Dialogue Archives

The Art of Adversarial Dialogue

September 23, 2026 by Randy Ingermanson Leave a Comment

Successful Fiction Writing = Creating + Organizing + Marketing

I blog weekly on one of the above three topics, alternating between them. This week, I’m blogging on Creating. Our topic today is how to inject conflict into your scenes using “adversarial dialogue.” I’ll define what I mean by that a bit further down. But first let’s talk about conflict…

Conflict is the Heart of Fiction

I’ve been in critique groups for more than 35 years. I remember one meeting when a new guy came to the group, bringing a scene to be critiqued. There was nothing grammatically wrong with his scene. No spelling errors, grammar problems, or failed punctuation. But nothing was happening in the story. This is my best recollection of our discussion of his scene:

I started out by saying, “You write pretty well. But there’s a problem with this scene. You don’t have any conflict.”

He gave me a blank look and said, “A novel has to have conflict?”

I said, “That’s practically the definition of a novel. Fiction is characters in conflict.”

He said, “Oh.”

Notice what happened here. He thought fiction was one thing. I thought it was something else. That meant our goals in the meeting were at cross-purposes. I didn’t come there to grade a piece of writing for spelling, grammar, and punctuation. And he didn’t come to be graded on conflict.

So we had a dialogue that’s stuck with me. There’s a lesson here. The key to interesting dialogue is that it needs to be “adversarial”…

What is Adversarial Dialogue?

When I talk about “adversarial dialogue,” I mean dialogue in which two or more characters are at cross-purposes. They each come into the scene with a different goal. And that automatically creates conflict.

You don’t need violence to create conflict. You don’t need shouting. You only need multiple characters who each want a different thing, with neither willing to budge. If the stakes in the scene are high, your scene will be interesting, and your reader will be hooked.

If the stakes are low, or if there’s no conflict at all, your scene will be boring.

So how do you fix dialogue that’s not adversarial? That’s easy. Let’s look at an example, and I’ll pull this from my recent experience buying a car. (Our family car died unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago, so we spent last week shopping for a replacement. It’s a story with a happy ending, but there was conflict along the way, because I watched a few billion TikTok videos first on how to shop for a car.)

Example 1: Nonadversarial Dialogue

In this example, I’ll show you how not to buy a car. The dialogue will be nonadversarial, and the scene will be extremely boring.

Salesman: Hi, how are you today?

Buyer: I’m great, how are you?

Salesman: Fantastic. Are you looking to buy a car?

Buyer: Yes, but I don’t know what model I want.

Salesman: What kind of monthly payments were you thinking of?

Buyer: I was hoping not more than $900 a month. That’s the most I can afford.

Salesman: You’re in luck. Take a look at this car right over here.

Buyer: (Looks at sticker and gasps.) Wow, that’s a lot of money!

Salesman: Not to worry. We can get you a great deal on financing, if you need it.

Buyer: That would be wonderful. Can I take it for a test drive?

Salesman: Hop right in and let’s give it a whirl.

15 minutes later…

Buyer: Wow, I love this car! But I don’t see how I can afford it.

Salesman: Leave that to me. Let’s just go in my office and I’ll work some numbers for you.

Buyer: OK.

30 minutes later…

Salesman: You’re in luck. I fought with my manager and got you a $3000 discount that includes a $2500 rebate from the manufacturer. Then I argued the bank down and got you an amazing rate on financing. I added in a really incredible maintenance package to extend your warranty out to 10 years, and our own special Invincible Finish paint protection package. The bank let me stretch out the loan a tiny little bit, and we got your monthly payments down to only $897.67 per month. That’s within your budget, right?

Buyer: Yes.

Salesman: Then you just bought yourself a new car. Sign right here.

* * *

Let’s mercifully draw the curtain on this exceptionally boring scene. There’s no conflict here, because this salesman and this buyer have almost exactly the same goal. The buyer wants to buy the best car he can at a price he can afford, and the salesman wants to sell a car at the maximum amount the buyer can afford. These goals are so well aligned, there’s only one possible outcome.

And it’s a yawner of a scene. If you have a scene like this in your novel, you need to fix it. Here’s how…

Example 2: Adversarial Dialogue

In this example, I’ll show you a better way to buy a car, and coincidentally, a better way to write the scene. The dialogue will be adversarial, because now the two characters have misaligned goals. The salesman still wants to sell a car at the maximum amount the buyer can afford, but now the buyer wants to buy a car at the minimum amount the dealer can afford. This does not mean that either the salesman or the buyer is a bad person. They are simply players in the game called capitalism, each playing the role that the game requires them to play.

