Talk It Out: When Your Dialogue Won’t Work, Say It Out Loud

You know what the scene needs to do. The structure is solid. The tension is right there, waiting. But the dialogue? Flat. Mechanical. A little too clever or a little too clean.

It’s one of the most frustrating moments in screenwriting. You know the emotional target. You know what needs to be said, or what absolutely shouldn’t be. But on the page, the characters feel like they’re delivering lines, not living them.

That’s when we stop trying to write it better and start saying it out loud.

Not in our heads. Not on the page. Out loud. To ourselves. In public, if necessary.

Why Dialogue Breaks

Dialogue fails when we try to control it too tightly. We make it carry too much plot. We write lines that explain instead of reveal. We get stuck in the mechanics instead of the emotion. Sometimes we write what the character should say instead of what they would say. And that difference? It’s everything.

Calle Aldama, San Miguel de Allende

When we're stuck, we walk. Personally, I pace my apartment. Sometimes, I wander along Calle Aldama talking to myself, notebook in hand. I play both parts of the conversation. I improvise. I raise my voice. I argue. I repeat lines different ways until something cracks open.

It’s messy. It’s weird. It works.

Say It Like You Mean It

Try this. Don’t write the scene. Perform it.

Here’s the setup: Your character just found out her best friend lied to her about something that matters. You know the scene has to move their relationship into a darker place. You want pain, betrayal, a loss of trust.

Now try it a few different ways out loud.

Try it angry: "You lied to my face. Not once. Not in passing. You sat across from me and made me believe it."

Try it quiet, almost kind: "You knew what that would do to me. And you did it anyway."

Try it deflecting with humor: "Wow. I was worried this coffee would be too bitter, but here you are."

Try letting the other person say it first. Let your protagonist react, not lead."I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d look at me like this."

Suddenly, the emotional possibilities widen. What felt stiff becomes fluid. The characters surprise you. And that surprise? That’s where real dialogue lives.

Silence Is Dialogue Too

Sometimes what’s most powerful isn’t the line that lands, but the one that doesn’t get said. When you talk it out, you start to feel the tension in the unsaid. You notice where a character might stop themselves. Where they almost speak the truth, but don’t. Try saying it, then taking it back. Try pausing mid-line. Try letting a sigh be the whole response. If you act it out loud, you’ll find where the dialogue wants to break and where it finally breathes.

A Scene That Surprised Me

One scene that caught me off guard was the first moment we meet a married couple who’ve just arrived in San Miguel. They’ve come to start over by restoring a historic cantina, but their marriage is already frayed. I knew I wanted the husband to be unlikeable, but not completely alienating. He needed to be rough, frustrated, on edge from the heat and the long drive. My plan was to give him a short fuse. A bit of complaining. A bad joke maybe.

But when I spoke the scene out loud, a different version showed up. He said something racist. Casually. Just a muttered comment that made me stop cold.

It wasn’t in my plan. It wasn’t even something I would have written intentionally. But when I heard it, I knew it was honest. It was ugly, but real. And what surprised me more was how his wife responded. She didn’t react. She didn’t scold him. She didn’t even flinch. She just turned away. That was the moment the dynamic between them became clear. This wasn’t new. It was just who he was. And she was too tired to correct it anymore.

I had planned for conflict. What I found was erosion. Not an explosion, but a long, quiet wearing down. And it completely changed how I wrote the rest of their scenes.

Final Thought

If your dialogue isn’t working, stop trying to fix it on the page. Say it. Out loud. Let it be messy. Let it be wrong. Let your characters surprise you. That’s usually when the scene starts to feel real.

Talk it out. They will talk back.

Excerpt from "Buried in Light," a Neo-noir Melodrama ©Lorraine Flett