Look, I’m not gonna waste your one precious life going on about the importance of great dialogue. You already frickin’ know it’s important. What I will tell you is something you may know intuitively, but may not know how to actually do:

Really good dialogue is distinct between characters—and it’s distinct because it shows off their personalities.

Most of the time, if we look at published works and take away the tags, we can see how each line of dialogue belongs to different people with those different personalities.

That’s the thing. Personality is the thing. The most important thing. Because…

GOOD DIALOGUE TEACHES THE READER.

Here’s some dialogue I made up:

Person A: “You scared me.”
Person B: “Sorry about that.”
Person A: “Warn me next time.”
Person B: “I will.”

There’s nothing technically wrong here, which is something I say so often it’s starting to wear permanent grooves in my brain, but its greatest sin is that it’s boring. It’s vague! There’s no oomph. Literally, there’s no personality, let alone any distinction between the characters. We don’t learn a single thing about these folks.

But look what happens if I take the same dialogue and do it like this:

Person A: “God’s freckled arse, B! You scared the shit out of me!”
Person B: “Sorry, sorry! I was just trying to help!”
Person A: “Next time give a guy some warning before you blow up one of your science projects.”
Person B: “I know, I will! I meant to, honest!”

Aside from the forest of exclamation points, now we’re cookin’. We’ve got distinction between the styles of speaking, and we’ve got personality. Person A’s got some attitude, some humor. Maybe a bit of teasing despite the fact that they potentially just got lit en fuego, from which we can infer that they’re pretty easygoing. Person B is more shrinking, nervous, overly apologetic, and Person A’s dialogue has implied that B’s explosions might be a regular thing.

Why is this so important?

Because we didn’t just get dialogue. We learned something.

When dialogue shows the speakers’ personalities, the reader learns about the characters.

Okay—so how do we actually do that in our own writing?

CHARACTERISTICS VS. PERSONALITY

Take this other snippet I just made up:

Character C: “My business is my own.”
Character D: “I just wanted to know more about you.”
Character C: “Leave me be.”

While we can infer that Character C isn’t in the habit of sharing personal info, and that perhaps Character D is curious, each of those lines sound like they could come from anybody, at any time. Anyone can be wary of sharing about themselves; anyone can be curious. There’s nothing to distinguish either style of speech, making them both flat and uninteresting. Because of that, the reader doesn’t learn anything about them.

The thing is, curiosity and secretiveness are characteristics, not personality. When writers mistake characteristics for personality, dialogue becomes interchangeable, lifeless, and snooze-worthy.

Personality is much more than a single characteristic. It’s who a character is (more on that below). When personality appears in dialogue, it reveals to the reader who characters really are on the inside and what they project to the outside. It teaches us about them!

Characteristics only scratch the surface, leaving readers with no idea who a character actually is, making it hard to understand them, connect with them, and even root for them. Personality invites us in, piques our curiosity, and keeps us reading. You’d be surprised how often I edit manuscripts where characters don’t have personalities as much as they have a single characteristic (snark, shyness, confidence) that gets put in situations.

Lemme demonstrate the difference. Take a look at my thoroughly just-okay dialogue again, where the focus is on the characteristics of defensiveness and curiosity instead of on personality:

Character C: “My business is my own.”
Character D: “I just wanted to know more about you.”
Character C: “Leave me be.”

Now look at this snippet from Kill the Beast by Serra Swift, where monster hunter Lyssa isn’t enjoying the way ruffled dandy Alderic can read her like a book, and both of their personalities shine:

Alderic’s brows furrowed. “Really? What happened?”

“Don’t,” she said, stopping so suddenly that [her bullmastiff dog] smacked into the back of her legs.

“Don’t what?”

“You don’t need to know anything about me just because we’re stuck gathering ingredients for a magic sword together,” she snapped.

He looked confused. “Maybe I don’t need to know anything about you,” he said, “but I want to.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, looking at a point just beyond her instead of meeting her eyes. “People tend to come and go so briefly that I have found it best not to form attachments anymore. But it’s a difficult urge to curb—humans are social creatures, after all—and so I have taken up the hobby of studying them, instead.” Now his gaze found hers. “I have never come across anyone quite like you before. I’m simply curious about the circumstances that led to your formation.”

