Writing Dialogue That Has Something beneath It

October 22, 2026

Cinema

3 Minutes

A character can say exactly what they mean. Sometimes that is the strongest choice. But when every line explains the speaker's feelings, the audience has very little left to discover.

Subtext is the relationship between the spoken words and the action or intention underneath them. It is not simply a rule to make everyone mysterious.

Give each speaker something to do

Scriptnotes discussions of dialogue and character voice examine how wording helps distinguish characters and how small verbal choices affect a scene. I take that as a useful invitation to inspect the line's job, not only its sound.

What is the speaker attempting Are they testing, reassuring, delaying, provoking or asking for permission The same sentence can perform different actions in a different situation.

Now ask what the other person does with it. Dialogue is an exchange. A beautifully phrased line that changes nothing in the listener may be less useful than an ordinary question that forces a response.

Keep those questions beside the scene while you revise.

A line is also an action. Words: What is said. Intention: What the speaker attempts. Response: What the listener does. New tactic: How the exchange changes

An original exercise in avoidance

Two characters, Ines and Rui, stand beside a packed car. Ines wants Rui to admit he is leaving for longer than he has said. Rui wants to finish loading before the conversation begins.

Ines says, “You took the winter coat.”

Rui says, “It was by the door.”

Ines says, “In July.”

The literal subject is a coat. The practical pressure is the duration of his departure. Rui's answer avoids that pressure without making him deliver a speech about avoidance.

Now change his tactic. He could ask Ines to hold a bag, making her help the departure she is questioning. Or he could put the coat back, offering a visible reassurance that may or may not be sincere.

Write both versions and see what changes in Ines's next action. This example is original practice material, not a quotation from a film.

The point is to make the unspoken matter active. The audience should have something specific to infer from words, objects and behaviour.

An original subtext exercise. Winter coat: The visible detail. July: The contradiction. Packed car: The departure in progress. Return date: The question beneath the words

Revise the exchange, not isolated lines

Read the dialogue aloud. Notice where the rhythm becomes a sequence of speeches rather than an encounter. Mark moments where one character's answer should alter the other's approach.

Try replacing an explanatory line with an action. If Ines removes the coat from the car, the conflict may become visible without another sentence. If the action makes the scene unclear, restore only the information needed.

Check character voice through vocabulary, sentence shape and what each person notices. Do not rely entirely on an accent or a catchphrase. Two people can speak similarly and still approach a conversation differently.

Also leave room for a direct line when the scene earns it. After several evasions, “Tell me when you're coming back” can change the pressure precisely because it stops circling the subject.

On the page, preserve what an actor can play. A long paragraph explaining unconscious motivation is not necessarily a useful instruction for the scene.

Good dialogue can be plain. Its interest comes from the people using it, the thing they are trying to achieve and the resistance they encounter.

I want the words to feel necessary to the moment, with enough space around them for the audience to notice what the characters cannot comfortably say.