One of my clients, who is an attorney, questioned me recently on the use of dialogue. Trained to be precise, she was uneasy when I transformed long passages of narrative into lively dialogue. Her memoir was about events that took place several years before, and she was worried that the dialogue was not completely accurate.
I reassured her that no one would hold her to a legal standard and expect every piece of dialogue to be exact. To ease her mind, I suggested that her book could include a disclaimer that the story is true and she has included details to the best of her recollection. What matters most is how she shared her story to make it easy for the reader and to engage, entertain, and inform them.
Picture two versions of the same scene. In the first, you read: “Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.”
In the second version, you read,
“Hey Jack, I’ll race you to the top of the hill.”
“Jill, it is very steep. We need to go slow.”
“Mom told us to bring the water back fast. Let’s go.”
They raced up the hill, leaping over rocks.
“Oh, Jill”, said Jack as he slipped on wet rocks, “I hit my head. I’m bleeding.”
“Oh no, Jack, let me help you,” exclaimed Jill. As she bent over to help Jack, she too slipped and went tumbling down the hill.
Both versions convey the same basic information. Only one of them puts you in the scene. That’s the power of dialogue, and it’s why writers who lean too heavily on pure narrative often end up with prose that feels distant, even when the events they’re describing are dramatic.
Dialogue Puts Your Reader in the Room
“Show, don’t tell” applies to using dialogue to illustrate your points. Narrative summary (telling) tells the reader what happened. Dialogue (showing) lets them witness it.
Dialogue is one of the most effective tools for showing a reader what the writer wants to convey. A line like “she was sarcastic” is a claim you’re asking the reader to trust. A line of genuinely sarcastic dialogue is proof you’re putting directly in front of them.
When you summarize a conversation, you’re standing between the reader and the moment, filtering everything through your own interpretation. When you provide dialogue directly, you step aside. The reader sees the characters’ actual words, observes their rhythms and hesitations, and draws their own conclusions about what’s really going on beneath the surface.
Dialogue Reveals Character Without Explanation
Every person speaks differently. Word choice, sentence length, what someone chooses to say and what they conspicuously avoid saying — all of this builds character faster and more convincingly than paragraphs of description ever could.
Dialogue Creates Pace and Tension
Pure narrative tends to move at a single, steady speed. Dialogue introduces rhythm. Short, clipped exchanges can quicken a scene’s tempo and build tension — think of the back-and-forth in an argument, courtroom testimony, or an interrogation, where each short line ratchets up the pressure. Longer passages slow things down for a moment of reflection or persuasion.
Dialogue also creates natural white space on the page. Paragraph after paragraph of dense narrative can be visually and mentally exhausting. I am constantly breaking long paragraphs into short ones to make it easier for the reader. Dialogue breaks up the text and gives the reader’s eye a place to rest.
Dialogue Builds Immediacy and Conflict
Conflict is the engine of most compelling writing, whether it’s fiction, a personal essay, or even a piece of narrative journalism. Two people disagreeing on the page, in their own words, create friction that a narrator’s summary of that disagreement simply can’t match. You won’t need to spell it out that the two characters clashed — your reader watches it unfold, complete with the specific words chosen to wound, deflect, or persuade.
Dialogue also reveals humor, tenderness, and vulnerability. A joke lands harder when we hear the actual punchline instead of reading, “he made a funny remark.”
A confession feels more intimate when we read the halting, imperfect way someone actually admits something difficult, rather than a tidy narrative summary of the admission.
When Narrative Still Matters
None of this means narrative summary is a weakness you should avoid. Good writing needs both. Narrative is essential for compressing time, providing context, and moving a story forward efficiently — nobody wants a transcript of every mundane exchange a character has. The writer’s skill lies in knowing when a moment deserves the immediacy of dialogue and when it’s better served by a quick summary that keeps the story moving.
The most effective writers treat dialogue as a spotlight. They use narrative to set the stage and manage pacing across longer stretches, then bring the spotlight up for the moments that matter most — the confrontation, the confession, the joke that changes the mood of a room.
If your writing feels flat despite writing about interesting events, look at how you are using narrative versus dialogue. Are you showing, not telling? Try converting a key moment of summary into a scene with fast-paced dialogue, complete with the specific words your characters would say, the way they’d say them, and what they’d leave unsaid. You’ll likely find that the scene breathes in a way pure narrative never could — because readers don’t just want to know what happened. They want to be there when it did.
After reassuring my client, she thanked me for my insight and accepted the dialogue I crafted for her. We both breathed a sigh of relief.
Pat Iyer MSN RN LNCC is a consultant, speaker, author, editor and book coach. She has written or edited 73 of her own books and worked with dozens of authors as an editor. Her most recent books include AI-Powered Video for LNCs book and workbook. She is the author of Blogging for Legal Nurse Consultants: Share Your Knowledge and Attract Clients
Pat is an Amazon international #1 bestselling author. Coaches, consultants, and speakers hire Pat to help release the knowledge inside them so that they can attract their ideal clients.
She delights in assisting people to share their expertise by writing. Pat serves international and national experts as an editor, book coach, and a medical and business writer.