Guide · 5 min read
How to write comic dialogue that fits in the bubble
The craft of comic dialogue: word budgets per bubble, reading order, silence as a tool, and letting pictures do the describing.
By the Comikaze team · Updated
Short answer
Keep each speech bubble to eight to twelve words and use two bubbles per panel for normal conversation. Never write what the panel already shows, leave the biggest beat silent, give each character one verbal habit, and read the bubbles aloud in order to check the flow.
The bubble budget
A comfortable speech bubble holds eight to twelve words. Two bubbles per panel is conversation; three is an argument; four is a wall. If a line will not fit, it is two lines or it is narration. Cutting dialogue is the single fastest way to make a comic read professionally.
Let the picture talk first
Never write what the panel already shows. If she is soaked in rain, nobody needs to say it is raining; the line should be about what the rain means: 'You waited.' Dialogue carries feeling and information the art cannot, and nothing else.
Silence is a beat
The most powerful panel in most short comics has no words at all: the look after the confession, the empty chair, the dog watching the door. When generating, ask for a quiet panel explicitly: 'the last panel is silent.'
Voice in one line
- Give each character one verbal habit: short answers, questions, over-formality.
- Read bubbles aloud in order; if you stumble, the reader will.
- End pages on a line that makes turning inevitable.
In Comikaze, dialogue is generated from your story but any page can be redrawn with a note like 'she answers with one word only'.