A jolt of anger lashed through her. “Am I supposed to be flattered by that? I am not an insect to be pinned under glass and studied!”

“Now there’s a hideous hobby.” He shuddered. “Look, I apologize if I have offended you. If you don’t want to talk about it—”

“I don’t,” she said through gritted teeth. “Not with you. Not with anyone. Ever.”

There’s far more than plain characteristics going on here:

1. Their style of speech is immediately distinct. Alderic speaks somewhat formally, almost with a noble lilt (and with fewer contractions than Lyssa), and he tends to ramble on when invited to explain himself. Meanwhile every word of Lyssa’s dialogue is scowling, irritable, and defensive. Her sentences are usually short, gruff. Take away everything except the dialogue, and the reader can instantly tell the two characters apart. They’re distinct! Compared to Characters C and D in my just-okay example, there’s nothing interchangeable about Lyssa or Alderic, or their dialogue.
2. This distinctness teaches us about them, instead of just labeling them with the characteristics of curious or defensive. We learn about who they really are! Alderic speaking formally gives the reader hints about his noble past and upbringing. Because he (gently) presses Lyssa on the issue instead of dropping it, we understand that he’s sincere and empathetic. And when he refers to people as “humans,” as though he’s separate from them—that’s interesting, too, and is meant to raise eyebrows. In every line, the reader learns more about him as a person. His choice of words could never come out of Lyssa’s mouth because of who he is and how he chooses to speak.
3. Likewise, Lyssa’s dialogue shows us more than the single characteristic of defensiveness. Her bewilderment at others’ sincere curiosity indicates that she hasn’t met many people who care about her. Her short, gruff answers further the implication that she isn’t used to being around people at all, and her fury shows her bone-deep discomfort with dredging up the past—which must be painful, because why else hesitate to share?

“Katherine,” I hear you saying, “this sounds a lot like subtext.” To which I say, hold those horses, we’re getting there. I’m making a point first. I’m breaking it down.

Ahem, anyway—you see what I’m sayin’? Personality is much more than a single characteristic. It’s who a character is. Which means it’s…

• What shaped them (In Lyssa’s case, a traumatic loss she perceives to be her own fault)
• What they believe about themselves and others (She believes people will only ever let her down, and that they’re a threat to her quest for revenge. As for herself, she believes she isn’t suited for anything—a normal life, a nice romance—except that revenge quest.)
• How they think (Lyssa is suspicious, mistrustful, wary, and guarded (Which of course are characteristics. But combined with these other facets, they come alive rather than sit in static lifelessness))
• What they’re hiding (In Alderic’s case, a terrible secret, constantly alluded to (“humans are social creatures, after all”) but always just out of reach)

All of it shines through their dialogue, in every line. A little further below, I’ll show you how to use each of those bullet points in your own work.

MORE EXAMPLES

Let’s go over the difference between characteristics and personality in a few more ways.

Example #1

Scene: Character Z is waiting for their contact to arrive, and their contact is late.

Characteristic: Frustration
How it manifests: “I’m tired of waiting. Where is he?”
The effect on the reader: Nothing. Nil. Anyone could say this, with any intonation. It does its job, but snoozingly. We learn nothing about the character except that they’re waiting—which we already know by virtue of the scene setup. Look how little spice it takes to make it more interesting:

Personality: Frustration, because the last job they took, their contact betrayed them badly.
How it manifests: “He’d better be stuck in traffic or about to walk through that damn door. I’m not doing this again.”
The effect on the reader: Now we feel Z’s frustration—and unlike their contact, it opens a door to questions that the characters and/or reader can ask: doing what again? We’re drawn deeper into the story and deeper into the character just by a few dialogue changes.

Example #2

Scene: Character Q is meeting a grand duke for the first time at the gala he’s hosting—and if she can snag him, she can raise her family from poverty.

