Expose Your Characters With Revelatory Dialogue
Writing dialogue has always been a challenge for me. Even after publishing four novels, two memoirs, and multiple short stories, I still struggle to capture the essence of human conversation on the page. But when you think about the many narrative tasks that dialogue performs, that difficulty makes sense.
Talk on the page (and this encompasses plays and screenplays, as well as fiction and memoir) can’t simply mimic human chatter in real life. It has to be quicker, sharper, and much wilier. Effective dialogue is revelatory, exposing characters in the same ways that we all unknowingly reveal ourselves in conversation. But with carefully crafted intention.
IRL, we almost never consider the subtext of our words before blurting them out. Who takes the time to unpack the quirks, motives, anxieties, and moral strengths and weaknesses that are bundled inside everything we say? But that’s exactly what writers must do.
The art of dialogue requires intense scrutiny of the timing, organization, and hidden meaning, the accusation, fear, machination, longing, contempt, and seduction that simmer between your characters’ lines. Ideally, your reader will feel what your characters mean and want, without…