Salesman: Hi, how are you today?

Buyer: I’m really interested in your model Z. I saw it on your website and it looks like a solid car. Here’s the stock number for the exact vehicle I want to look at.

Salesman: (Looking at stock number.) That’s a terrific car, but it’s in the cheapest trim line. The Limited edition is way better, and I bet you can afford it. What kind of monthly payments were you thinking of?

Buyer: I don’t know if I’ll be making payments. I might pay cash and I might finance it. We’ll talk about money later. All I care about right now is that I want to drive this exact car.

Salesman: Help me help you. Can you afford $1100 per month?

Buyer: I’m not going to talk about money until I decide if I even like this car. Have you got the keys?

Salesman: Hop right in and let’s give it a whirl.

15 minutes later…

Buyer: This car is perfectly acceptable.

Salesman: Great! Let’s just go in my office and I’ll work some numbers for you.

Buyer: Thanks, but I’m not ready to talk numbers yet. I haven’t even decided if I’m going to be buying from you. I’m planning to also test drive a Toyota Model X and a Chevy Model Y today, so I need to be going now.

Salesman: Those cars are OK, but that model of Toyota has had some problems with the…

Buyer: Thanks for your time. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to talk money.

Salesman: I can get you a $3000 discount. Also, we’ve got really great financing. Just come into my office and we can talk.

Buyer: (Walking away). I’ll be in touch.

Salesman: Let’s go talk to my manager. I think I can get you $3500 off, but this deal is only good for today.

Buyer: Have a nice day.

* * *

There’s no punching or shouting in this scene, but the conflict is real, because the buyer and salesman have wildly different goals. The salesman’s goal is to get the buyer into an office where he can create a deal favorable to himself. The buyer’s goal is ONLY to test drive one particular model and then walk away.

The buyer does not intend to buy any car today. After he test drives a few different brands and models, he’ll make a decision on one of them. That may take a few days. Then he’ll take another day or two to research prices online for his chosen make and model and trim line, looking at sellers within 500 miles of his home. He’ll identify a few specific cars with specific stock numbers at specific dealers.

In a later scene, the buyer will negotiate with the dealers who have the cars he wants. He does not intend to negotiate in person. Nor will he negotiate over the phone. He plans to negotiate the deal ONLY by text messages. The buyer knows he’s an amateur going up against a pro. Negotiating by text will help to level the playing field. A little. If he can, he’ll pit the dealers against each other to get the best selling price. But he might not have this option.

In a yet later scene, the buyer will negotiate financing, again using only text messages. Now he’ll pit the dealer against his credit union (or against a cash deal, if he’s lucky enough to have cash).

In each of these scenes, the buyer will be at cross-purposes with the salesmen. They will try their best to get him to come in to the dealership and “talk.” The buyer will try his best to get a written term sheet in a text message. The buyer wants to have a hard offer before he goes to the dealer in person, at which point he will sign papers and take his car. There is no guarantee on who will win this tussle. A lot depends on what the market is like for the particular model the buyer wants. Uncertainty is part of life. And uncertainty is what keeps fiction interesting.

Homework:

Take a look at the dialogue in the most recent scene you wrote. For each of the speakers, write down what their specific goal is in this scene.
Are there conflicting goals in this scene?
Can you put those goals more at cross-purposes to each other? (Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t. It’s always worth asking.)

The Problem With Zingers

August 13, 2024 by Randy Ingermanson 95 Comments

in Dialogue

Writing fiction is all about creating conflict. Putting your characters in a crucible. Raising the temperature. This shows your reader what your characters are made of. And one reason we read fiction is to learn how to deal with the conflict in our own lives by living out conflict in somebody else’s skin.

Dialogue is one of your best tools for creating conflict in your fiction. It’s not your only tool. You’ve also got action, interior monologue, interior emotion, and (sometimes) description.

And one of the quickest ways to raise the temperature using dialogue is with a zinger. Let me define what I mean by a zinger. It’s a short, pithy remark that makes some other character look stupid or exposes their lie.

That’s all fine in fiction. In your novel, you have good people and bad people. They’re clearly defined. Your protagonist is (usually) one of the good people. Your villain is (almost always) one of the bad people. Your protagonist stands for the right, and your villain stands for the wrong, and a well-aimed zinger is a shot for justice.

