Here’s something nobody tells you about writing dialogue – whether it’s for a novel, short story, screenplay, or even a video game:
Dialogue isn’t about what’s said.
It’s about what’s NOT said. It’s about two people in a room, both of them wanting something, neither of them saying what they actually mean — and the reader feeling the electricity in the gap between the two.
It’s about the WANT behind the want.
The moment you understand that, everything changes.
What Bad Dialogue Actually Sounds Like
You know it when you read it. Characters who deliver their backstory in the first conversation. Characters who state their feelings instead of having them. Characters who ask questions just so other characters can answer them. Scenes that begin with “So let me get this straight…” and end with “And that’s why I had to leave.”
That’s not dialogue. That’s a transcript of two people explaining the plot to each other.
Real people don’t talk like that. Real people talk around things. They deflect, interrupt, change the subject, say the wrong thing, mean three things at once. They have verbal tics and rhythms and words they’d never use and words they overuse. Their words and their intentions don’t match.
That mismatch? That’s where the story lives.
The Three Jobs Every Line of Dialogue Has to Do
Not one. Not two. Three.
Every line worth keeping does at least one of these. The best lines do all three:
1. Reveal character. The words a person chooses tell us who they are. Not just what they say — the vocabulary, the syntax, the rhythm. A character who says “I appreciate your concern” and a character who says “Yeah, thanks” are not the same person, even if the sentiment is identical.
2. Drive conflict. Dialogue is not a conversation. It’s a confrontation — even when it’s polite. Especially when it’s polite. Two people in a scene each want something, and those wants should be in some degree of friction, or there’s no reason to be in the scene at all.
3. Shift the relationship. Something should change between the people speaking. Status, trust, power, understanding — something moves. If both characters are in exactly the same relationship at the end of the scene as they were at the beginning, the scene probably isn’t doing enough work.
Exercise: Take any scene in your current project. Read the first three exchanges. For each line, ask: does this reveal character? Create conflict? Shift the relationship? If a line does none of these, cut it. See how much tighter the scene gets.
The Verbal Fingerprint Test
Every character in your script should have a verbal fingerprint — a distinct way of speaking that’s theirs and only theirs.
This isn’t about accents or catchphrases. It’s deeper than that. It’s about what a character reaches for. Short sentences or long ones. Questions or declarations. Precision or vagueness. Do they name things directly or talk around them? Do they use humor as armor? Are they literal? Metaphorical? Do they finish their sentences?
Exercise: Cover the character names in a three-page dialogue scene. Read it through. Can you tell who’s speaking from the words alone — without any tags? If not, at least one of your characters doesn’t have a distinct enough voice yet. Figure out which one, and rewrite their lines.
The Subtext Problem (And How to Build It In)
Subtext is what the scene is actually about, underneath what the characters are talking about.
Two people arguing about whose turn it is to do the dishes aren’t arguing about dishes. Two people discussing a business deal aren’t just talking about money. The dishes are a stand-in for respect, resentment, power, care. The deal is a negotiation about trust, fear, loyalty.
The trick is to write the surface conversation as if it’s completely real — because it is — while building the emotional undercurrent into everything else. Pauses. Deflections. The thing one character says that the other pointedly ignores. The question that gets answered with a different question.
Exercise: Write a one-page scene where two characters need to have a difficult conversation — but they never actually have it. They talk about something mundane: food, traffic, the weather, a movie. Every line is surface. But underneath, the real conversation should be unmistakably present. The reader should feel it without being told.
On-the-Nose Dialogue and Why It Kills Scenes
On-the-nose dialogue is when a character says exactly what they mean, exactly when they feel it, with full emotional transparency.
“I’m angry at you for leaving.” “I feel alone.” “I love you but I can’t trust you.”
These lines feel like a first draft — because they are. They’re placeholder emotions. They tell us what’s happening instead of letting us feel it.
The fix isn’t to be cryptic. It’s to trust the scene. If you’ve built the tension right, you don’t need to announce the emotion. You can let a character say “Fine. Whatever. It’s fine.” — and we know it’s not fine at all. That gap between what’s said and what’s meant? That’s where readers lean in.
Exercise: Find three on-the-nose lines in your current work. For each one, ask: what does this character actually want right now, and what would they say instead if they were protecting themselves? Rewrite the line. The character still wants the same thing — they just won’t say it directly.
The Silence Problem
Silence isn’t the absence of dialogue. It’s a choice.
The pause. The non-answer. The change of subject. The line that’s interrupted and never finished. These are some of the most powerful moments in any scene. They create space for the reader — or the actor, or the audience — to fill in what’s not being said.
Don’t be afraid of beats. Don’t rush to fill every moment with words. Sometimes the most loaded thing in a scene is what nobody says.
Exercise: Take a scene you’ve written and identify where two characters are moving too quickly from one line to the next. Insert one moment of silence — a beat, an action, a deliberate non-response. Read it again. What changed?
Ready to Build Dialogue That Actually Works?
All of this is easier said than done. (Yes, pun intended.) Which is why we do it together, live, with your actual characters.
Build-A-Dialogue is a free three-hour workshop — Saturday, June 6th, 2:00–5:00 PM ET, live on Zoom. No theory lectures. No homework. Just writing.
Hour 1: Voice. Hour 2: Subtext. Hour 3: Conflict.
You’ll leave with completed exercises, a Character Voice Sheet you can reference for your entire manuscript, and a Subtext Diagnostic for testing any scene in your current work.
“Dialogue isn’t about talking. It’s about not talking. The moment they understand that, everything changes.” — Diana Dru Botsford