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"Are you working?"
"Working? What do you mean, working? I'm walking."
It sounds simple—dialogue, two characters talking, a duet on the page. Good dialogue is
built on subtext. Text is what the characters say, subtext is that they mean. Good
dialogue works because of what’s left out, what’s left unsaid. In that dialogue above,
from the First Encounter in Leaving Las Vegas, the text dances around the word "working"
(repeated three times in two lines) while the subtext seethes with the raw power of sex,
money, and death by booze. The subtext sets up the love story between a drunk and a
hooker. There’s a direct line from this subtext to the climax, where the drunk dies in
bed and the hooker helps him achieve his final orgasm. At the climax, the characters
reveal all that was buried in the subtext earlier. So, if you aim your dialogue at the
climax, then you can’t go wrong. To make the dialogue better, write a First Encounter
between your Protagonist and your Antagonist.
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Writing Exercise |
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1. What are you looking at?
2. Link your dialogue to the setting:
Protagonist: What’s that burning smell?
Antagonist: We know it’s not your brain...
Suggestion: Write hours and hours of naked dialogue. Naked dialogue is dialogue without “he said,” or “she intoned” or “he said gratefully…”
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