Talk the Talk: A Dialogue Workshop with Chris Mosely
Creating conversations that crackle with energy.
Writing great dialogue is like catching lightning in a bottle. It’s fleeting, electric, and capable of lighting up your whole story. It’s also maddeningly difficult to get right. If you’ve ever written a conversation that feels like a stilted middle school theater production, welcome to the club. It’s exclusive, crowded, and thirsty for better craft.
This is where Chris Mosely comes in—writer, teacher, and conductor of the wild, symphonic jazz of good dialogue. He’s leading Treehouse’s upcoming workshop, Writing Engaging Dialogue, on February 6th at 7pm EST. This is the kind of session that will shake your words awake. Chris isn’t just another instructor; he’s a storyteller who sees the absurdity and wistful longing of humanity and spins it into prose that feels like it’s been kissed by both heartbreak and a punchline.
I had the chance to talk with Chris about his writing, his favorite works, and what he thinks makes dialogue sing. Here’s what he had to say:
Meghan McVicker: What makes you want to write?
Chris Mosely: I think my desire to write comes from a need for expression first. Everyone should be able to express themselves. Once you find the medium that’s right for you, I think it’s important to lean into it as much as possible. I think there is also this sense of just wanting to be a part of the art of writing. There are so many great stories that I’ve kept with me through the years, stories that have helped me grow as a person. I want to be a part of that process where someone reads my work and it adds to their life, their point of view, their well-being in any way.
MM: What’s your favorite piece that you’ve written?
CM: I wrote a short story about a young man who was dropping acid with some friends when a mentor from his old church stopped by to check on him. It was a story about love, faith, sex, drugs, and just imagination in general. It was one of the first short stories that I felt expressed my voice and perspective as a writer.
MM: What do you think a writer should bring to the medium? In your opinion, what is the purpose of literature in the modern age?
CM: I think writers should be looking to capture as many different points of view as possible in the process of highlighting the highs and lows of the world we live in. I think we should be creating new worlds and characters that challenge us to think, but also bring us together. I think we should be giving people entertaining and informative ways to see the world from different angles, and a template for dreaming and creating new things: creatures, languages, inventions.
MM: What’s something you wish you had written?
CM: Off the top of my head I would say Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It combines elements of journalism, fantasy, history, introspection, and criticism. It is a poetic zeitgeist that still inspires people. I love the balance of unhinged moments and the expertise he deploys in capturing an era.
MM: What’s your favorite thing about Treehouse?
CM: The easy answer is community: creating new material with a group of like-minded writers. What I really like about it is the idea of being a part of a new wave, the DIY scene. I feel honored to be a part of this community and hope to contribute as much as possible.
MM: What’s the best novel/short story/poem, etc. that you’ve read in the last year/5 years?
CM: My favorite read this past year was Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. And my favorite read from the past five years is a tie between The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders.
MM: What’s the strangest thing you’ve done—or overheard—in the name of researching dialogue?
CM: This question in itself sent me down a rabbit hole looking at old notes. I tend to pull lines from anywhere/anyone I can get them from. I think I’ll go with looking at Tony Curtis’ filmography for over an hour. I was thinking of using a quote from Some Like it Hot and spent way too much time sidetracked looking at a lot of his stuff.
MM: Have you ever had a character completely take over a scene and derail your plans? How do you wrestle them back?
CM: Yes. I think derailment is fun, though. You just follow the train of thought to the end and it usually brings you back to the main story. If not, just try to remember why that character or interaction interested you so much in the first place and that will usually line up with the theme(s) of the story.
MM: Do you believe great dialogue should mirror real life or elevate it into something more? Where do you draw the line?
CM: I think good dialogue should meet in the middle. I think there should be an effort to capture the emotion that real conversations elicit, but I think there should also be rhythm, tone, and relevant messaging when it’s applicable. We don’t want a line-by-line retelling of conversations as readers, so we should create a blend of the real and abstract (symbol, theme, etc.) as writers.
