Crafting Engaging Dialogue
A guide on using dialogue in ficiton
Sadly, most dialogue in books, movies, and shows is forgettable at best, painful and distracting at worst. Crafting dialogue that is realistic and engaging is both incredibly difficult and essential. Good dialogue reveals the character’s inner motivations, provides context for the situation and conflict, and drives the story forward.
Know your Character
Subtext
Subtext is the deeper meaning behind the words, the character’s inner self subtilty expressing its motivations. The character could understand the subtext of their words, or not. But either way, a deeper motivation behind a character’s words is what will distinguish good and bad dialogue.
Words themselves are flat and boring without meaning behind the words. And meaning is entirely dependent on the character and situation. For example, “have you lost weight?” could be encouraging, seducing, taunting, or insulting.
When a character is intentional about what is unsaid, that subtext is easily picked up by both the other characters and the reader. Sarcasm and double meaning are great examples of this.
When a character is unintentional about what is unsaid, this subtext is often subconscious to the character themselves. This is the deeper emotion, desire, vice, virtue, trauma, or goal that drives their choices.
The subtext of every thought, dialogue, and action must be understood by the writer in order for the character to come alive in the reader’s mind.
Unique dialogue
Each character should have their own unique voice. Ideally, a reader should be able to look at a piece of dialogue with no context and be able to guess who said it.
Just as in real life, the verbal choices a character uses will express their education level, amount of wit, outlook on life, range of emotional behavior, amount of passivity, and culture.
This is created by a writer’s intimate understanding of a character’s layers of self and influences.
Once those are understood, a writer can ask themselves “if I were my character in this situation, what would I do/say?”
Then, use word choice to reflect the subtext and personality of the character. As a simple starting point, it can be helpful to come up with a handful of words and phrases a character might use frequently.
Here is a breakdown of word choice taken from Dialogue by Robert McKee
Personal vs social
When in private with close friends and family, word choice is sincere and intimate.
When in public, word choice becomes less intimate and more formal.
Emotional vs rational
When people are more emotional, they use shorter words and sentences.
When people are rational, they use longer words and sentences.
Active vs passive
When people are active and direct, they’ll use shorter words and sentences.
When people are passive and reflective, they’ll use longer words and sentences.
Level of intelligence
When people are more intelligent, they use more complex sentences.
When people are less intelligent, they use briefer sentences.
Level of vocabulary
When people are more well read, they’ll use a more advanced vocabulary.
When people are less read, they’ll use a less advanced vocabulary.
Level of confidence
More confident people will speak more directly.
More insecure people will add qualifiers or hide their intentions with double meaning.
Examples of qualifiers: well, might, maybe, could, probably.
Blocking Conversation
When looking critically at a conversation between characters, writing out the dialogue beats will help you think critically about the subtext and purpose, while avoiding repetitiveness. When blocking out the beats of a conversation, break it up into call and response plus subtext.
As an example:
Beat 1
“This is all your fault. Once again.” Jim glared at Bob.
“My fault? Ha! It’s all on you this time.” Bob chuckled.
Call: Jim places blame
Response: Bob rejects and redirects blame
Subtext: Jim is frustrated with and doesn’t trust Bob. Bob is relieved it wasn’t his fault and glad Jim was the one who messed up.
Beat 2
“Remember what happened last week? It’s always me cleaning up your mess,” Jim said.
Bob crossed his arms. “That ain’t it this time.”
Call: Jim redirects the conversation
Response
Subtext: Feeling superior to Bob but having no proof that he’s the one to blame, Jim falls back on prior experience with Bob’s failures. His need to bring up the past hints at Jim’s insecurity and fear at failure. Bob refuses to let him redirect the subject when he’s done nothing wrong, his mood shifts to feeling insulted that Jim doesn’t believe him.
Continuing the conversation would see gradual turning points in the conversation. Jim realizes he made a mistake, tries to cover it up but is eventually forced to acknowledge it. Bob feels vindicated and Jim accuses Bob of being happy about his failure. Bob either apologizes and offers to help Jim fix the problem or doesn’t forgive Jim’s insult which continues to fuel the conflict.
Using this method of writing out conversation beats will help you ensure your character’s reactions are realistic, help you think critically about what and when to reveal things, and always keep the subtext in mind.
Common Dialogue Mistakes
(This section has been adapted from Robert McKee’s Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for the Page, Stage, and Screen)
Incredibility
Dialogue that isn’t credible and realistic.
Unnatural dialogue- words and expressions that don’t fit the characters personalities or experience level.
Chitchat and empty talk- dialogue with no purpose
While in the real world, conversations are filled with fluff and chitchat, in a story every word must have a point.
Overly emotive talk- when the dialogue seems more excessive or emotional than the character’s inner feelings and motivations.
This happens when the word choice is greater than the subtext. A character threatening to kill a waitress solely over the restaurant running out of fries is excessive and unrealistic. Unless they’re a psychopath.
Unless the character is over-the-top by design, subtext must be at the same level or greater than the external action.
Author talk- when an author injects their knowledge into a character’s dialogue.
More understanding, clarity, or intelligence than the character should have.
Sometimes authors will use a certain character as a mouthpiece for their theme or agenda. A character must speak their own mind, not the mind of the author.
Overly self-aware talk- when a character casually shares their deepest inner self.
Yes, subtext is essential. However, while the writer should know about the inner subconscious of a character, that doesn’t mean the character should know it or tell others.
In real life, we don’t share our deeper motivations in conversation, neither should your characters.
Keep in mind excuses vs motivation- What a character says motivates their actions vs what actually motivates them.
Language flaws
Word choice that is ineffective.
Cliches- overly used sayings.
Character neutral language- language that isn’t specific to the character.
Overly long words- words that would be unfamiliar and unnatural to the character.
Avoid polysyllabic words, words that end in “-ation”, “-uality”, “-icity” unless it fits the character.
Favor vivid one or two syllable words
Passive voice- overusing verbs such as is, are, was, am, were, be, been instead of more active verbs.
Cut out the fluff.
The best dialogue is concise with no unnecessary words.
Doesn’t mean all dialogue must be short, but that all dialogue must have a point.
Boring dialogue- The more sensory the dialogue, the deeper and more memorable it will be.
Always keep the senses in mind while writing.
Content flaws
Flaws in the content of their dialogue.
Removing subtext- having a character say all their innermost thoughts and feelings without any subtext. Removes substance, believability, and suspense.
Design flaws
Flaws in how the conversation is blocked.
Repetition- having the character’s express the same emotion or thought repeatedly.
No progression in the dialogue.
Conversation carrying on too long- have things end before the lull.
Leave things unsaid.