Characteristic: Nervous
How it manifests: “Um. How do you find the gala, your grace?” “Well, my lady.”
The effect on the reader: Not much. It’s expected. It’s the sort of bland exchange polite people make in historical fiction of all kinds. The “um” does a bit of work in demonstrating her timidity, but on the whole, it’s uninteresting.

Personality: Nervous, because with her upbringing as a commoner, Character Q still feels terribly out of place (not to mention her entire future rides on this meeting going well).
How it manifests: “How are you enjoying Greenlake Hall, your grace?” “This is my home, Character Q. I enjoy it quite well.”
The effect on the reader: Immediate cringe! Q has foot-in-mouthed by asking the host if he’s enjoying his own home, indicating that in her nervousness, she forgot where he lives. The reader feels just as out of their depth as she does, and if they’re rooting for her, desperate for her to make it right, or for the duke to still be interested. In fact, his reply is fairly blunt; if he wanted to be polite, he would’ve been more magnanimous, guiding her to realize her own mistake—something like, “The gardens continue to be a source of comfort for me. Have you seen them?” Either way, it isn’t a soulless back-and-forth where either character could say either line. Each line teaches us about them.

Next time we’ll talk more about how adding thoughts and feelings into the prose—aka interiority (hey, that’s the name of the show)—can work as dialogue to show even more personality.

AN INTERVIEW WITH YOUR CHARACTERS

If you’re having trouble finding personality instead of characteristics, consider running your characters through this filter, asking them…

• What they believe about their world: What happened in their early life—a terrible childhood, a gruesome accident, a loving parent, a once-in-a-lifetime chance?—and how does that shape their worldview? What was happening in their lives just before the story began, and were they satisfied with it? What was missing, internally and/or externally?
• If they’re NOT the protagonist, what they think about the protagonist: Are they friends, enemies, frenemies? What do they admire or loathe in the protagonist? Are they open about their like or dislike?
• What they think about the antagonist: Do they even know the bad guy is the bad guy yet? If so, are they open about their feelings, whether positive or negative?
• What they believe about themselves: If they’re in a tough situation (poverty, caregiving, stuck with a vice like gambling, drinking), do they think they can change their luck? Do they even want to change their luck? If they’re in a good situation, are they aware of their privilege?

You don’t have to do this for every single character. I’m not talking about the guards who growl “Hold still, you,” while chucking your protagonist into a prison cart, or the third-grade teacher in the flashback who smacked your antagonist’s fingies with a ruler. But for named characters who appear more than once, who have a decent amount of dialogue, knowing at least a few of those things are incredibly helpful in creating great dialogue.

THIS CREATES SUBTEXT, BAYBEE.

Surprise! This is all a long-winded way of showing you how precisely to create subtext within dialogue.

Maybe you’ve heard the advice before: characters shouldn’t ever say exactly what they mean, because there needs to be subtext. Dunno about you, but that one always left me scratching my head, because characters often say exactly what they mean. And anyway, how do you fill a story with characters who sling hints instead of just speaking like normal people?

Look above. That’s how! It’s not that characters should speak in riddles, but that everything they say should be charged with the context of who they are. In fact, the more I edit, the more I start to think that when folks say subtext, they actually mean context. All dialogue should exist in the context of who characters truly are, with all of their histories, dreams, flaws, and goals. You saw above how context turns the super-flat Characters C and D into Lyssa and Alderic. There’s context because we learn about them, recognizing their personalities instead of just characteristics.

Capisce?

DON’T GET LOST IN THE WEEDS.

If all this feels daunting, don’t worry. No one has to do this in the early drafting phases! In fact, using characteristics instead of personality is a great shorthand to help finish a draft without getting caught up in the minutiae of editing while you write. But by the time editing passes are getting granular, dialogue should be shaping up into something unique for every character.

In other words, as we’ve learned, it should be getting specific.

And specificity is the soul of narrative, according to John Hodgman. It happens that I fully and enthusiastically agree.

~

That’s all for this issue! If you found it helpful, or have questions, let me know—that’s what comment sections are for, after all.

Next time, we’ll venture into the inner lives of our characters and explore the best ways to bring it to the page. Until then!

—Katherine