Dialogue

The words characters speak to each other. Best when it carries more than it says, and trusts the audience with the rest.

Dialogue is speech under compression: it must sound like people talking while doing work talk never does, advancing story, betraying character, planting what later pays. The realism is an illusion of rhythm; transcribed actual conversation is unusable on arrival.

Carrying more than it says is the craft of subtext: characters speak around what they mean, and the audience, decoding, becomes complicit. Lines that state feeling directly close the gap the viewer wanted to cross. The trust transfers everywhere words are set: copy that explains everything respects no one; the best lines leave room.