So What’s Wrong With That?

Nothing’s wrong with that, if you have all the facts. If you know exactly who’s right and who’s wrong. And you do know that in a novel, because you created the storyworld. You are the God of your storyworld; you are omniscient; you can set things up so there is a clear right side and a clear wrong side.

And you control how high the temperature goes in your novel. You can set things up with a zinger, and maybe a counterzinger, and maybe even a final countercounterzinger. But when the temperature has risen to just to the right point, you get to decide when to drop it down again. Because you’re God. It’s your story, so you set the limits. You choose how much mud will be slung, and then you stop the action.

Real life is a little more complicated than that. In real life, you and I are not God. We’re not omniscient. We sometimes make mistakes. (At least I do; I’m betting you do too.)

In real life, when we get into an argument, it’s likely that both sides actually have some valid points to make. Because both sides bring different life experiences to the table. You know stuff I don’t. I know stuff you don’t.

Now let’s suppose you and I get into a zinger fight. Let’s say that I simplify your position to make it sound as dumb as possible, and then I shoot a zinger at you. You very rightly get angry that I misrepresented your case, so you respond in kind. You simplify my position to make it sound as dumb as possible, and then you fire a zinger back at me. Maybe you even escalate it a bit. Then I escalate it more with my own zinger.

The problem now is there’s no limit. We can keep escalating it until everyone’s furious. God doesn’t usually step in to lower the temperature. Everyone keeps slinging mud until they’re all covered with it, and they’ve forgotten what the argument was about in the first place.

Zingers raise the temperature without limit. Zingers kill rational discussion. Zingers make real life worse, not better.

One major problem with social media is that it promotes zingers. The social media algorithms reward and amplify outrage.

Here’s how it works.

Somebody posts a zinger on a social media platform. It’s often about religion or politics, and it’s often a meme that simplifies and misrepresents somebody else’s beliefs into something ridiculous. Then it skewers that misrepresentation.

If nobody responded to the zinger post, it would just die. But if it’s outrageous enough, somebody on the other side will get angry, and they’ll respond with their own zinger. The algorithm notices this and shows it to more people. Then the original poster responds with a new zinger. That’s more juice for the algorithm, and it shows the post to more people. And so it escalates.

The more the temperature rises, the more responses the post gets, and the more the algorithm shows it around, and the more people get angry.

Is this sounding familiar?

The social media platforms love outrage, because outrage means engagement, and engagement means eyeballs, and eyeballs mean advertising dollars.

But all that outrage just turns social media into a toxic pit that nobody likes. A place where everyone is angry. Where everyone’s blood pressure is up. Where the only winner is the billionaire who runs the social media platform.

Yeah, But There’s Nothing We Can Do About It

It’s easy to think that we have no control here. Zingers are gonna zing, and we can’t stop them.

Actually, we can do something about it. Anyone can choose to opt out of the zinger lifestyle. Anyone can quench the zingers in their own personal world. Anyone can help make the world a better place.

Anyone can do that by adopting a few simple rules. Here are the ones I’ve adopted recently, which you might find useful.

Rules For a Zinger-Free World

Don’t post zingers. If you can simplify somebody else’s beliefs down to just a few words that could be zinged, then you probably don’t understand their beliefs. Real beliefs of real people have nuance. Your beliefs have nuance. Mine do. Everybody’s do.
When you see a zinger on social media that enrages you, ignore it. If you have an option to hide it, do so. (This will release one of those feel-good chemicals in your brain, so it’s actually good for you.) The algorithm will take note and show you fewer zingers likely to enrage you. And it will also take note that the post got negative engagement, so it may actually show the post to fewer people.
If you post something on social media, and somebody responds with a zinger, ask yourself if you did something to enrage them. If so, then apologize. If not, then delete the zinger. If you know them, send them a message that you don’t allow zingers on your page. If you don’t know them, post a short message saying that you deleted a zinger because you don’t allow zingers on your page.
If you’re really committed to eliminating zingers, declare your page a zinger-free zone. You may be able to post your own personal rules for a zinger-free world somewhere on your page or your profile. Then you can refer violators to your rules when they complain that you deleted their zinger.

Will Going Zinger-Free Actually Make a Difference?

If you and I are the only people who adopt zinger-free rules, then we’ll each benefit personally. Our blood pressure will be lower. We’ll sleep better. We’ll feel happier. These benefits kick in immediately.

