Gowanii

What Your Dialogue Is Actually Doing

There's a piece of advice that gets passed around a lot: dialogue should do double duty. Reveal character and advance plot. Two birds, one stone. It sounds elegant in theory, and the writers who say it aren't wrong exactly—but it understates what good dialogue actually has to carry, and it understates how often writers get dialogue wrong because they're only thinking about those two things.

Dialogue, when it's working, is doing about six things at once. When it's not working, it's usually because it's been reduced to a delivery mechanism—for information, for character beats, for plot—and it's forgotten to be a conversation between people who exist in bodies and have histories and are, crucially, not fully listening to each other.

Let me break down what I mean.

The Exposition Problem

The most common dialogue failure is what I call the information delivery scene. You've read it. You've probably written it. It's the scene where two characters discuss something they both already know because the writer needs the reader to know it.

"As you know, Marcus, the council hasn't met since the war ended five years ago."

Nobody talks like this. Nobody tells someone else something they already know in this way. When writers do this, they're using dialogue as a vehicle for narration, and the seams show immediately. The dialogue stops feeling like a conversation and starts feeling like a press release.

The fix isn't to cut the exposition—you might genuinely need to convey that information. The fix is to find a reason for it to be new to at least one person in the scene, or to let the characters have a reaction to the information rather than just transmitting it. Two people who both know the council hasn't met aren't going to recap that fact to each other. But one of them might say: 'Five years, Marcus. Five years and they still won't meet.' Now you have the same information, and you also have bitterness, and history, and someone who's been waiting.

People Don't Answer the Question That Was Asked

Real conversation is oblique. People dodge, deflect, answer the question they wish they'd been asked, or respond to the emotional subtext rather than the literal words. Written dialogue often fails because it's too direct—question asked, question answered, question asked, question answered—which produces something that reads like a deposition rather than a scene.

Think about what happens when you ask someone a question they don't want to answer. They change the subject. They answer a different question. They get defensive and bring up something unrelated. They go quiet. They make a joke. That gap between what's asked and what's answered is where character lives, and where subtext lives, and it's one of the most powerful tools you have.

Consider:

"Did you talk to her?"

"I made coffee. Do you want some?"

This tells you more than any direct answer could—that they did talk to her, that it didn't go well, that they don't want to discuss it. And it didn't require the writer to explain any of that.

Voices Must Be Distinct, But Not Theatrical

Every character having a distinct voice is real advice, but it gets misapplied constantly. Writers trying to differentiate their characters often end up with caricatures—the one who always speaks in formal complete sentences, the one who uses slang in every single line, the one whose every statement is a philosophical observation. Real people are more internally inconsistent than that. They code-switch. They're different in different company. They talk differently when they're exhausted than when they're caffeinated and nervous.

What makes voices feel distinct isn't necessarily vocabulary or speech patterns, though those help. It's what a character notices and chooses to comment on. It's their preoccupations. What they keep coming back to. What they're evasive about. Two people can use similar vocabulary and still feel completely different on the page if they're paying attention to different things and reacting to the world from different emotional positions.

The Action Beat Isn't Just Stage Direction

There's a tendency to treat action beats in dialogue as purely functional—a way to avoid writing "he said" over and over, a way to anchor the conversation in physical space. They are those things. They're also much more.

The action beat you choose tells us where your character's attention is. It tells us what they're doing while they're speaking, which often tells us what they're not saying. A character who starts making tea while having a difficult conversation is doing something with their hands because they can't stand still. A character who keeps rearranging the same objects on a desk is not listening as carefully as they're pretending to. These aren't just physical tics—they're windows.

What you want to avoid is the action beat as pure filler. She nodded. He smiled. She looked away. These aren't wrong exactly, but they're doing the minimum possible work. Ask yourself: what is this character doing, and why, and what does it tell us about where they are emotionally? A character who laughs at something that isn't funny, a character who stops what they're doing entirely to listen—these beats carry weight. A nod is just a nod.

Silence Is Dialogue

This is the thing most writers underuse: the pause, the silence, the thing that doesn't get said. A character trailing off mid-sentence. A response that takes too long to come. A question nobody answers. These are dialogue moves too, and they're often the most effective ones you have.

When you write "He didn't answer," you're writing dialogue. When you write "She started to say something, then stopped," you're writing dialogue. The absence of words is still a communicative act, and it can carry more weight than any words would. Readers are very good at understanding what a silence means. Trust them.

Final Thoughts

Good dialogue isn't about cleverness. It isn't about giving your characters quotable lines or witty exchanges (though those can be delightful when they emerge organically). It's about two or more people who want different things, who have histories they're not fully sharing, who are paying imperfect attention to each other, trying to navigate a moment together.

When dialogue feels flat, the question to ask isn't "is this realistic?" but "what does each person in this scene want, and are they getting it, and at what cost?" Tension in dialogue doesn't come from dramatic subject matter—it comes from competing wants, from what's unsaid, from the gap between what characters mean and what they say.

Read your dialogue out loud if you have to. Read it to someone. If it sounds like a memo, revise it. If everyone is answering the question that was asked, make someone dodge. If your characters are being too honest with each other, ask yourself why a real person in this situation might not be.

The conversation is always about something other than what it's about. That's the thing to keep in mind.

"Christ," I say, "You're not dying."

I nudge McCartney away from the cupboard, swinging it open to retrieve two tins of the expensive pâté John used to buy. I'm not wearing my glasses so the label's a blur, but it doesn't matter. I know from the colours that one is chicken & duck and the other is mackerel with squid. The food comes in this fancy subscription tailored to them and their needs—saves me the pain of deciding what to get them from the local Tesco. I've never been good at making decisions, you see, so it was nice of John to do it for me before he died.

God I miss him.

I pop the lids on both tins, scraping the pâté into their bowls—the blue one for McCartney and the green one for Lennon. John used to insist they knew their colours, though I'm fairly certain he was full of shit on that front. Still, I keep to the system. Six months on and I can't bring myself to break any of his little rules. The cats descend on their breakfast like they haven't eaten in days, though I fed them just twelve hours ago.

I shuffle to the bathroom. The shower helps, marginally, and by the time I'm dressed—an old Eela Craig t-shirt, my favourite jeans—it's nearly eight. I grab my glasses from the arm of the sofa. Strange. I don't remember sitting there last night, but there's an empty mug beside them, coffee gone cold with a skin on top. The telly's still on, muted, cycling through some morning programme I definitely didn't put on.

Right. That happened again.

I run a brush through my curls, pulling them back into a half-updo, and check my reflection. Human enough. Good. That's better for opening the shop. McCartney and Lennon are already waiting by the door, tails high. They know the routine. The flat sits above the shop, so it's just a matter of herding them down the back stairs without anyone making a break for the street.

"Come on then," I say, scooping up McCartney before she can bolt. Lennon trots after us, dignified as always, like he's doing me a favour.

John's shop. John's cats. John's flat.

All mine now, though his children looked at me like I'd stolen it all when the will was read. Like I hadn't been there at the end, sleeping in that horrible chair by his hospital bed whilst they couldn't be arsed to visit. John was the one who'd listened when I came out, didn't flinch, just nodded and asked if I wanted a cuppa. Who'd shown me his collection of Stax 45s and explained how a shop could be a studio could be a family, all at once.

The door at the bottom of the stairs—John's addition, knocked through the demising wall so he wouldn't have to go round front every morning—opens directly into the side corridor by the studio. Music bleeds through the control room door, left ajar: Sebastian's voice curling through some melody I don't recognise. Must be working on new material for The Prismatic Hour. He's been practically living in there since the label started sniffing around.

I should probably tell him the shop opens in twenty minutes, but honestly, I'm not ready to talk to anyone yet.

Not even Sebastian.

Especially not Sebastian, who'll take one look at me and know I've lost another night to the grey space between sitting down and waking up.

Still, he'd notice if I ignore him, so I push into the studio anyway, letting McCartney jump out of my arms and chase Lennon through the shop. Sebastian is indeed sitting at the mixing desk, fingers on the faders. He's dressed in crushed velvet—a waistcoat the colour of overripe plums over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows—and his silver hair is pulled back in a neat ponytail that shows off the bone structure that made him a heartthrob back in the seventies. He still looks good, the bastard.

Distinguished. Like he stepped out of a wine advert. Ivy's perched on the edge of the mixing desk beside him, one leg crossed over the other, her locs falling past her shoulders in thick ropes threaded with silver and grey. She's wearing what she always wears: loose linen trousers, a flowing top in burnt orange, and enough bracelets on her wrists to make a symphony when she moves. Her skin is warm brown, lighter than mine, and she's got this way of looking at you that makes you feel like she can see straight through your skull to whatever mess you're trying to hide.

"Morning, love," she says, not looking away from the console. Her voice is soft, melodic, the kind that could talk you down from a ledge or convince you to eat something when you've forgotten meals exist. Sebastian glances up, one eyebrow raised. "You look like shit, Masha."

"Cheers for that."

"I mean it." He leans back in his chair, studying me the way he studies a mix—looking for what's off, what needs adjusting. "When's the last time you slept properly?"

"Slept fine," I lie.

Ivy hums, unconvinced, and slides off the desk with a grace that makes me feel like a shambling corpse by comparison. She moves towards me, bracelets chiming, and I know what's coming before she even reaches out to tilt my chin up with two fingers. Her touch is gentle, maternal almost, and I find myself leaning into it despite myself, eyes fluttering closed whilst she inspects me like I'm one of her house plants that's started to wilt.

"You've been dissociating again." She says, pursing her lips. "Have you told your therapist about this?"

"Ivy..."

"Have you?" She repeats, releasing my chin.

"I stopped seeing her." I admit. "I'm on a waiting list for a new one, but she just... wasn't it."

"Mashal..." Sebastian says, "You need the help."

"I know... it's just..." I trail off, not wanting to get into it.

"It's alright, love." Ivy says, patting my arm. "We just worry. You've been running yourself ragged since John passed."

"I'm fine."

"So you've said." Sebastian says, his tone a little too dry for my liking. "Ivy, could you give us a minute?"

"Of course." She says, turning to me. "Remember what we talked about, alright? Your wellbeing is more important than a few late shipments."

"I know."

She leaves, and I'm left alone with Sebastian and the heavy silence that descends when he gets serious. I busy myself with straightening a stack of CDs on a nearby shelf, trying to look busy and normal, but my hands are shaking and I knock a few over. They scatter across the floor with a series of clattering thuds.

"Leave them." Sebastian says, and I do, my shoulders slumping.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologise for dropping CDs, Masha. Apologise for lying to me."

"Sorry."

"Right." He says, gesturing to the empty stool next to him. "Sit."

I sit. The vinyl on the stool is cool against my jeans, and I'm suddenly aware of how loose they've become, the waistband gapping slightly at my back. I've been skipping the gym more than I should—haven't been in weeks, actually—and it shows. My t-shirt hangs differently now, less fitted across the chest and shoulders. The muscle I'd built up during my service, maintained religiously after, is starting to soften. Not that anyone would notice under clothes, but I notice. The slight softness at my belly that I'd always had despite the gym routine feels more pronounced now, like it's the only thing left of me.

"You're running the shop, the studio, the archive, and trying to keep up with your family." He says, and it's not a question. He knows. He's always known. He's been here since the beginning, since John hired me at sixteen. "You're not sleeping. You're dissociating. You stopped therapy. You're a walking disaster, son."

"I know. Believe me, I know." I say, crossing my arms over my chest.

"You've lost weight. Have you been eating? Been to the gym?"

"Haven't had time for the gym," I say, and it's true but also not. I've had the time. I just can't seem to make myself go. Can't seem to do much of anything lately except show up here and go through the motions. "And I'm eating. Just... not hungry much."

"That's not how it works and you know it."

Sebastian's voice is sharp now. "You served. You know what happens when you stop taking care of yourself. Your body doesn't just bounce back like it did when you were twenty."

"I'm twenty-six, not ancient."

"Old enough to know better." He leans forward, placing a hand on my shoulder. It's a rare gesture from him. Sebastian's not one for casual touch. He's all about the music, about the craft, about the soul of it. But this is different. This is real. "You need to take care of yourself. Or I'll have to take care of you. And believe me, you don't want that."

"I'm going to Bean There Done That, you want anything?"

Sebastian chuckles, leaning back in his chair. "Deflecting, I see."

"I don't want to talk about this right now." I say, shifting in my seat. I avoid his gaze—or rather his eyebrows, I've never been good at the whole eye contact thing. "I need caffeine."