The 3 Things Every Line of Dialogue Has to Do

__Sometimes you’re reading a script or watching something, and you get the distinct impression that whoever wrote the dialogue hasn’t experienced real life in a while.

And that can happen—writers are, after all, often holed up in an office somewhere trying to conjure ideas out of thin air. But this can lead to stilted dialogue that will pull a reader or viewer right out of the story.

A long time ago, I remember talking to NFS’ own Jason Hellerman about kids’ dialogue (his produced script, Shovel Buddies , features young characters, and at the time I was also working on a summer-camp-set screenplay). I remember the discussion about landing a younger person’s voice and trying to nail youthful innocence while also capturing a kid’s ability to sometimes be mature (or crass). It’s a hard line to walk.

Which is why when I was clicking around YouTube today, I found the following video essay from Squampopulous about what made the dialogue in the last season of Stranger Things so interesting. By looking at the show, the essay gets to a few lessons that I think can be broadly applicable.

Check it out.

• YouTube www.youtube.com

What Dialogue Should Do

Dialogue is the most efficient tool a screenwriter has. It can carry context, move the plot forward, reveal character, and develop relationships. That's a lot of weight for just a few lines, and the pressure to maximize every exchange is real, especially on TV, where you're racing against a runtime.

We've written before about how to balance dialogue and action and the techniques that make exchanges feel alive, but many writers already know this intuitively.

The problem isn't that some writers don't understand dialogue's job. It's that in trying to do that job efficiently, they end up writing at the audience instead of letting the characters speak the way a person would.

We’d usually call this kind of dialogue on-the-nose. You can feel it when you watch it. It almost gives the reader/viewer a peek behind the curtain at the writer’s machinations, like the Wizard of Oz. You feel the writer trying to pull your attention in a certain direction, or make sure you know something, whether it’s a plot point or a character’s emotion, or something about the theme.

The kind of dialogue I like (and I know this isn’t necessarily universal across all projects, genres, or viewers) is grounded. It’s ambiguous, it’s subtextual, sometimes evasive.

It does what dialogue should do, but deftly and realistically. It tells us something about the characters, what they want, how they move through the world, and progresses the story.

When dialogue doesn’t do this, it feels ham-fisted and manufactured. For some genres, like comedy or satire, this can be fine. But if you’re expecting people to totally buy into a sci-fi small-town world, you should probably be trying for realism. And many don’t see that in the final season of Stranger Things.

Three Things to Aim for in Dialogue

The video offers a useful framework for three things every line of dialogue should hit: propulsion, characterization, and believability.

Propulsion refers to moving the plot forward. Is this line of dialogue moving the story somewhere? If it isn't earning its place plot-wise, it probably won't survive the rewrite.

Characterization means voice. Does this sound like this specific person, in this specific moment? Generic lines are a characterization failure even when they're technically functional. We've covered what great screenwriters know about building character voice through dialogue. The short version is that word choice, cadence, and what a character won't say matter as much as what they do.

Believability is about realism. Would a real person actually say this line? This is the hardest target to hit, and it’s the one most writers deprioritize.

Leaving off the third element is how you get unrealistic, affected dialogue, or lines that are efficient and character-coded but are completely synthetic when spoken aloud. (One reason we really recommend reading your pages to yourself or having a table read.)

Stranger Things Credit: Netflix

Why Believability Has to Come First

As the video points out, real people are usually kind of boring or messy. People dodge, deflect, and talk around what they really mean. That's why subtext is such a powerful tool. It's how human beings actually communicate.

The challenge is capturing that quality while still making every exchange do narrative work. It might seem impossible. You might think your character has to deliver exposition as clearly as possible. Or they have to be explicit about what they feel exactly.

Squampopulous suggests a reordering of priorities. Most writers start with propulsion, layer in characterization, and treat believability as a final polish pass. What if you flip that?

Think about being believable and true to the character first. What would this person say realistically in this situation? Maybe go through some writing exercises, imagining the character in different settings, to really get their voice.

And also, spend some time out in the real world. Write in a coffee shop or library and really get a sense of how people navigate conversations.

Then figure out how to make your lines propulsive.

To illustrate the difference, the video puts early and late Stranger Things side by side. A Season 1 scene with younger kids in a scary situation reads as realistic first, ensuring emotional buy-in from the viewer. We get a few beats to show us how each kid feels, then the scene ends with a hook. Compare this with later scenes, which often prioritize exposition over emotion or realism.

How to Apply This to Your Own Script

I’ll say it again. Reading your dialogue out loud is the single fastest diagnostic tool you have. If you stumble on a line, an actor is going to stumble on it too. If it just sounds weird, don’t place the burden of making it sound good on your talent. Even great actors are brought low by terrible dialogue. Fix it on the page.

Beyond that, ask three questions of every exchange.

1. Does this line move something forward?
2. Does it sound like this specific character?
3. Would a real person say this?

If a line is failing the believability test, interrogate what the character actually knows, wants, and fears in this moment.

Real dialogue comes from a person’s worldview, experiences, and psychology. Writing from that reality first is what keeps lines from sounding overwritten.

Watch out for characters who are too conveniently following a conversation, who finish each other's thoughts, who rely on quips alone, or who articulate their subtext directly.

Check out more on writing characters who sound like themselves rather than plot functions.