Oct '25 • Educational
🍰 Authentic Dialogue is Layered 🍰
Authentic dialogue is realistic, layered, and right for the character and the moment.
🤔 Let's talk about how to make dialogue layered.
What do I mean when I say that dialogue must be layered? 🍰
This mainly goes back to the idea that conversations don't really take place in a word-to-word manner.
✅ It's not the words of the spoken sentence so much as it is the unspoken meaning beneath those words.
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For instance, if you're late for work one day, and the boss says,
"Nice of you to join us," she's not really meaning what she says.
If a non-English speaker heard or read those words, he might think the boss is being polite.
But you and I know the boss really meant, "You're late again, and it's disrespectful. Knock it off or suffer the consequences."
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✅ Meaning to meaning, not sentence to sentence.
🌟 Do you consciously plan subtext into your dialogue, or does it usually appear naturally in revision?
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( 📖 Crafting Dynamic Dialogue: The Complete Guide to Speaking, Conversing, Arguing and Thinking in Fiction )
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🍰 Authentic Dialogue is Layered 🍰
