Writing Great Dialogue

My novel Empty Vessels can be purchased here:
www.amazon.com...
In my experience, there are three components that must be mastered in order to write great dialogue. Check them out in my video, which details each of these components so you can apply them to your writing.
Follow me on Twitter for updates on future videos, my novel, etc:
/ nfletchwilliams
Background music is from Kevin Macleod. His website is here:
incompetech.com...

[@nickslessonsonstory355]

Is there a story topic you'd like me to cover? Let me know in the comments!

[@boltoktherapist6928]

plot types

[@nickslessonsonstory355]

Hey, thanks for the suggestion. I'll add this to my "to-do" list. I do a fair amount of research for my videos so it'll take some time.

[@wallydavid4845]

The five turning points in a screenplay

[@NaveenChater]

"We also learn that Carl's a little shit." That cracked me up. A very informative video. Thanks!

[@nickslessonsonstory355]

Thank you! I hope it was helpful :D

[@felipeedoardo]

I had to rewind to make sure I heard right haha

[@ClintLoweTube]

Casablanca has perhaps the greatest ever dialogue.

[@lilgrasshoppah]

why does jeff have a three piece suit and a top hat? why does he never say, "I do declahr!"...? It's kind of a rule for persons who wear suits of more than two and half pieces. There are so many questions!

[@nivyan]

The boring version of the Casablanca dialogue physically hurt to watch. Good work, keep it up :)

[@nickslessonsonstory355]

Nivyan Good! It was supposed to, lol.

[@jamesjyu]

Yeah same here. Superb job. It reminded me of the Bulwer-Lytton awards for worst openings to novels. Over eager and on the nose.

[@AnnoyingMoose]

I found that one of the best exercises for a writer to understand how good dialogue has conflict and subtext, that people don't always say exactly what is on their minds, was to get married and have a few fights with my wife.

[@NatesFilmTutorials]

Nice! Are there any tricks to make dialogue that’s already on the nose and introduce subtext? Or is it something you have to dive into when writing?

[@nickslessonsonstory355]

I think you'd have to rewrite dialogue that is too on the nose and there's no quick way to fix it. While writing, we normally understand exactly how the character is feeling and how they'd convey that, but rarely in life are we so exact. This "exactness" is what makes dialogue on the nose. In the moment, people are flustered, confused and passionate, so most of the time they never say exactly what's on their mind.

[@abloshow91]

Just listen to it and see what is too obvious and see how you can i dont know make it more complex. Dialogue is usually a mask for our emotions. What we say is rarely what we feel. So yeah just make the characters harder to read on the surface.

[@acalvillo35]

For my first draft, I wrote everything I wanted to say and then later rewrote it with subtext and added flavor, but first I had get my ideas on paper. It's hard to just write diaologe with subtext and in cinematic quality when you're just starting out.

[@irreverencetheartist5120]

Thank you Nick for a great lesson on the breakdown of writing. As a newbie aiming at cartoons, it was a great 1st step into my writing library. I feel your teachings will be a cornerstone group of gems to be polished daily. You are my writing 101 class at Self University. Well, i just took care of the next 10 years of my life.

[@biancastephanie8830]

Thank you so much for this!

[@vlairlim1180]

Love your lecture

[@bonzaisubber8535]

Belt to your point where dialogue shouldn’t be like real talking, there are many times when it should simply for aesthetic purposes and not to drive the plot forward. There’s a really good short film on HBO right now called “Verde”, where two men are discussing a date with a girl and an encounter with her father and it’s a very nowhere-going conversation, completely irrelevant to the story, but it serves to contrast with the inner turmoil of the main character, who remains silent. Sometimes dialogue should be validated and lead to nowhere if only to serve as a backdrop for the actions are going on.

[@albertmailyan9680]

one of the best essay on dialogue! Great work

[@TheBasedangel]

Thanks for the dialouge, babe

[@jajangteu2449]

nice video, perhaps you could make video of curb your enthusiasm :) or seinfeld

[@nickslessonsonstory355]

That's funny you mention that because I have both of those featured in my "Running Joke" Video Essay :D

[@dennou2012]

Superb video. These are so helpful! Appreciate all the time and effort you put in to this vid and the other great ones :) all the best and looking forward for the novel!

[@nickslessonsonstory355]

dennou2012 Thanks! I appreciate it!

[@Fessel34]

Another great video! Keep it up!

[@nickslessonsonstory355]

Thanks!

[@stevenbosch429]

How about using two of my favorite Billy Wilder films as examples of Satire? "The Apartment" and "The Fortune Cookie." There are laughs in both but they are important parts of real life feelings of the characters. Also, Walter Matthau brillantly plays the shyster lawyer "Whiplash Willy" Gingrich, the nightmare of the Ohio Bar Association. Jack Lemmon plays an Everyman character who mostly wants to have his cake and eat it too. in "The Apartment" his character C.C. Baxter is positive he can be a top flight executive if he could only get the chance. To get the chance he loans out his bachelor apartment to a small ring of top flight executives who are looking for an out of the way spot for "recreation" with no desk clerks or other busy bodies. Baxter rationalizes that it's not his responsibility to instruct these men in fidelity. He also finds himself courting pneumonia as these gentlemen chase him out of his apartment for hours at a time in all weather.

[@tiko545]

cool stuff!! can you please explain how to maintain conflict while keeping subtext at the same time? when I improve my dialogue should I ask "how can he/she say this in another way"?

[@nickslessonsonstory355]

Dialogue with conflict should naturally occur if characters are talking about something with differing views. In my experience, when I setup characters with different views, the conflict ends up embedded in the dialogue. It doesn't have to be super dramatic. RomComs usually have lighthearted conflict in their dialogue, where a character pursues the love interest, and the love interest casually deflects advances. For subtext, it's helpful to think of the character as a "lens" to how they feel. Depending on the personality, emotions or experiences, a character will phrase things differently. Empathizing with your characters is necessary here. I basically have to envision myself as them, think about how they feel, based on their personality, then think about how they respond. It's tricky; I still struggle with it from time to time. For more examples, you could check out my "Learning Comedic Dialogue" video. Even if you're not writing comedy, I show further examples of how conflict and subtext works in dialogue. Hopefully that helps :)

[@tiko545]

@@nickslessonsonstory355 thank you so much! this was really helpful!

[@jacobvarney23]

Chill Wave - Kevin MacLeod.