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About this lesson
Make your stories more interesting by acting out your characters - they're always more interesting than a narrator.
Quick reference
Dialogue Will Bring Your Stories to Life
Want to instantly make your stories more dynamic and memorable? Add dialogue. When you bring conversations into your storytelling, your delivery becomes more natural, expressive, and interesting — and your audience pays more attention.
Why Dialogue Works
- Dialogue adds variety and realism to your delivery.
- It breaks the monotony of narration by changing tone, pace, and rhythm.
- It naturally introduces pauses, gestures, and vocal variety.
- You sound more confident and engaged — even if you're not trying.
Dialogue Is More Engaging Than Narration
- Narrating a story (e.g. “She asked me a question. I answered...”) can sound flat and generic.
- Using direct dialogue (e.g. “She said, ‘What’s the most important part?’ I said, ‘It’s dialogue.’”) is much more vivid.
- Dialogue helps your audience visualize the scene and the people involved.
It’s Easier Than You Think
- We already use dialogue when telling stories informally: “You won’t believe what she said to me...”
- Instead of explaining what happened, reenact what was said.
- You don’t need to be a performer — just repeat the real conversation as you remember it.
Dialogue Helps You Move and Connect
- Switching between characters (even subtly) helps your body language become more expressive.
- It also helps slow you down — adding natural pauses that improve your pacing.
The Bottom Line
- If you want to make your story more interesting, use dialogue.
- According to TJ, it’s nearly impossible to add dialogue and not improve your story.
- 00:04 I was conducting a public speaking workshop in Thailand not that long ago.
- 00:09 And one of the students, Samantha, said, TJ, what's really the most important part of telling a story?
- 00:16 And I said, Samantha, it's the dialogue.
- 00:18 You got to have dialogue.
- 00:19 And she said, well, why do I need that?
- 00:22 Can I just be the narrator?
- 00:24 Can I just explain it?
- 00:25 And I said, well, Samantha, you could.
- 00:27 But guess what?
- 00:28 It's not as interesting.
- 00:30 And she said why and -- time out.
- 00:35 You see what I'm doing there?
- 00:36 I'm actually using dialogue to talk about dialogue.
- 00:39 What most people do is they want to just explain things as the narrator.
- 00:44 If I were doing the exact same thing but as the narrator, I would say recently I had a workshop in Thailand.
- 00:51 A student of mine, Samantha, asked what was the most important part about stories, and I explained that it was telling stories.
- 00:59 She inquired further.
- 01:01 And I see how boring that is.
- 01:04 When you're the narrator, everything comes out more monotone, everything comes out sort of plain.
- 01:13 Your speed becomes more consistent, your tone is more consistent.
- 01:17 It's frankly more boring when you're doing dialogue, it's more concrete.
- 01:25 You're actually saying what you said to the person, what you said back, and this creates more variety with your voice.
- 01:34 It naturally puts in pauses.
- 01:36 It's easier to use the full range of your voice without even trying.
- 01:40 You're more likely to change your voice to be more like the other person you were talking with.
- 01:46 So it creates tremendous variety, makes it more interesting, puts in more pauses, and typically, again, without even being aware of it, your body moves as you're one character, and the other, your body moves more.
- 02:01 That makes you look more confident.
- 02:03 It takes up a little more time, which is a good thing.
- 02:07 It slows down the onslaught.
- 02:09 I mean, how would you like to go to a movie that had no dialogue?
- 02:13 How would you like to read a novel?
- 02:15 And it's just the narrator the whole time.
- 02:18 It would be so much harder to be interesting and engaging.
- 02:21 So we all use dialogue all the time when telling stories about something interesting that happened to us.
- 02:29 You can't believe what happened to me.
- 02:30 I'm driving down the highway and someone rolls down the window and says, hey buddy, you've got -- that's dialogue.
- 02:38 Much more interesting than saying, I was driving down the highway and I noticed a motorist had rolled down the window and was telling me the following message here.
- 02:49 How boring that is.
- 02:52 You want to spice up your story?
- 02:55 You need dialogue.
- 02:56 In fact, it's virtually impossible in my experience to put in dialogue and not make a story more interesting.
- 03:03 So don't leave it out.
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