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  "path": "/things-great-screenwriters-know-about-dialogue",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-16T17:21:21.000Z",
  "site": "https://nofilmschool.com",
  "tags": [
    "Screenwriting advice",
    "Dialogue",
    "Subtext",
    "Exposition",
    "On-the-nose dialogue",
    "Screenwriting",
    "www.youtube.com",
    "_Understanding this can transform how you approach every exchange_",
    "_odd rules about exposition in dialogue_",
    "_information embedded in a realistic exchange_",
    "_five of our favorite examples from these amazing film scenes_",
    "_The key is earning that moment through all the restraint that came before_",
    "www.youtube.com",
    "_It's two people sitting at a table, just talking_",
    "_The compression actually makes the interpretive space more valuable_",
    "_When someone talks, they're taking action in their reality_"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nWriting dialogue is one of the most difficult aspects of screenwriting. When it's good, it's almost invisible, but when it's bad... it's impossible to ignore. So, what are some of the factors screenwriters can focus on to take their dialogue to the next level?\n\nGlenn Gers has spent 25 years writing for film and television, with credits including _Fracture_ and _Mad Money_ , as well as work on TV.\n\nIn a recent conversation with Film Courage, Gers broke down his approach to dialogue. His six pieces of advice help us understand the key factors that determine whether dialogue is effective or ineffective. All six principles work together, so you should definitely know these.\n\nCheck out the conversation here.\n\n- YouTube www.youtube.com\n\n## Dialogue Is Action\n\nWhen characters speak, they shouldn't just be conveying information.\n\n\"People don't talk to each other without some intention,\" Gers said.\n\nHopefully, your character is trying to accomplish something specific with the person they're talking to, and that comes through their words.\n\nWhether someone's ordering a coffee or watching the Super Bowl with family and friends, they're pursuing an objective through their words—trying to impress, to deflect, to insult, to charm.\n\nAs you're writing, don't ask yourself, \"What does the audience need to know?\" Ask, \"What is this character trying to make happen right now?\"\n\nThe range of possible actions through dialogue is infinite. A character might be stalling for time, which is itself an action. Refusing to answer a question directly is an action too.\n\nThink of Ryan Gosling’s Driver in _Drive._ When someone asks what he does, he says simply, \"I drive.\"\n\nIt's the truth, but he's doing a lot with these two words. This response deflects deeper questioning, maintains mystery, defines him by function rather than personality, and establishes boundaries.\n\n_Understanding this can transform how you approach every exchange_.\n\n## Stop Using Dialogue for Exposition Dumps\n\nThe biggest trap writers fall into is treating dialogue as a delivery system for exposition.\n\nGers offered an example of two people who are both aware that their uncle is arriving at the train station. One shouldn't turn to the other and announce, \"I'm going to the train station to pick up our uncle because he lost his business.\"\n\nThe other person already knows this. The line exists solely for the audience's benefit, which makes it feel unnatural and stilted.\n\nI was watching the new Dave Bautista movie, _The Wrecking Crew_ , recently. It was made for streaming, so it potentially has to follow some _odd rules about exposition in dialogue_, but it felt incredibly awkward at points.\n\nThe number of times Jason Momoa said he was a cop on an Oklahoma reservation was fairly ridiculous, especially since he was saying it to people who already knew this fact about him. It just didn't make sense.\n\nYou can probably recognize when your exposition goes too far. The fix isn't too complicated. You can either create another character who doesn't know this information and needs to be told, or you find a way to let it emerge through conflict or emotional need. Then you get _information embedded in a realistic exchange_.\n\n_The Wrecking Crew_ Credit: Prime Video\n\n## Use Subtext\n\nWe rarely say exactly what we mean in real life. It usually takes a big emotional moment for you to talk about something that gives you a lot of complicated feelings.\n\nAnd that's subtext, baby. If you want to learn more about it, check out _five of our favorite examples from these amazing film scenes_.\n\nSubtext creates engagement. Viewers read between the lines and connect the dots. And it's more realistic. Subtext makes audiences active participants in interpreting character motivation.\n\nAs you write, you need to know what your character actually wants or fears, then figure out how they'd talk around it rather than stating it directly.\n\nArrive at that true meaning or motivation, then figure out how different personality types would talk around something.\n\n## Be On-the-Nose at Key Moments\n\nScreenwriters are taught that on-the-nose dialogue is bad writing. A lot of times, you can point to it when you read exposition dumps or a lack of subtext in dialogue. Is a character spelling plot details, feelings, or motivations out in a way no real person would? That's on-the-nose.\n\nBut Gers said, \"On-the-nose is not bad. You just got to know when to use it.\"\n\nIn reality, sometimes at the end of a tense discussion or fight, you do feel like you can't take it anymore, and you just come out and say the thing you're actually angry about.\n\nConsider _Marriage Story_ , when Adam Driver's character finally blows up and says, \"Every day I wake up, and I hope you're dead!\"\n\nWhoa, buddy. A little on-the-nose, right? But it's a powerful emotional end to a big, blow-up argument.\n\nOr even ___The Banshees of Inisherin_ , when Colm tells Pádraic,****\"I just don't like you no more.\" It's played absurdly and for dark comedic effect, so the on-the-nose line works, but it's also what the whole allegorical film is about. Everyone has to deal with the fallout of one character saying what they mean.\n\nAn on-the-nose moment can become a turning point. It's the climax of all that careful maneuvering and avoidance.\n\n_The key is earning that moment through all the restraint that came before_.\n\n- YouTube www.youtube.com\n\n## Let Audiences Read Your Characters\n\nWe spend our whole lives trying to interpret the people around us, even those we know intimately. Gers said that good storytelling recognizes this and gives audiences space to do that interpretive work themselves.\n\n\"Audiences don't actually like to sit back and be told everything,\" Gers said. \"Audiences like to put it together for themselves.\"\n\nYour job involves figuring out which pieces to give them and in what order.\n\nGers specifically mentions the opening of _The Social Network_ as an example. _It's two people sitting at a table, just talking_. But a tremendous amount happens in this scene.\n\nMark Zuckerberg talks _at_ his girlfriend Erica about clubs, SAT scores, and the number of geniuses in China. He's trying to impress her, assert his intelligence, and win an argument he doesn't realize he's already lost.\n\nErica keeps trying to find the thread, to understand what he's actually saying. We're in her shoes, working to decode this.\n\nThis applies even when screen time is compressed. Yes, movies usually don't have the luxury of a novel's length and internal monologues, but that doesn't mean you should panic and jam everything into surface-level dialogue. _The compression actually makes the interpretive space more valuable_, not less.\n\nGive viewers enough to work with while trusting them to fill in gaps.\n\n## \"Show Don't Tell\" Applies to Dialogue, Too\n\nThe phrase \"show, don't tell\" often gets misunderstood as \"use visuals instead of words.\" But Gers says that talking can be showing, as long as characters are trying to do something through their dialogue rather than explaining things to an audience they theoretically don't know exists.\n\nTake _12 Angry Men_ or _Glengarry Glen Ross_ —these are films built almost entirely on people talking. In those films, dialogue serves a dramatic purpose rather than an expository function. Dialogue, and voice, and cadence, and word choice show us who each character is.\n\nCharacters should speak to affect each other, not to inform an unseen audience. _When someone talks, they're taking action in their reality_. We, as viewers, observe and interpret that action. That's what makes talking feel alive on screen instead of dull.",
  "title": "6 Things Great Screenwriters Know About Dialogue"
}