Writer Unleashed
Writer Unleashed
#268: How to Write Riveting, Believable Dialogue: 3 Essential Techniques
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What makes dialogue believable? It's not what you think. In this episode, I'm breaking down three techniques that bring conversations to life on the page. You'll learn what creates the illusion of authentic speech and how to layer these techniques into your own scenes.
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The most interesting dialogue happens when characters think they're having the same conversation, but they're actually having completely different ones. They're responding to what they think the other person means, not what was actually said. Writer Unleashed is for you. A writer who has the story you want to bring onto the page and into the hearts and minds of readers. I'm Nancy Pinuccio, writer, editor, and book coach. Each week, we'll explore techniques, mindsets, and inspiration for writing stories readers can't put down. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let's begin. Today we're tackling one of the trickiest balancing acts in fiction and memoir, writing dialogue that sounds like real people while actually doing the work your story needs it to do. Here's the thing: if you transcribe an actual conversation between two people, it's often mundane and kind of boring. Real people say um and uh, they talk about the weather, they repeat themselves, they go on tangents about their commute or what they had for lunch. Real conversation is full of words that don't mean much. But when readers say dialogue sounds real, they don't mean it sounds like a transcript. They mean it feels authentic to the characters. There's a difference. The best dialogue creates the illusion of real speech while doing something actual conversations don't have to do. Reveal character, create tension, and move your story forward. So, how do you write dialogue that feels authentic without being extraneous? How do you make every conversation pull its weight while sounding like actual human beings talking? Today I'm giving you three techniques that solve this problem. They're based on how real human conversation actually works, the interesting parts, not the mundane parts. And they'll help you write dialogue that your readers believe while making sure every line earns its place on the page. So let's get right to it. Technique number one, give each character a competing agenda. Give each character a competing agenda. This is the fastest way to energize any conversation. Make sure each character wants something different from the exchange, not necessarily opposite things, not necessarily conflicting things, just different things. Here's the key people rarely enter conversations with the same goal. One person wants reassurance, the other wants to end the conversation and get back to work. One person wants to confess something, the other wants to avoid emotional intensity. One person wants to connect, the other wants to win. When characters have competing agendas, even a simple conversation about dinner plans becomes interesting because each person is trying to steer the conversation toward their own objective. For example, in Little Fires Everywhere, there's a scene where Elena is questioning her daughter Izzy about a prank. Now, on the surface, it's a mother asking her daughter questions, but their agendas are completely different. Elena wants Izzy to confess and apologize so they can move past this and restore order. Izzy wants to protect her siblings and avoid giving her mother ammunition for future punishments. Neither of them says this outright, but every line of dialogue is shaped by these competing wants. Elena asks leading questions. Izzy deflects. Elena tries a different angle. Izzy gives non-answers. The conversation becomes this fascinating dance where both people are trying to control where it goes. That's what competing agendas do. They create natural tension because characters are pulling the conversation in different directions. So how do you apply this? Before you write any important conversation, ask yourself, what does each character want from this exchange? Not what they're talking about, what they want. Do they want reassurance or honesty? To reveal something or hide it? To connect or maintain distance? To win the argument or end it? To extract information or avoid giving it, to be seen or stay invisible, to fix the problem or avoid it. Once you know what each character wants, their dialogue will naturally develop tension because they'll be working at cross purposes even if they're being perfectly civil. Competing agendas doesn't mean your characters have to fight. They just need to want different things from the conversation. Okay, technique number two: make them misunderstand each other. Real people constantly misunderstand and misinterpret each other. We hear things through our own fears, insecurities, past experiences, and assumptions. We project, we mishear, we fill in gaps with our own interpretation. Your characters should too. The most interesting dialogue happens when characters think they're having the same conversation, but they're actually having completely different ones. They're responding to what they think the other person means, not what was actually said. For example, in Normal People by Sally Rooney, there's a pattern that repeats throughout the book. Connell and Marianne will have a conversation where one of them says something relatively straightforward and the other interprets it through the lens of their own damage. For example, in one scene, Connell tells Marianne he needs to move out of her apartment because he can't afford rent over the summer. That's what he actually says. But Marianne hears, I don't want to be with you anymore. Because of her past, because of her self-worth issues, she interprets