Use fewer words.

As Jack London said - "the inexorable elimination of the superfluous." Now he was a wordy bastard, but that thought - applied out of context to writing, is gold.

My best tip is to go to the reference section of your nearest chain bookstore, find the 2 or 3 books dealing specifically with dialog and then an empty chair, and read them. You will retain what you need so do not waste your money buying them.

I got the best advice on dialog from a high school teacher. Kill your pets. If a phrase or sentence makes you giddy at your brilliance in writing it, it may be an improperly placed showstopper.

Finally, bury your dead pets in a dustbin file and become a part-time lyricist. Those nuggets often sound great when sung.

Stop thinking your dialog is too wordy.

Read Hemingway. Remove adverbs, adjectives.

Read it out loud to yourself. I find that problems are more obvious when you're actually hearing it rather than just looking at it on a page. And prune like a motherfucker. That always helps. :)

Show, don't tell.

A different take on this is to ask yourself what you're trying to do in the dialogue. Are you advancing the story through interpersonal dynamics? Good. Is it exposition, description, information etc? Bad. Use the script advice that was recently posted on metafilter. This is advice that David Mamet gave to scriptwriters for some television show he worked on.

Yay, I'm repeating a lot of information that's being shown on screen. Take Hitchcock's advice that there is nothing more boring then two people talking and have the conversation be totally irreverent to what's *actually* going on.

I did manage to squeeze in a semi-plausible (albiet ripped from Huxley) AsYOuKnowBob, so I'm proud of that.

Whelk, I know this relates to your professional writing, and I think it's admirable that you're working on your style. And sure, being overly wordy can be a challenge as a writer (tho I'd say Tolkien and Tom Wolfe and zomg Nicholson Baker!!! have made a career of it)

Just... know the rules, use the rules, and clean up your structure, but... try to do it whilst preserving what's natural and true to YOU, I think, is what I'm trying to get at. The best writers always own their quirks and bad habits and can clean them up for structural clarity, but in general tend to embrace the quirkiness in a way that rings true to their "voice", if that makes any sense whatsoever.

And, speaking for myself, from a purely selfish perspective, for the love of little green monkeys, please don't ever stop being wordy when you post here in MeCha because in your case, wordy == awesome. I know I don't often comment in your threads, but I seriously adore you in a non-creepy-stalker way, that is

:)

Trust that you'll be understood even if you leave stuff out.

*internet blushes*