But imagine a world in which most people adopt their own personal set of zinger-free rules. Then the world would become a less hateful place. We’d all be better off. The more people who go zinger-free, the better the world would be. These benefits would take time, because it takes time for new ideas to spread. But the early adopters would benefit most.

Please note that I am not saying nobody should ever discuss controversial ideas. Of course we should. That’s how we learn. That’s how we change. But you can talk about tough subjects without using zingers. And you can refuse to engage with people who want to zing you.

There’s one group who won’t like the idea of a zinger-free world—the billionaires who profit from the outrage. I’m not too worried about them. I bet you aren’t either.

Are you in? Or do you like things the way they are?

More Than Mere Dialogue

February 25, 2016 by Randy Ingermanson 3 Comments

in Dialogue, Fiction Writing

So you’re writing a novel and you want your dialogue to be more than mere dialogue. You want actions. You want thoughts. You want the scene to feel natural. How do you do that?

Andrew posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I have been writing for a few months, and I am still in the beginning stages of my hobby. I try to integrate actions, gestures, and thoughts with my dialogue, but I am having a great deal of difficulty. I normally have to look at Books I read and copy ideas from there. Is there an easy way to find list of different ideas or better yet examples of this kind of information? If I actually knew the technical term for what I was asking for it would be a big help too. Thanks!

Randy sez: Good question, Andrew. It’s not a bad idea to read books and see how they’ve done it. That’s a great way to learn things, because it’s fun to read fiction. What I’ll do here is to summarize all the core ideas for showing your story. Take these ideas and see how your favorite authors put them into practice.

Let’s remember what our goal is in writing fiction: We want to create a movie in our reader’s head. We want to “show” the reader our story, not merely “tell” the story.

That wasn’t the goal of writers 150 years ago. But we’re competing with movies, so that’s our goal.

First, you asked for the right terminology. Here are the terms I use, which are fairly standard. You have five tools for “showing” your reader your story:

Action
Dialogue
Interior Monologue
Interior Emotion
Sensory Description

Yes, there are other tools you can use, such as Narrative Summary or Exposition. There’s a place for these in every novel, but these are called “telling” your story, rather than “showing” your story, and generally it’s a good idea to use “showing” as much as possible—for all the exciting stuff. You can use “telling” for the boring things that have to be told, but need to be told efficiently.

I could write fifty pages on exactly how you use Action, Dialogue, Interior Monologue, Interior Emotion, and Sensory Description in a novel. In fact, I have written just about that many pages already in my book Writing Fiction for Dummies. It would be a stretch to put that much detail in this blog post. But here are a few guidelines that will help you get rolling:

Each scene can have as many characters as you want, but your scene will typically happen in one place and cover just a short period of time.
In every scene, there is one character that’s special—you are going to take the reader inside that character’s skin. This character is called the Point of View character, often abbreviated POV character. Your goal is to show only what the POV character can see, hear, smell, taste, touch, feel, or think. You are trying to create the illusion that your reader is your POV character.
You can switch POV characters when you switch to a new scene, or you can keep the same POV character if you like. It’s up to you. But don’t change POV characters inside the same scene.
Each paragraph should focus either on one character or on the environment.
If a paragraph is focusing on the POV character, then you can show that character’s Actions, Dialogue, Interior Monologue, and Interior Emotion. You can use as many or as few of these tools as you like in the paragraph.
If a paragraph is focusing on some other character, then you can show that character’s Actions and Dialogue and possibly some Sensory Description. But you should only show things that your POV character can see or hear or smell or taste or touch.
If a paragraph is focusing on the environment, then you can show Action and Sensory Description of the environment. Again, only show the things your POV character can see or hear or smell or taste or touch.
If you need a paragraph or two of Narrative Summary or Exposition, put them in, but make them as interesting as you can, because they’re interrupting the movie in your reader’s head.

These are not “Rules.” There aren’t any Rules in fiction. These are rules of thumb that guide you. You can violate any of them that you want, as long as you think it makes the story better. Usually, violating these rules of thumb makes the story worse. Part of the art of fiction is learning when to use the rules of thumb and when to break them.

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer the ones I can, but no guarantees. There are only so many hours in the day.

Avoiding Sameness In Your Dialogue

December 12, 2013 by Randy Ingermanson 4 Comments

in Craft, Dialogue, Fiction Writing

So you’re writing a novel and it’s a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, except that all your characters talk alike. What can you do to avoid that pesky sameness in your dialogue?

