Become a Professional Eavesdropper to Improve Your Dialogue
I believe good dialogue is more like music than anything else. We start with the rules, learning the craft and the technique. But to become masters we must develop an ear, a sense if you will, of what translates well to the page and what does not. The foundation for that lies in eavesdropping. Although we rarely reproduce something we hear word-for-word. There is a natural cadence to dialogue that comes only by listening. We must learn to edit dialogue down to its essence without loosing that rhythm.