The Full Definition of Dialogue, Robert McKee, Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Art for the Page, Stage, and Screen, p. 3–5
Dialogue: Any words said by any character to anyone.
Tradition defines dialogue as talk between characters. I believe, however, that an all-encompassing, in-depth study of dialogue begins by stepping back to the widest possible view of storytelling. From that angle, the first thing I notice is that character talk runs along three dinstinctly differents tracks: said to others, said to oneself, and said to the reader or audience.
I place these three models of talk under the term “dialogue” for two reasons: First, no matter when, where, and to whom a character speaks, the writer must personalize the role with a unique, character-specific voice worded in text. Second, whether mental or vocal, whether thought inside the mind or said out into the world, all speech is an outward execution of an inner action. All talk responds to a need, engages a purpose, and performs an action. No matter how seemingly vague and airy a speech may be, no character ever talks to anyone, even to himself, for no reason, to do nothing. Therefore, beneath every line of character talk, the writer must create a desire, intent and action. That action then becomes the verbal tactic we call dialogue.
Let’s survey the three tracks of dialogue:
One, talk to others. The accurate term for two-way talk is duo-logue. Three characters in conversation would generate a trialogue. A family of a dozen souls gathered for Thanksgiving Day dinner might be called a multilogue, if such term existed.
Two, talk within oneself. Screenwriters seldom ask characters to talk to themselves; playwrights, on the other hand, often do. As for prose writers, mental talk is the stuff and substance of their art. Prose has the power to invade a character’s mind and project inner conflict across the landscape of thought. Whenever an author tells his story in a first-person or second-person voice, that voice belongs to a character. Prose, therefore, often fills with reflexive, self-to-self dialogue that the reader, as it were, overhears.
Three, talk to readers and audiences. In the theatre, the conventions of soliloquy and aside allow characters to turn directly to the audience and talk in confidence. In television and film, this convention usually puts the character offscreen to talk voice-over, but occasionally calls for the character to turn to the camera in direct address. In prose, this is the essence of first-person prose — the character tells his tale to the reader.
The etymology of the word “dialogue” traces back to two Greek terms: dia-, meaning “through”, and legein, referring to “speech”. These two terms translated directly into English become the compound noun “through-speech” — an action taken through words as opposed to deeds. Every line a character speaks, whether spoken aloud to others or silently in the mind, is, in J.L. Austin’s term, a performative: words that perfom a task.
To say something is to do something, and for that reason, I have expanded my redefinition of dialogue to name any and all words said by a character to herself, to others, or to the reader/audience as an action taken to satisfy a need or desire. In all three cases, when a character speaks, she acts verbally as opposed to physically, and each of her through-speech actions moves the scene she’s in from one beat to the next, while at the same time, it dynamically propels her closer to (positive) or further from (negative) the satisfaction of her core desire. Dialogue-as-action is the foundation principle of this book.
Dialogue carries out its action in one of two ways: dramatized or narratized.
