Dialogue

General considerations about linear dialogue

Signified, filter, and signifying at the singular line level

Characters don't 100% sincerely express their thoughts as they are, their FILTER (who they are) molds their expression, just like their GOALS (what they want to achieve in the present conversation) do. Author has to bring the audience / player towards their state of mind, but by doing it through clues (phrasing, selection of the stimuli / info they react to, etc.).

Essential brick of good dialogue: keep the audience engaged by giving them the info they need to put two and two together and understand the key points of the conversation.

What a conversation should achieve

• Help the plot move forward
• Characterize NPCs and / or protagonist
• Worldbuild / subtly hand out setting info without it being the focus of the discussion

This goes hand in hand with the concept of content selection.

In short

• The goals of the author are best achieved by listing info that needs to be communicated.

• The goals of the characters are expressed through their filter, they try to STEER the conversation to reach their goals.

• Progression in the convo goes through logical steps to reach the desired final state, characters need a reason to progressively let on what they're secretly thinking -> agains, select which content to show directly and to spend time on to reveal those dynamics.

The shape of the conversation can and should be analyzed through subtext, not surface-level text.

Some facilitating devices

• Something else is going on during the conversation that helps reveal disagreement and foster conflict:

  1. Order pizza
  2. Order pizza while on the phone with the parlor
  3. Order pizza while on the phone with the parlor and there's a plumbing leak happening
  4. Etc.

  Then, a scene in which nothing beside the conversation happens is much more powerful.

• Locally alter plot or secondary characters behavior to help the important one communicate their values / themes (In Arcane: Silco discusses smashing boundaries to convince an underling to take his drug).

• Use props, items, etc. as allegories or subtext. Audience has to decode everything and is more engaged.

• Rhythm-wise: call back to previous elements, or insert info / behaviours that put the convo in a new context. Similarly, introduce a strong idea / expression / allegory / figure of speech and develop it sporadically throughout the convo.

Seizing opportunities

You usually have a lot of different options using these devices; as facilitating elements to your scene that initially aren't relevant to your plot,they often offer a very nice occasion to set up a payoff that will come into play later.

Gamified dialogue

Jon Ingold's method for sparkling dialogue: identify subtext and think in terms of beats that need to escalate (but not all need to be seen) for a natural flow. Three-lines structure for focus but also range (use accept/reject/deflect), with new options added in loops depending on the previous options. Depending on the progression chose, prune and add options, always add text variations and callbacks.

NAME	DIAGRAM	NOTES
TRAPDOOR		One of the options skips the next beat
LOOP		Indicates a status quo or a yet unresolved confrontation, options are fully or partially renewed
MILLED OPTIONS		Indicates fruitless efforts on the player's part, or a character forcing our hand
LIMITED TIME		Beat progression can only escalate, after seeing a specified number of beats the player is forced towards the end. Keeps the flow going after a satisfying progression, even if not seeing a full content sequence.

Examples

Linear conversations

James Ellroy's Black Dahlia - first conversation between Bucky and Kay

“At least he looks good with his shirt off.”
I turned to face the words. Kay Lake was staring at me; out of the corner of my eye I saw Blanchard, resting on his stool, staring at us. “Where’s your sketch pad?” I asked.
Kay waved at Blanchard; he blew her a kiss with two gloved hands. The bell rang, and he and his partner moved toward each other popping jabs. “I gave that up,” Kay said. “I wasn’t very good, so I changed my major.”
“To what?”
“To pre-med, then psychology, then English lit, then history.”
“I like a woman who knows what she wants.”
Kay smiled. “So do I, but I don’t know any. What do you want?”
I eyeballed the gym. Thirty or forty spectators were seated in folding chairs around the center ring, most of them off-duty cops and reporters, most of them smoking. A dissipating haze hung over the ring, and the spotlight shining down from the ceiling gave it a sulfurous glow. All eyes were on Blanchard and his punchy, and all the shouts and catcalls were for him— but without me getting ready to avenge old business none of it meant a thing. “I’m part of this. That’s what I want.”
Kay shook her head. “You quit boxing five years ago. It’s not your life anymore.”
The woman’s aggressiveness was making me itchy. I blurted, “And your boyfriend’s a never-was just like me, and you were some sort of gang skirt before he picked you up. You—”
Kay Lake stopped me by laughing. “Have you been reading my press clippings?”
“No. You been reading mine?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t have a retort for that. “Why’d Lee quit fighting? Why’d he join the Department?”
“Catching criminals gives him a sense of order. Do you have a girlfriend?”
“I’m saving myself for Rita Hayworth. Do you flirt with a lot of cops, or am I a special case?”
Shouts rose from the crowd. I glanced over and saw Blanchard’s sparring partner hit the canvas. Johnny Vogel climbed into the ring and popped out his mouthpiece; the punchy expelled a long jet of blood. When I turned to Kay she was pale, hunching into her Ike jacket. I said, “Tomorrow night’ll be worse. You should stay home.”
Kay shuddered. “No. It’s a big moment for Lee.”
“He told you to come?”
“No. He would never do that.”
“The sensitive type, huh?”
Kay dug in her pockets for cigarettes and matches, then lit up. “Yes. Like you, but without the chip on the shoulder.”
I felt myself go red. “You’re always there for each other? thick and thin and all that?”
“We try.”
“Then why aren’t you married? Shacking’s against the regs, and if the brass decided to get snotty they could nail Lee for it.”
Kay blew rings at the floor, then looked up at me. “We can’t.”
“Why not? You’ve been shacked for years. He quit fighting smokers for you. He lets you flirt with other men. Sounds like an ace deal to me.”
More shouts echoed. Glancing sidelong, I saw Blanchard pounding a new punchy. I countered the shots, duking the stale gym air. After a few seconds I saw what I was doing and stopped. Kay flipped her cigarette in the direction of the ring and said, “I have to go now. Good luck, Dwight.”
Only the old man called me that. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Kay said, “Lee and I don’t sleep together,” then walked away before I could do anything but stare.