: Re: How to plan dialog and keep it on track? When I'm writing a plotline, it often works out that I know two characters will be meeting each other in a particular scene, and that they will converse.

@Debbie451

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A little riffing, a little planning.

I tend to sketch out a scene in notes and bullets beforehand, so I know more or less where it's going and what I want to accomplish. I'm "watching" the characters interact in my head as I'm jotting down notes, and sometimes entire exchanges come out of that.

Once I've roughed out the scene, then I can go back and tweak to make sure it does what I need it to do, and that the characters are true to how I've envisioned them. Sometimes I have to back up and say, "But Malcolm wouldn't pry like that. This whole section has to go" (massive deletion of text) "so how would he get Charles to open up?"

How the people actually get to where I'm aiming them is all ad libbing, but you should have a good idea of each character's voice so that it doesn't take you by surprise or wander off into the living room. You should know them, as people, and be able to predict how they're going to react.

If you don't know your characters well enough, you have to go back and spend some time with them — maybe doing those silly personal quizzes which get emailed around, answering it in the voice of each character. (I actually find those incredibly helpful.)

So your questions about when they would start and stop talking is up to you, or up to them, in a sense. Those questions aren't going to be answered necessarily by just clattering away at the keyboard like an infinite monkey and hoping that A Midsummer Night's Dream comes out. You have to figure out how your character is going to react to your other character, and write the scene accordingly.

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