his practical problem as rejection. He's talking about money, she's hearing abandonment. Neither of them realizes they're having different conversations until much later. And that gap between what's said and what's heard creates enormous tension and pathos. This is how real people talk. We're all walking around with our own baggage and we hear everything through that filter. So, how do you apply this? Look at any conversation between characters where they understand each other perfectly. Now ask, what would this character miss here based on their own stuff? If your protagonist has abandonment issues, they might hear criticism as rejection. If your character is defensive about their intelligence, they might hear a simple question as condescending. If your character is secretly guilty about something, they might hear accusation in a neutral statement. The key is to make the misunderstanding logical based on who the character is. It should reveal something about how they see themselves and the world, not just be a random miscommunication for plot purposes. And here's the thing: you don't need to spell it out. You don't need to write, she misunderstood him because of her past trauma. Please don't do that. Just show her reacting to what she heard, not what he said. Your reader will feel the disconnect and understand something's wrong, even if the characters don't. Okay, on to technique number three. Let subtext do the work. This is the most sophisticated technique, and it's what separates good dialogue from great dialogue. Subtext means the real conversation is happening underneath the surface conversation. Your characters are talking about one thing, but they're actually talking about something else entirely. The classic example is Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants. On the surface, a couple is sitting at a train station talking about drinks in the landscape, but they're actually having an argument about whether to get an abortion. Hemingway never mentions pregnancy or abortion explicitly. The entire conflict happens in subtext. Now you don't need to be that oblique, but the principle applies. The most interesting dialogue happens when characters can't or won't say what they really mean, so they talk around it, they dance around the meaning. For example, in Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney, there's a scene where Francis and Melissa are discussing Nick's marriage. On the surface, they're having an intellectual conversation about relationships and fidelity. But underneath, Francis is trying to figure out if Melissa knows about her affair with Nick. And Melissa is either testing Francis or genuinely unaware. Neither of them says, Do you know I'm sleeping with your husband? Or I know what's happening between you and Nick. But the entire conversation is about that. Every line has double meaning. Every pause is loaded. That's subtext. The surface conversation is a safe space for the dangerous real conversation to happen. So how can you apply this? Here's a simple framework. What are your characters talking about? What are they really talking about? If two characters are arguing about whose turn it is to do dishes, what are they really arguing about? Respect, control, who gets to be tired, who matters more? If two characters are discussing where to go for a vacation, what are they really discussing? Whether they still want to be together, whose needs take priority, whether they can still make each other happy. The surface topic is the safe topic. The subtext is the scary thing they can't quite say directly. Now, you don't need subtext in every conversation. Sometimes characters should just say what they mean. But for your most important emotional scenes, ask yourself, what's the conversation beneath the conversation? Just make sure your reader can feel what's really happening. The reader should understand more than the characters do. They shouldn't understand less. Then let your characters dance around it. Let them approach it sideways. Let them talk about something else or talk in metaphors while they're really talking about the thing that matters. Okay, here's how to use these three techniques in revision. Step one, find a conversation that feels flat. Step two, ask yourself, what does each character want from this conversation? If they want the same thing, change that. What might each character miss here based on their own fears or past? Add at least one moment of disconnect. What's the surface topic and what's the real topic? If they're the same, find the subtext. And step three, rewrite with these layers in mind. Now, you don't need all three techniques in every conversation, but your most important dialogues should have at least one of them. So here's what I want you to remember: great dialogue isn't about transcribing how people actually talk. It's about creating the illusion of authentic conversation while making every line do real work in your story. So technique number one, give each character a competing agenda. Technique number two, let them misunderstand each other. And technique number three, add subtext to your important scenes, your important emotional scenes. Do this and your dialogue will stop feeling like an information delivery system and start feeling like the messy, revealing conversations that make readers care about what happens next. So there you have it. Thanks for hanging out with me today. If you know any writers who need some support in their writing, please share this episode or the Writer Unleash podcast in general. And if you love what you're listening to, subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And if you're listening on Apple, please leave me a review. Reading how this podcast impacts your writing truly lights me up and helps me create topics for the show. Till next time, keep writing and I'll talk to you soon.