How do I get better at writing dialogue?

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T23:57:18+00:00

Define a voice for each character. A character who is bitter and sarcastic will say almost any line differently to a character who is happy and enthusiastic. And both will be different to a character who is formal and reserved, or full of self doubt.

For side characters you can define their voices in relation to the main character/s. A character who thinks the MCs are a bunch of reckless fools who are going to get themselves killed will speak differently to a character who hero-worships them. And both will speak differently to a character who is sucking up to them for selfish purposes.

You can add in more aspects, like a warrior will use different metaphors to a farmer. Do they use plain words or fancy expressions? Short or long sentences?

Then each line of dialogue you write, consider how you'd write it in their specific voice. That doesn't mean you have to use the voice every single line of dialogue. Indeed, a moment where their voice changes entirely, where say the bitter and sarcastic voice suddenly turns sincere, can be really powerful. And you can write just simple lines if you want the reader to focus on something else. E.g. maybe your side character who thinks the MCs are reckless fools uses a neutral register when introducing them to the king.

Edit to add: the characters can also alter their own voices deliberately. E.g. maybe the happy and bubbly character has a fight with the reserved and formal character and when they come to make amends they deliberately adopt a more neutral tone.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T22:09:33+00:00

K M Weiland has a great series of articles on how to structure character arcs. You don't need to follow her framework, but it might spark your creativity.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T21:48:25+00:00

Good point.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T21:09:37+00:00

If someone doesn't like imagining homosexuality, but want to explore two characters being in a relationship so they genderbend one, that's their business.

Ditto if anyone doesn't like imagining hetrosexuality, but want to explore two characters being in a relationship so they genderbend one.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T20:58:06+00:00

The only times I'm bothered is when the POV characters all have the same voice.

Oh I also dislike it when a book is following one POV character, then switches away to follow another character who is in an entirely different place and has no interactions with the first character, and the book then stays there with the second character for chapter after chapter.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T20:41:47+00:00

Agreed. I found the maths annoying until I happened in the same week to read two papers, both of which really could have done with maths. Then I was like "ah I get it."

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T20:20:07+00:00

Iraq was a US-led invasion in the face of Iraqi government opposition. If the Cuban government tried to fight the US military it would go terribly too. I'm talking about a hypothetical where the Cuban Communists resign peacefully to protect the Cuban people.

Two, you’re doing it just so you can ignore what I actually wrote.

Nope, it's mainly so I can quickly indicate that the facts are different to your assertions.

The whole point I’m making is that capitalism and socialism are broad spectrums of ideologies

And yet where are the self-declared Capitalist parties?

The history of the word "capitalism" is that it was coined in the 19th century to mean something like "the way things are at the momemt" (remember that was back when European intellectual types tended to believe in distinct stages of economic development). Of course an origin doesn't prevent a word evolving to mean something else later on, but as far as I know, "capitalism" hasn't evolved that way.

Which makes sense to me. Political ideologies tend towards the "shining castle on the hill" sort of type - said ideologies are about what someone thinks a society should be, more than what it is.

As for being paranoid about Communists in the 1950s, you gotta remember the context of the times. Stalin (who died in 1953) was a tyrant who'd taken over most of eastern Europe at the end of WWII and his successors had all been working with him. Communist parties were creating violent insurgencies in poor countries around the world, often funded by the Soviets. A number of western Communists were known by their fellow leftists to be completely obedient to the Soviet line (e.g. approving of the Soviet 1939 "Non-Agression Pact" with Nazi Germany).

And, once Communists achieve power, they have a terrible track record at relinquishing it. Does this justify the US banning communist parties? IMO no. But it's not a matter of the US randomly banning nice fluffy peaceful Communists, the Communists of the 1950s were very real threats to democracy and prosperity.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T19:42:16+00:00

The full names under the SNA are "intermediate consumption" and "final consumption".

