Writing Good Script Dialogue
By ERMW Team
Thursday, November 27, 2025
Dialogue does more than just move the plot along; it is the heartbeat of your narrative. It is the primary tool for establishing the distinct voices of your characters and the most effective way to immerse your audience in the story.
When dialogue fails, it turns characters into exposition machines. When it succeeds, it creates an electric connection between the reader and the page. Here is how to write dialogue that resonates.
1. Character Voice: The Fingerprint of Speech
If you stripped away the speech tags (he said/she said) from a conversation, would your reader still know who is speaking? If the answer is no, your characters may be suffering from "Same Voice Syndrome."
Every character should sound distinct based on their background, education, region, and personality.
Vocabulary & Syntax: A Victorian professor will use different words and sentence structures than a modern-day mechanic.
Rhythm & Length: Does the character ramble nervously, or do they speak in short, clipped sentences?
Catchphrases & Tics: Use these sparingly, but a specific curse word or a tendency to interrupt can define a character.
Try this: Take a neutral sentence like "It is raining outside." Rewrite it for three different characters. One might say, "The heavens have opened." Another might grunt, "Wet again." A third might say, "Great, there goes the picnic."
2. Subtext: The Art of the Unsaid
In real life, people rarely say exactly what they mean. We hide behind sarcasm, politeness, fear, or passive-aggression. This is subtext.
Resonant dialogue often occurs when the spoken words contradict the character’s internal feelings. If two characters are arguing about whose turn it is to do the dishes, but they are actually arguing about their failing marriage, that is resonant dialogue.
How to inject subtext:
Avoid "On-the-Nose" writing: This is when a character states their emotions clearly ("I am so angry at you right now!").
Use deflection: If Character A asks a painful question, Character B should change the subject, make a joke, or answer a question A didn't ask.
3. "Realism" vs. Readability
Novice writers often try to make dialogue sound "realistic." The problem is that real speech is full of "ums," "ahs," boring pleasantries, and circular logic. As Alfred Hitchcock famously said, drama is "life with the dull bits cut out."
Curate your realism. Keep the flavor of natural speech, but remove the filler.
Cut the Greetings: Unless the greeting is significant to the plot, skip the "Hello, how are you?" "I'm fine, you?" intro. Start the scene as late as possible and end it as early as possible.
Remove Filters: Words like "well," "look," and "so" at the start of sentences are often unnecessary clutter.
4. Grounding the Dialogue (Action Beats)
Two characters talking in a white void is known as "Floating Head Syndrome." To immerse the audience, you must ground the dialogue in the physical world using action beats.
Action beats also replace the need for excessive adverbs in speech tags.
Weak: "I don't believe you," he said angrily.
Resonant: "I don't believe you." He slammed his coffee mug onto the table, shattering the handle.
The second example doesn't just tell us he is angry; it shows us the violence of his emotion and grounds the characters in a physical setting.
5. The Exposition Trap
The quickest way to kill resonance is to use dialogue to force-feed information to the reader. This is often called "As You Know, Bob" dialogue, where characters tell each other things they both already know just for the reader's benefit.
The Fix: Make the information a weapon or a secret. Information should only be revealed when a character is forced to reveal it, or when they use it to gain an advantage.
Summary Checklist
Before finalizing a scene, ask yourself these questions:
Distinctiveness: Does this sound like this specific character, or does it sound like me (the author)?
Necessity: Does this conversation change the relationship or move the story forward?
Subtext: Are they saying what they mean, or is there a deeper meaning hidden underneath?
Pacing: Have I cut the boring hellos, goodbyes, and small talk?
Dialogue is not just about what is said; it is about who is saying it, why they are saying it, and what they are hiding while they speak. Master these elements, and your readers won't just read your story—they'll hear it.
