Dialogue v2.1

Every important character has a distinct voice profile. If two characters could be swapped without the reader noticing, the dialogue has failed regardless of how clever the lines are.

Voice

Each voice profile should specify vocabulary, sentence rhythm, formality, humour, emotional leakage, social register, favourite constructions, silence patterns, and how the voice changes with audience. Draw these from style/CHARACTER_VOICE.md rather than inventing per scene.

Distinguish characters by more than tic. Vary sentence length, directness, formality, and what each chooses not to say. A character who is defined only by a verbal habit is a caricature.

Knowledge limits

A character may only assert what they know, suspect, have been told, or have inferred. This is the most common dialogue failure: characters conveniently know things they have not learned. Route statements through the knowledge ledger.

Distinguish knowing from believing, and from hoping. Unreliable speakers should be marked as such in the profile.

Function

Every exchange should have a conversational function: goal, resistance, revelation, negotiation, concealment, relationship movement, or escalation. A line that serves none of these is dialogue that exists to convey exposition to the reader.