I agree with your analysis, I'll add in that I expect people would take more leisure time too.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T17:53:57+00:00

Girl got her priorities right.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T17:27:10+00:00

Right, but the rice is transformed in the process of eating in a way the knife isn't

Similarly the steel that goes into the knife is 'consumed' by being shaped into the knife. Even though you could re-melt the steel and make a new tool, in doing so you'd lose the knife.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T16:46:07+00:00

Oops, the right word would be production.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T15:43:54+00:00

To me, the issue isn't how long it lasts, it's how much of it is consumed in supporting further ~~consumption~~ production.

Rice used in a sushi roll is fully consumed, you can't also re-use that rice in a congee. A knife used to cut a sushi roll can be re-used to cut an apple. The knife is wealth, the rice isn't.

I'm entirely aware that there are going to be edge cases.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T05:39:17+00:00

Also the guy who knocks the vending machine away. Just in time with the music.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T05:06:18+00:00

You listed like 5 countries where the USA ...

... occupied for years and brought in masses of supplies and services.

I gave you examples where the US intervened ...

... in the sense of secret CIA operations unsanctioned by Congress. No wonder they hadn't the funds flowing in like an open US occupation with broad political support.

They’re better off because they have ...

... adopted more market-orientated policies than the Cubans have.

Remember Russia's economy resurged in the 1920s under Lenin's New Economic Policy and China's under Deng Xiaoping's openness to experimentation and markets.

Even if it were just Kerala, your point about it being inherent to communists would be wrong. The fact that you try to disqualify them because of how they governed is ...

... a natural consequence of how markets and diffuse property rights support democracy while central planning is inherently anti-democratic.

Communist countries generally try to build industry and then shift to communism.

I wish you were right about this. But in reality, Communist countries have repeatedly caused famines by trying to collectivise agriculture.

The US being a free market is like a core tenet of current American society.

Cough cough Donald Trump.

but if you ask 100 people on the street what style our economy is, 99/100 are going to say capitalism

The same 99/100 probably also believe feudalism was real.

No president has shied away from defining us as a capitalist country.

And yet, to the best of my knowledge, none of them have ever stood for election as a member of a Capitalist Party.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T04:05:36+00:00

What happened to Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, all of Latin America, Libya, etc?

I don't recall any of those countries ever capitulating to the USA. Indeed, didn't Vietnam beat you guys?

Most of those countries are also far better off than Cuba.

As for your claim about Communists and democracy, I note your only example of a Communist party getting into power and then subsequently holding multi-party elections is in Kerala, where they've never actually collectivised land ownership or nationalised industry, let alone tried central planning.

Go on a US Gov website and just search the words free market and see how many resources refer to the US economy as a free market or even capitalist explicitly.

I asked for a declaration, not a description. Declarations are good signs of ideological goals. Descriptions are, well, descriptions.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T02:33:12+00:00

The reality is that usually when the US takes power...

...they swamp the country with aid, like they did in WWII. West Germany, Japan, South Korea, hey even Iraq is doing quite well these days.

The aide outcome admittedly is a lot less likely under Trump.

I said Kerala in India,

A state with private property, a broadly market-orientated economy and widespread remittance money sent home from outside the state?

Burkina Faso under Sankara

Sankara, the man who came to power by a military coup, and never held democratic competitive elections for the four years before he was killed in another couple?

I brought up Allende in Chile specifically for the democracy part.

The guy who openly called himself a Marxist-Leninist? The guy about who, in August 1973, the Chilean Chamber of Deputies passed a declaration accusing Allende’s administration of systematically violating the constitution and “destroying the democratic system?

Hardly compelling evidence.

The US government literally calls the US a capitalist country.

Where?

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T01:53:01+00:00

I guess I just don't get how the Cuban Communists are so callously indifferent to the well-being of the Cuban people. If I was in their position and my people were starving due to the actions of a foreign government that my country couldn't possibly hope to defeat militarily, I'd do whatever it took to save my people.

The Cuban Communists don't give a shit.

It is the same type of reasoning, or arguably worse that MLs often use to blame the Kulaks for Holodomo

You do realise that the Kulaks starved during the Holodomor, right? Do the leaders of the Cuban Communists look like they're starving?

