On The Nose Dialogue

You can always tell a writer is an amateur once you read the dialogue of any story and the characters are saying exactly what is on their mind.

This is what is known as “On the Nose Dialogue”.

Imagine a scene between two sibling characters being introduced for the first time in a scene and they greet each other “Hello brother…” and the other replies “Hello sister.” In any serious story this would stand out immediately to the average person in a bad way, because not only is it an unnatural way of speaking, but it’s just a bad way to show the audience how these two characters are related.

To take this example further, if these two characters began a conversation about their abusive father and it continued like this:

Brother

So have you seen father?

Sister

No, not since last night when he attacked me again.

Brother

He attacked you again?

Sister

Yes, he came into my bedroom and started up like he always does when he’s drunk….and just started shoving me around and yelling.

Brother

Ever since mom left he’s been like this. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.

Sister

I have been taking it for two years now by myself.

Brother

Because you look just like her. It’s not your fault, but it’s true.

Sister

Lucky me.

Now, maybe on your first draft this might feel okay to you, because you’re trying to get your ideas out of your head and onto the paper. That is fine, as long as you don’t forget to come back and revise this to be more realistic. What currently makes this dialogue feel unrealistic and on the nose?

The writer is doing an exposition dump where they’re making the characters tell the audience what is happening and why

The characters are saying exactly what is in their heads

Aside from the above two points, the conversation is very two-dimensional and flat. It’s boring and if everyone in the story talks like this then your readers will fall asleep pretty fast.