 When it comes to writing SCPs a lot of people will ask how do I write a good Exploration or an interview log and the thing about an exploration or interview log is that they usually contain quite a lot of dialogue And an interview log is nothing but dialogue. So the real question they're asking is well, how do I write good dialogue? So let's talk about that. Well first I'm gonna talk about the fact that there's a lot of things that go into good dialogue so many in fact that this probably is Going to become a multi-part series and this is more of a summary of the basic points that we're going to talk about and each Individual point will probably get its own video and first we can talk about what subtext means when it comes to dialogue Basically subtext is just the real meaning behind the line And this is something that can best be established by events that lead up to a piece of dialogue So if a cop pulls someone over we just saw drinking in a previous scene and the cop asked that driver if they've been drinking They will say no, but we understand the subtext of the lines the cop can smell the alcohol It's why he asked the question the man knows he's drunk and doesn't want to get arrested So he says no But if the cop walks up to the car and says you're drunk and the man says yes I am then the exchange loses the subtext and furthermore the above scene can also establish Conflict which is another important point between the two characters The cop wants to arrest this man for driving drunk and the man needs to avoid getting arrested So that's their conflict and conflict drives all scenes even dialogue heavy ones where nothing else is happening on screen Having two characters that want different things will help you understand Why they say the things they do and how they might even say them But dialogue can serve multiple purposes for you It can be useful in establishing a character's wants and needs obviously, but it can also establish and continue a conflict It can also be subtly expositional and dialogue must be absolutely entertaining on some level so that's why actual realism again another point that probably deserves its own video in Your dialogue is to be avoided at all cost. You don't want actual realism Normal speech in general is just not very entertaining now You've known people who could command attention with just their words and you've met people who you could listen to for hours But the average person's conversation is simply not very entertaining We get distracted we interrupt each other and never finish our thoughts. We repeat ourselves We fail to communicate what we actually want to say so realistic dialogue is boring and frustrating But why do we think of good dialogue is more realistic the core that disconnect lies in what we call the semblance of realism And there's actually a specific word for this it goes for a lot of what you need to understand about writing in general especially things like clinical tone for the SCP wiki Parissimilitude and that's the appearance of realism, which is specifically differentiated from actual realism But more to the point good dialogue will often be a Confluence of the semblance of realism with the good use of subtext and as you can imagine These things are interrelated because real speech contains subtext and once you understand that How do we apply that to the work? Well, the SCP wiki is flash fiction and I make this point over and over again in my videos because it's critically important to understand the Difference between the SCP wiki and a novel or a script or even a short story But every line of dialogue in those longer forms has to matter it has to be useful for something But in your works, which are a fraction of a fraction of the length of those It's even more important because every line you write Absolutely must serve some important purpose But don't think of dialogue as only something that you use to communicate information to an audience Yes, you will use it to communicate information to an audience But all dialogue should originate from a character keep what you want to say in mind obviously But recognize that the people in the page are characters with wants and needs of their own You can use them to tell the audience things but only if it fits that character and since this kind of writing has a very quick Turnaround you'll probably need to develop some tricks to give an illusion of death where there sometimes might not actually be any And for me that means usually picking a quirk You can usually develop a character more if you have more page space for them later Like if you write a tale about them or you decide to make the article longer But every character should have a noticeable and recognizable quirk from the outset that differentiates them from everyone else They don't all have to be completely different people there can be some overlap But there needs to be something it could be an English accent It could be a laid-back demeanor or maybe the character is a nervous talker One thing I found particularly useful in quickly building a character is picking something from a list and you can create as long a list As you'd like I think things like say that seven deadly sins or seven heavenly virtues are a good place to start And that's 14 different quirks immediately useful to building a character sloth means your character Maybe she's a little lazy wrath means that character. Well, maybe he's quick to anger Patience well, let me that means that character is well, you know patient The point is these can be built into a character's DNA from the get-go And if you ever do build on them later, they can become cornerstones of your character's development Perhaps most importantly you have to let those factors inform the dialogue you craft for that character And we've covered a lot of things very quickly So I'm gonna summarize them before we go your dialogue needs to seem realistic But not actually be realistic it needs to have subtext it needs to serve some purpose for your story And with the addition of just one or two noticeable traits your dialogue and characters will seem much more realistic Now I could go on longer for this topic and I probably will in future videos like I said But for now we're gonna leave it here if you liked it You can join my patreon at patreon.com for slash de-samaritan along with these fine folk links to that will be in the description below and at The end of the video Thanks so much for watching