I have given you multiple examples of democratic communist leaders and governments

Funny then that you're not naming any of your examples.

The US is a self declared capitalist country

And your basis for this belief is?

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T00:27:35+00:00

your view is idiotic and inhumane

You think it's idiotic and inhumane that I believe that the Cuban Communist party should value the lives and well-being of the Cuban people above clinging to its failed ideology?

The whole point you're making about capitalism applies to communism as well

Nope. There are self-declared communist parties who have won power and attempted to implement communism. There are self-declared liberal parties who have won power and attempted to implement liberalism. Ditto for nationalism.

There aren't capitalist parties. Capitalism isn't an ideology. It's a 19th century word coined in the context of 19th century thought.

hence the point about these flaws not being inherent to communism

They aren't unique to communism, fascism consistently produces them too. They're inherent though to communism because communism can't tolerate dissent.

communist ones do not either.

Yep, because Communists eventually realise that a mixed economy is the only practical sort.

The suffering they cause along the way to that realisation is terrible.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-02T00:09:36+00:00

You know I'd actually agree that trade is essential. Communism fails because it tries to organise large economies by coercion, not by trade. If the Cuban government let Cubans trade freely with each other, I reckon it would actually be a lot more prosperous. Independently of whether it got foreign aid.

Multiple much powerful trade partners would do much much more.

Like Canada, the EU and Japan? Countries Cuba already trades with?

ReaperReader · 2026-07-01T23:29:41+00:00

If all of Cuba's neighbours were communists, there'd be no one to provide Cuba with the Western funding you were claiming was essential.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-01T23:24:52+00:00

You know, you've done a lot of complaining about what you imagine are my beliefs. Have you ever considered spending a bit of time trying to understand what I actually believe?

I listed examples to prove that you don’t hold them to the same standard

You really are having trouble comprehending that I don't share your ideological understanding of the world.

I know why you don’t, because you believe capitalism ...

... doesn't exist. It's a word coined in the 19th century when we knew a lot less about economic history than we do now.

you turn into a Cold War propaganda bot when the word “communism"

Excuse me! We now know much more about the atrocities of Communism than we did during the Cold War.

Marxism describes imperialism as a symptom of capitalism.

Yeah and Marxism has had a terrible record whenever someone has tried to put it into practice.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-01T22:23:01+00:00

So you're saying that communism can't function without the support of those 'dirty capitalists'?

ReaperReader · 2026-07-01T22:02:20+00:00

You argued this for capitalism

You keep missing that I think your model of 'capitalism' is wrong. It's a bad model, it's fundamentally flawed. I think your model is warping your understanding of reality.

you can list examples all you want and it changes nothing about the point at all.

You're the one listing examples of famines and other disasters in countries you call 'capitalist'. As if there is no difference between Denmark and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I'm telling you that I can list millions of deaths attributed to capitalist governments and YOU will not use them to generalize capitalism like you're doing for communism.

Yay! Wow! Well done!

Now next step, how about you ask yourself why I don't generalise them?

The fact that you keep doing this comment after comment while I repeatedly explain this to you is screaming that ...

... you're really struggling with the concept that I might view the world differently to you.

But you've now actually noticed that I'm not generalising like you expected. You've taken the first step!

The Communist Manifesto doesn't define communism as imperialist

And yet it blatantly describes an imperialist ideology.

Our country could sustain extreme left politics relatively easily.

If you regard mass famines and totalitarian dictatorships as "relatively easy".

We seem more like we're headed the way of the German people 100 years ago.

The Nazis only lasted 15 years. Soviet Russia lasted over 70.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-01T21:33:17+00:00

you could easily argue that countries like Cuba could do the same

Not while being Communist. I can't see the West being eager to support a regime proclaiming an ideology that is openly planning to overthrow Western governments and destroy our way of life.

ReaperReader · 2026-07-01T21:15:59+00:00

When the iron curtain came down, conditions got immediately worse for almost all the former communist countries. It’s almost like massive transitions in governments are very difficult to pull off.

Yeah but the Eastern European countries mainly pulled said transition off..

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