Hey Voodoo
What I did for learning dialogue was to read everything I could get my hands/eyes on. It helped tons, but honestly what helped me the most was recognizing what each article or book on the subject had in common. Then, after jotting down those key points, I went searching through my bookshelf and read snippets of dialogue from authors I admired. I tried to figure out what they did to their dialogue to be so effective. Ironically enough, each positive thing I could recognize was on my key point list. I hung onto that list (I had it taped to the wall by my writing desk) for a while but it has since filtered into the abyss that is my file cabinet.
The three things that were burned into my memory from that list are as follows:
1. Realistic doesn't necessarily mean real. Effective dialogue is suppose to give the impression of real speech, not mimic how we really speak. Good dialogue needs realistic factors like fragmented speech patterns and subtext, but overdoing it becomes both confusing and taxing to the reader.
2. Know and learn the art of subtext. Sometimes what we don't say is far more powerful than what we do.
3. (one of the hardest to do well) Keep exposition to a bare minimum. And when you do need to use it, don't force it--it will come off as fake or stiff.
To make your own list, do several Google searches under; writing effective dialogue, writing realistic dialogue, writing basic dialogue etc.
I hope this helps. Good luck!
