When you find a character engaging, what is it about their dialogue that works for you?
Is it the laconic way in which it is delivered by the laid-back dude? Or the machine-gun rapid-fire of the uptight and stressed character? Maybe it’s the razor-sharp, sarcastic delivery of the bored-with-the-world type.
Whichever it is, you can bet your life the writer has worked damn hard to make the dialogue that good. They have written and rewritten it over and over, trimming and perfecting it each time.
And the very best writers have mastered another key skill in writing dialogue: knowing when to have characters say nothing.
New writers can get confused because they understand that one of the purposes of dialogue is the delivery of information. As a result, many write expositional and on-the-nose dialogue in the mistaken belief that this is what delivering information means.
Yes, dialogue should deliver information, but that is only one of its jobs.
Great dialogue works with visual storytelling. It reveals character, reflects emotion, conceals intention and helps move the story forward. Often it is doing several of these things at the same time.
So, let’s look at five things your script dialogue needs to do.
1. Deliver Information Without Sounding Expositional
Dialogue needs to deliver information without being obtrusive or impeding the flow of the story.
On-the-nose dialogue is where characters literally tell us something we can either see or work out for ourselves.
For example, a character filling a tumbler with water and saying:
“I’m so thirsty.”
Please don’t do this.
Just have the character gulp the water down and allow the image to do the work.
In some cases, mainly in comedy, on-the-nose dialogue can be used to great comic effect. But in genres such as thriller or drama, it can throw a reader clean out of your script.
There is a world of difference between dialogue that delivers information naturally and dire-log, where a character simply lists story events in an expositional way that makes reading the script a form of torture.
This takes practice.
It develops through writing and rewriting numerous drafts, polishing the dialogue each time.
What a character says should work in unison with visual cues, setting us up for the next beat, and the beat after that, or something that might pay off much further down the line.
But here’s the thing.
It works best when it isn’t obvious.
There are exceptions. Fantasy, science fiction and horror are often allowed a little more leeway when establishing unfamiliar worlds.
Most of us will be familiar with those openings where we hear the legends of old, told by some leathery-skinned ancient being, the town drunk, a disembodied voice or, occasionally, blocks of text drifting away into space.
These genres sometimes need exposition to familiarise us with the world we are entering.
But be careful.
Beyond establishing the world, expositional dialogue remains tricky. It can quickly become clunky and disengaging.
There are moments where exposition can work, particularly through comedy, conflict or both. But even then, avoid the James Bond villain approach of having somebody explain everything while the protagonist waits patiently for them to finish.
2. Reveal Character
Dialogue should tell us something about the person speaking.
A character’s background, education, social status, attitude and experience all feed into how they communicate.
Character is not simply revealed through what someone says, but through the way they say it.
Think about tempo.
One character might speak in rapid-fire bursts. Another might be slow and laconic. Someone else may barely speak at all unless they absolutely have to.
Each character should have their own rhythm.
Their dialogue needs to fit who they are.
It is even better if you can give a character their own speech idiom.
Think about Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), Brick (2005) or The Social Network (2010).
In each, dialogue helps define both the characters and the worlds they occupy.
Having said that, try to avoid writing dialect phonetically.
Leave that to the actors.
If producers are struggling to work out what is happening in your scenes because they are wrestling with tricky written dialect, they are less likely to engage with your character or story.
More importantly, they are unlikely to champion your script and work to get it made.
Dialogue can also reveal something deeper about character: their moral worldview.
What does this character value?
Loyalty? Money? Justice? Family? Power?
We touched on this in 5 Elements of Writing Characters. What your character values will influence what they say, what they refuse to say and how they respond when another character challenges their worldview.
So dialogue is not just words. It is character in action.
3. Reveal Emotion
Dialogue carries emotion. It shows us how a character feels, and how that feeling shifts as a scene unfolds.
If you consider that each scene should deliver a beat, dialogue has its part to play in delivering that change.
A character enters a scene in one emotional state.
Something happens.
Their emotional state changes.
The dialogue should reflect that journey.
This does not necessarily mean somebody announcing:
“I’m angry now,” as they head for the door.
Please don’t.
Emotion might be revealed through abrupt answers. A sudden change in vocabulary. Sarcasm. Silence. Evasion. A character who normally talks constantly may suddenly have nothing to say. Sometimes the absence of dialogue tells us more than another line ever could.
The important thing is to understand what emotional state your character is in when they enter the scene, what happens to them during it, and where they are emotionally when they leave.
Their dialogue, or lack of it, should help us understand their emotional state.
4. Hide or Reveal Intention Through Subtext
So by now you should have gathered that great dialogue works on more than one level.
There is the surface conversation, where characters discuss a recent event or the situation directly in front of them.
Running beneath that is subtext.
Subtext is the hidden element of dialogue that tells us something else is happening beneath the surface.
And this takes us straight back to show, don’t tell.
Often it is not the words themselves that reveal the subtext, but behaviour.
The way a character evades a question.
The way they shade the truth.
The emotion beneath the words.
Or the complete absence of emotion when we expect it.
Subtext can also reveal a character’s moral worldview.
Two characters might appear to be discussing one thing while, underneath, their values are in direct conflict. Often one character will leave the scene having asserted their standpoint more firmly than the other.
Most dialogue in a good script is also an attempt to influence somebody.
This takes us back to character goals. Remember those?
A character’s goal moulds their dialogue.
They usually want something from the person standing opposite them.
But that doesn’t mean they simply announce what they want.
Most don’t.
Dialogue often disguises a character’s real intention.
Someone may flatter when they actually want control. They may joke because they are frightened. They may appear helpful because they need information or to deceive.
A character’s true motivation can remain hidden from other characters for much of the story. But the audience may know better because we have seen how that character behaves when nobody else is watching.
That gap between what a character says and what they really want is where narrative intrigue lives.
5. Move the Story Forward
Dialogue has to work for the story, not against it. Every conversation should be doing something.
That does not mean every line has to advance the plot like a small narrative bulldozer.
But by the end of a scene, something should have changed.
Information has been discovered.
A relationship has shifted.
A decision has been made.
A lie has been accepted.
A suspicion has been planted.
A character has gained or lost power.
Dialogue helps create those changes. It works alongside action and visual storytelling to propel us from one beat to the next.
This is why good dialogue cannot simply be a collection of clever lines.
Scintillating, witty dialogue is great.
But if everybody is delivering wonderful lines while the story sits there doing absolutely nothing, you have a problem.
Dialogue needs purpose. And sometimes that purpose is buried beneath the surface.
Sometimes there are key phrases: words or statements that appear at one point in the story and return later, but with an entirely different meaning or emotional power. I’ll come back to these another time.
The point is that dialogue is far more complicated than words on a page.
It needs to be thought through.
So, in Summary
In each scene, your dialogue needs to:
- Deliver information naturally without becoming overtly expositional.
- Reveal character through voice, background, attitude and worldview.
- Reveal emotion and changes in a character’s emotional state.
- Hide or reveal intention through subtext.
- Move the story forward by helping create change within the scene.
And remember that what is being said is not necessarily what is being… er… said.
That is where dialogue starts to become interesting.
It is not simply about writing clever lines.
It is about understanding what your character wants, what they are willing to reveal, what they would rather hide and how all of that serves the story.
Nuff said!
Happy writing!