To cut the long story short, dialogue reveals character. In dialogue, it reveals character who will talk about himself/herself and other people will talk about himself/herself. It helps in establishing the relationship shared between characters. For example, when you have established the main character’s point of view, you can use dialogue with other characters to show that they have other attitudes, creating opposite/alternate point of views. This helps to create and sustain the element of conflict between characters. Effective dialogue will move the story forward.
Dialogue communicates faces and information to the audience. It indirectly tells people facts, conveys essential exposition, and characters will talk about what happened, establishing the storyline. Dialogue ties the script together. One guideline would be “if you can see it or hear it, don’t write it”. It is true, but many a times we all forget about it. We often repeat the actions in dialogue, making it seem as though the audience are dumb people. At least it happened to me.
Despite the importance of dialogue, it should be used sparingly. It is never a substitute for action. We, or perhaps myself, thinks that good dialogue is the ability to write authentic speech as heard in real life. If it is so, then all I have to do is just to record down all the conversations I have with people! But no, a good dialogue is the illusion reality. It is the art of editing what people say without losing any of the spirit (or emotion) intended.
With such knowledge added, I would say that it would take a lot of myself to write a story. Why? I think too much, too fast, and locked my thoughts too much for them to be voiced out. I often try to put them out in the most simplistic terms, but they were never understood; only the closest understands. Yet, if you know me enough, you should know that I prefer emotional shows than comedy. I like how life and emotion intertwine between me and the audience; how I can tell them that they are never alone in whatever they are going through.
To me, (serious) talk is emotion. I cannot talk without the help of emotion. If I can, I have become a hypocrite. Emotion constitutes my heart and my soul.
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