BPS 079: How to Write Dialog that Pops Off the Page with Linda Seger

Today on the show we have returning champion the legendary Linda
Seger. Linda and I discuss her new book You Talkin' to Me?: How to
Write Great Dialogue. We do a deep dive into how to write great
dialog. Here's a bit about the book.

Unlike the chitchat of everyday life, dialogue in stories must
express character, advance the story, suggest a theme, and include
a few memorable lines that audiences will be quoting for decades to
come. The best stories have dialogue that sparkles, but it’s easy
for inexperienced writers to fall into common pitfalls like
creating dialogue that’s wooden or too on the nose.

Other writers end up with exposition awkwardly inserted into
conversations, actors tripping over unnatural phrases or characters
who all speak exactly the same way. In You Talkin’ to Me? Linda
Seger and John Winston Rainey are here to help with all your
dialogue problems. In each chapter, they explore dialogue from a
different angle and discuss examples of great dialogue from films
and novels. To cap it all off, each chapter ends with examples of
poor dialogue, which are annotated by Linda and then rewritten by
John, so readers don’t just learn how to recognize when it’s done
well―they also learn how to make the dialogue better. Whether
you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, for the screen or for the
page, this book will get your characters talking.

Ron Howard says he never starts a film without her book. Having
authored nine books on scriptwriting, including the best
selling Making A Good Script Great, Linda is one of the
most prolific writers in her field. 

Enjoy my conversation with Linda Seger.

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