My barber said one sentence and now I write all my dialogue different

So I was getting a fade on Tuesday, and my barber Luis was talking about how his girlfriend can tell when he's lying because he starts using longer words. And I said wait that's a writing thing too. He looked at me in the mirror and goes "nobody talks fancy when they're scared or hungry" and that just hit me. I've been working on this short story where two brothers argue over a truck, and every single line sounded like a courtroom drama. Luis doesn't read at all. He's never heard of a prompt. But he knows people. So now I write dialogue out loud first, and if it sounds like something I'd say at 7am before coffee, I keep it. If it sounds like a lawyer talking, I cut it. Has anyone else had a non-writer say something that fixed a big problem in their work?

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parker_davis4127d ago

Honestly I used to think writing advice had to come from writers, but that barber just proved me wrong.