Tim posted this question on my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page:

I have a issue with having my characters sound a like. I have great details on each of their personalities but other one secondary character they all seem the Sam. One is the dialogue, how do I make the sound different?

Randy sez: That’s a great question, Tim. It’s a question every novelist faces.

Let’s try to understand first WHY all your characters are sounding alike in their dialogue.

The reason is because all your characters inherit quite a bit of their personality from you. That is necessarily true. Your characters aren’t real. They spring out of your imagination. They exist because you thought them into existence.

Which means they are limited by you and your experiences. If you’re an American and have never met any Germans, it would be really hard for you to write a German character. If you’re a southerner and have never met any yankees, then you’ll have a hard time writing a yankee character.

So the solution to getting rid of the sameness in your dialogue come in two steps:

Meet more people.
Steal their voices.

Let’s look at each of those in a little more detail.

Meet More People

When I say you need to meet more people, I mean people who are different from you. Wildly different. One of the best things I ever did for my writing career was to spend six years at UC Berkeley working on my Ph.D. in physics.

While I was at Berkeley, I met an amazing assortment of people. Panhandlers. Nobel laureates. Religious nuts. Political fanatics on the far right and far left.

My classmates came from all across the US and all around the world. I spent a lot of time with people from China, India, Korea, eastern Europe.

One of my close friends was an 80-year-old woman. Another had cerebral palsy. I had friends getting degrees in history, English literature, engineering. And I was a teaching assistant for a while and wound up trying to explain physics to a lot of normal people who don’t speak math.

I’m an introvert, but in my time at Berkeley, I got a serious education in the enormous differences in how people think. Which comes out in the way they talk.

Steal Their Voices

This has been immensely valuable to me in my fiction writing, because I had a huge number of people whose voices I could steal.

In one of my novels, I needed a cranky old midwife. No problem. One of my best friends at Berkeley was an 80-year-old woman who always said exactly what she was thinking. She didn’t have an internal censor. So when I was writing dialogue for my cranky midwife, I just asked myself how my friend would say it. I’d actually hear her voice in my head and then I’d just write down what she said.

In another book, I had a minor character who was an exuberant extroverted Israeli archaeologist. He spoke English with the same charming accent as my tour guide when I visited Israel. I remember listening to that guide and memorizing the sound of his voice because I knew I was going to put him in a book someday.

Whenever I have a character who’s very different from me, I ask myself what real person I’ve known who was like that character. Then I try to imagine having a conversation with that real person, and listen to their voice. What pet words do they overuse? What slang do they use? How do they think about the world?

Don’t Copy Too Exactly

One thing you want to avoid is trying to reproduce a person’s accent too exactly. If you’ve ever read GONE WITH THE WIND, you probably struggled to understand the way-too-literal reproduction of the speech patterns of slaves from the Civil War era. Every word is misspelled the way it sounds, making it almost unreadable for modern readers. In cases like this, spell the words correctly but misuse the grammar the way the speaker actually says it. That strikes a balance that your reader can understand.

Different people tend to use different thought patterns. Try to capture those as exactly as you can. If you have a character who isn’t very original, he might use a lot of cliches when he talks.

One thing to be wary of is capturing the exact slang-of-the-moment. That might work for a year or two, but slang tends to go out of style pretty quickly and then it sounds dated. So if you’re going to use slang, make it up. Then it can never go out of style.

Tim, I hope that answers your question. You get better at writing dialogue by writing a lot of dialogue. You get better at writing in different voices by writing in different voices.

Naked Dialogue

Here’s an exercise to force you to build your dialogue muscles: Write an entire scene in dialogue without using any tags to identify the characters. This means you can’t use “Joe said” or “Mary said” anywhere in the scene. And you can’t even use action tags, such as “Voldemort slammed his fist on the table.”

You have to write the whole scene in what I call “naked dialogue”–just the dialogue, without action or description or interior monologue or interior emotion or narrative summary or exposition.

It’s hard to do, but it forces you to learn the tricks that help distinguish between your characters’ voices.

You will rarely use naked dialogue in an actual scene of a book, but writing it as an exercise will build your skills in dialogue fast.

If you’ve got a question you’d like me to answer in public on this blog, hop on over to my “Ask A Question For My Blog” page and submit your question. I’ll answer them in the order they come in.

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