: Re: Developing a dialogue that unexpectedly leads to strong feelings between two strangers A short story I'm writing involves a stage in which the male protagonist talks to a stranger with the intent

@Nickens642

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The tropes

In my opinion this is a variation of love at first sight, and of engaging conversation. The latter can be summarised by a climatic conversation ending with a love epiphany, and even a marriage proposal. The trope takes the OP's question to the extreme, but it is fitting nonetheless.

The main drawback is that an 'engaging conversation' trope can sound shallow. The shallowness is that in order to make it believable that one character can fall in love with a stranger during a conversation you would need to provide quite a good depth to both characters, and show the readers that this depth is well perceived by both. The alternative is the equivalent of a teenager crush for a postcard with the portrait of a pinup model.

Progression from a stiff start

Starting from a stiff conversation with a stranger, and ending with a reasonable attraction toward said stranger requires glancing into the depth of their persona. Perhaps even more than glancing. Both the character and the reader need to have a good grasp of the depth of the love-interest.

To show this you could try to:

place either of both characters in a situation in which they need to vent their emotions, e.g. happy or sad events, but no one to share them with. The conversation may still begin with a stiff start, but with a well placed trigger, you can switch to the sharing part, during which the interesting part of the conversation begins.
have a third character opposing/attacking one of the two characters. It does not need to be a physical attack. The verbal defence of your character should be constructed to show their depth of values and thoughts. Your first character can now pick from there and build a connection.
make one character particularly inquisitive, with very deliberate questions. Make the other character thoughtful, and very willing to share. This should be personality traits established in earlier parts of your writing in order to not surprise the reader. During the conversation you can push this further and reach the limit of the comfort zone of an average person: your other character reacts positively to it, and it all turns into a very intriguing conversation rather than an interrogatory.
None of the above. Play it naturally, simply through the shape and rhythm of the dialogue. Show the increasing interest of the two characters toward each other by lengthening their exchange, and by choice of semantics: at the beginning their conversation is a rapid fire full of facts and mono-syllables, by the end each of them engages in longer expositions of their thoughts and feelings. In the very end, when they find their connection and may feel shy to reveal it, they revert to long silences, stretched mono-syllables, and future tenses of wishes, dreams and desires.

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