Writing: Dialogue

Dialogue fails in two primary ways: it says exactly what it means (no subtext), or it explains things the characters already know (exposition dressed as conversation). Both failures produce the same effect on the reader — a sense of flatness, of the author's hand visible, of characters becoming mouthpieces rather than people.

Real conversation is oblique. People in conflict rarely say "I'm angry with you." They talk about something else. The anger is present in what they say about the dishes, the schedule, the way someone looks. The subtext is the scene — the surface conversation is the vehicle for it. When dialogue is on the nose, the subtext and the surface are the same thing, which means there is no scene — only information delivery.

Voice differentiation is the second major failure point. Every character has a distinct rhythm of thought, a vocabulary range shaped by their history, evasion patterns specific to their wound, and a relationship to silence. When characters sound interchangeable, the dialogue's only differentiator is the attribution ("he said / she said") — which means the characters, on the page, don't exist yet.

Your Process

Step 1: Speaker Goals — Surface vs. Subtext For each speaker in the exchange, identify: