Dialogue: Intention and Conflict

I finished reading Linda Seger’s book “Creating Unforgettable Characters”. It was such a great book! I highly recommend it.

Anyway, as I cruised through the last couple of chapters, some bits on dialogue jumped out at me. For me, dialogue has always been, well, dialogue. Characters chatting, moving the plot forward. Or well, in my case, not always, but trying to move the plot forward! I still need to work on that. Dang that plot progression!

Seger says that “Good dialogue conveys conflict, attitudes and intentions. Rather than telling about the character, it reveals character.” And here I thought it just had to sound different from the main character.

She also mentions how in each scene, each character is acting based on their own intentions and that what makes a good scene is when the characters in the scene have conflicting intentions. She makes it sound so simple and basic! How did I not consciously realize that?

Anyway, after reading this, I rifled through my bookshelf. Of course. And you know what? A lot of authors aren’t as concise as I want them to be on this whole intentionality thing and attitude and all that. Huh… So I kept rifling.

I found a scene rife with ‘hidden’ conflict between Becky and her soon-to-be mother-in-law in SHOPAHOLIC TIES THE KNOT by Sophie Kinsella. They are at a big engagement party for Becky and Luke, hosted by Luke’s mom, Elinor in her fancy-dancy New York apartment. The party is full of people Becky does not know. Here’s a sample (leaving everything out but the dialogue):

“Hello, Elinor. You look lovely. I’m sorry I was a little late.” [Becky]
“Rebecca. I hope you have been circulating? Not just sitting here with Luke?” [Elinor]
“Er…Kind of…”
“This is a good opportunity for you to meet some important people. The president of this building for example.”
“Right, Well, er…maybe.”
“I’ll introduce you to her later. But now I’m about to make the toast. If you would both come over to the podium.”

And okay, a bit gets lost in the absence of the action tags. Still, you can tell that Elinor’s intention is to move up in the world and have Becky do the same. Be a good society wife and all that. Her attitude is that everyone who is or wants to be anyone will be circulating and what kind of person is Becky if she has to tell her to do these things? Is she trying to make Elinor look bad? Etc, etc. On the other hand, Becky’s intention is to spend her time with the people she cares about at the party and not neglect them to go shake hands with a bunch of people she doesn’t know in order to raise her societal ranking and to fill out her rolodex a bit more. Conflict! Their attitudes and intentions are very different.

Now of course, not all scenes can have such a hard line conflict without exhausting the reader with the CONFLICT, conflict all the time. But it helped me to see a case so clear. I hope it helps you too.