Writers across all mediums – novels, screenplays, and television miss the point of dialogue. It isn’t about talking. It’s about not talking. The moment they understand that, everything changes.
Walk out with dialogue that reveals character, drives conflict, and keeps readers turning pages.
Saturday, June 6th • 2:00–5:00 PM Eastern
1:00 PM Central • 11:00 AM Pacific • 7:00 PM UK
Live on Zoom • Free
Great dialogue doesn’t just sound good. It does work. Every line either reveals character, drives conflict, or shifts the relationship between the people speaking — and the best exchanges do all three at once. This free three-hour workshop uses the same hands-on, instinct-first approach that made Build-A-Character, Build-A-Plot, and Build-A-Scene so effective. No theory lectures. No homework. Just writing.
Great dialogue doesn’t just sound good. It does work. Every line either reveals character, drives conflict, or shifts the relationship between the people speaking — and the best exchanges do all three at once. This free three-hour workshop uses the same hands-on, instinct-first approach that made Build-A-Character, Build-A-Plot, and Build-A-Scene so effective. No theory lectures. No homework. Just writing.
What We’ll Build Together
Hour 1: The Voice Hour — Making Characters Sound Like Themselves
Every character has a verbal fingerprint — the words they reach for, the rhythms they fall into, the things they’d never say. Through rapid-fire exercises, you’ll develop distinct, consistent voices for your characters so that readers could identify who’s speaking from a single line, without a dialogue tag in sight.
Hour 2: The Subtext Hour — What They’re Really Saying
The most powerful dialogue isn’t about what characters say — it’s about what they don’t. This hour digs into the gap between words and meaning: how to build subtext, write around the thing, and create the kind of charged exchanges that readers and audiences feel in their bones. You’ll write scenes where the real conversation is happening entirely beneath the surface.
Hour 3: The Conflict Hour — Dialogue That Changes Things
Dialogue earns its place by doing work — revealing character, escalating tension, shifting relationships, advancing plot. In the final hour, you’ll put your characters in high-stakes exchanges and pressure-test the techniques from the first two hours. You’ll leave with scenes where something actually happens in the talking.
What You’ll Walk Away With
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Perfect For
- Novelists whose characters all sound a little too much like each other
- Screenwriters who want exchanges that actors can actually sink their teeth into
- Playwrights who live and die by the line — and know it
- Any writer who’s ever been told their dialogue feels “on the nose”
Ready to Build?
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Three hours. Dialogue that finally works. Zero cost. Saturday, June 6th • 2:00–5:00 PM ET • Live on Zoom Questions? diana@dianabotsford.com |