten upset…oh. That was why.” Rarity laid a hoof on her cheek in realization. At least I hoped it was realization. “Goodness gracious, I really do act like a ‘large ham’ sometimes, including just now. I'm even more of a drama queen than I thought.”

DO

“Why, I have never been so insulted, and by a friend no less!” Rarity ranted as she stomped back and forth. “I act perfectly reasonable and always speak in an acceptable voice tone, thank you very much! Fine, I will admit that I sometimes get a little carried away, such as when I screamed and cried after I thought I had lost a diamond-encrusted purple ribbon, and I even called losing it the ‘worst possible thing.’ Okay, there was also the time I cried in my room when a stallion I had a crush on formed one on Applejack instead, or…”

That fury from Rarity’s face and stomps deflated like a big balloon. “How every once in a while ponies suffered minor headaches after I had gotten upset…oh. That was why.” Rarity laid a hoof on her cheek in realization. At least I hoped it was realization. “Goodness gracious, I really do act like a ‘large ham’ sometimes, including just now. I'm even more of a drama queen than I thought.”

7960252
The writing guide is a really good tool, but there is one rule that is more important than everything else on it, and that is ALWAYS have a new paragraph when the speaker changes. Even if you ignore every other rule in the writing guide (which you shouldn't), do not ignore that one.

I know a lot of new writers tend towards wanting longer more uniform paragraphs (likely because the only experience they have writing is essays), but in prose, most of your paragraphs should be short, especially in dialogue.

7960252
If you're feeling brave, you could post a link to your story (either as a publicly shared/visible gdoc, or as a non-published (not yet published) fimfiction.net story with a password to view it.

Or you could even post the beginning of your story here, as a sample.

7960252
Alright. First thing? Chill.

You're approaching writing like someone trying to learn how to drive by sitting behind the wheel of a car, engine running, foot poised over the accelerator, both hands gripping the steering wheel, and shouting at the instructor, "What do I do next?! What do I do next?!"

I can already see you're rushing to write down your ideas, and as a result, you're making errors you wouldn't have otherwise. If this is your first time writing a story, then do not expect to get it right or for it to be popular...at all. Most likely, it will suck, but that only means you keep learning and keep growing.

Another factor to being a writer? Also, be a good reader. No one who writes well isn't also someone who reads well, and I'm not talking about reading other fan works. You have to read books from established authors such as David Brin, Stephen King, JRR Tolkien, Joe Hill, Larry Niven...you get the idea. This will help you not only broaden your vocabulary but help you with your dialogue. You started this post asking for help concerning dialogue and how to make it more natural...read how other authors have done it and you'll know.

Every writer started out at the bottom and had to work their way up; you are going to stumble through some pitfalls and have a few successes, but only if you study carefully and listen to constructive criticism. Oh, and we might as well get this out the way now: it can take more than a week for a new story from a brand-new author to get published, so you needn't start a thread asking about such.

Good luck on your journey.

7960252
Writing isn't something everyone can do. That let-down you're feeling is because you thought you could immediately duplicate what you saw others doing and found out it wasn't as easy as it looked. If you're having problems with dialogue, chances are you're having other issues with writing as well, and you might as well save yourself some trouble by taking the time actually to study how to write effectively overall, instead of seeking help for one problem.

As a suggestion, I would recommend installing some grammar software such as Grammarly. It's not only a spellcheck but also a grammar and tense check as well, though be warned it's not 100% trustworthy. It remains AI software, and as such it does make mistakes from time to time, therefore the Human touch is always needed. It is, however, 99% accurate with tenses and spelling (at least with American spellings) so it can be trusted, especially with new writers.

7960252

To add to Grammarly, here are 4 more grammar check websites that I use. None can catch all errors and some can even slip though all of them, so you'll still have to find a few errors the old fashion way, but some of the grammar check websites can catch an error another missed, so I suggest using at least two grammar check websites or tools and not rely on only one.

https://virtualwritingtutor.com/

https://www.scribens.com/

https://spellcheckplus.com/

https://www.reverso.net/spell-checker/english-spelling-grammar/

I better warn you that the last 2 grammar checking sites are particularly limited in how many words they can check for errors at a time. It's not too bad if the story or chapter you're checking is very short (under 1,500 words) but if it's over 3,500, especially if it's over 5,000, and especially x 2 if it's 7,000+ words, you'll gonna need some patience if you decide to use those last 2 sites.

But as a heads-up, some "errors" they find may not actually be an error, so make sure you have an understanding on grammar rules so you won't correct something that's actually correct or at least okay. If necessary, try checking a website like this one to help with grammar rules that this site's writing guide doesn't go into.

https://guidetogrammar.org/grammar/

7960252
Just write Anon in Equestria, then no one will care.

7960256
Thank you

7960412
Your right I do think I need to chill, I am pretty sure I was being more dramatic than need be. But with some studying and time off during a vacation I have had some time to organize my thinking process, and well I always knew that writing would not be easy but I kinda just thoght it would work well becuse off who I was but that is not the case. Just becuse I am creative does not mean I can wright a story well. So thank you I will use your advice and keep trying.

7960455
Its not that it was really a let down it was more of getting shut down after being on a high of excitment, and becuse of my ADHD I got caght up in how cool it would be to do this dream of mine with it actually working first try, but thats not how it works in reality.

Thank you for your advice

7961657
If I'm to guess, I believe the main reason your story didn't pass moderation was because of spelling and grammatical errors.
Just run it through Grammarly, or any of the recommendations from ThePinkedWonder, or maybe download the Java or Windows version of LanguageTool.