MM: I know you’ve talked before about your process for writing dialogue, and that first you go through and write a conversation down word for word, right? Don’t you also have a technique for adding conversational elements and verbal tics in, like “umm”? Can you talk more about how you go about creating dialogue that feels real but also stays dynamic and forward-moving?
CM: My process for writing dialogue usually starts with writing out the conversation word for word, as you mentioned. It's like capturing the bare bones of the interaction. Then, the real fun begins – adding those conversational elements and verbal tics. I listen to how people talk in real life – the pauses, the interruptions, the "umms" and "ahs." I also pay attention to the rhythm and flow of their speech. But I don't just transcribe real conversations; I curate them. I think about what's essential to convey about the characters and the plot, and I use those verbal tics strategically to enhance those elements. For example, an "umm" might indicate hesitation or uncertainty, while a quick, clipped sentence might show impatience. It's all about finding the right balance between realism and artistic license. The goal is to create dialogue that feels authentic but also serves the story.
MM: If your writing had a theme song, what would it be, and why?
CM: "Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast" by Pink Floyd. It’s long, it takes a real everyday event and makes it as spacey and trippy as possible, and there’s dialogue that moves the song forward, but also adds a nice aesthetic layer to it all.
MM: What’s one conversation—real or fictional—you wish you had written?
CM: Pretty much all of Holly Golightly’s lines in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She’s a really fun character. She’s straightforward, but still mysterious. She’s a social climber, but independent, proud but also vulnerable at times. So many of her lines feel like instant classics: “You know those days when you’ve got the mean red?” “Same as the blues?” “No,” she said slowly. No, the blues are because you’re getting fat or maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re sad, that’s all. But the mean reds are horrible. You’re afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don’t know what it is. You’ve had that feeling?”
MM: What does the “mean red” mean to you? We were just talking about how you feel like you turn to the page to deal with negative emotions or experiences, do you have other experiences of writing about something that feels like the mean red, and how have you had some of your characters describe it?
CM: The "mean reds," to me, represent that gnawing, undefined anxiety that creeps in and makes you feel like something bad is about to happen. It's that feeling of unease that you can't quite pinpoint, but it hangs over you like a dark cloud. I definitely use writing as a way to process those kinds of emotions. It's a way to give them shape and try to understand them. I've had characters describe it in different ways. One character, in a story I'm working on, described it as "a static charge in the air, like right before a storm, but the storm never breaks." Another character, who's more introspective, called it "the ghost of a feeling, a premonition without a message." It's interesting to explore how different characters experience and articulate that kind of anxiety.
MM: This is all so good. Last one: why do you write dialogue? What is it about writing dialogue that feels exciting or engaging or provoking to you? What part of it "troubles" you?
CM: I think dialogue is important because communication is such an integral part of human interaction. Before we had the written word available en masse, we had oral histories. We are constantly trying to communicate with each other, and it comes in so many different rhythms and tones like music or paintings. Even in the shortest phrases and interactions, so much is revealed. I think it can add real texture to any story. It can change the rhythm and style of a piece. Just a few lines of thought can open a page where it breaks from prose and feels like a stream of consciousness.
Writing dialogue gives me this feeling like I'm carving a sculpture, chiseling away at a large mass and producing something lifelike and tangible, but also imaginative and essential in its own way. I like the dual responsibility of recording and creating, playing journalist and historian while adding a sense of poetry to it all.
I think finding the balance between the denotation and connotation of a conversation is always challenging. There's always a point of frustration in trying to figure out what is important for structuring a realistic interaction, editing a block of dialogue properly, or working in/around subtext, etc. I love that challenge, though, because you can create something unique, a new perspective, a new style. The "trouble" is usually where the meaningful and beautiful dialogue resides.
Finding what works for you is like anything else, it's all about repetition. Work through it, read it aloud, then chisel it down.
Ready to catch some lightning? Join Chris Mosely for Writing Engaging Dialogue on February 6th at 7pm EST and learn how to make your characters’ conversations crackle with life. Bring samples of dialogue from your own work-in-progress to workshop during the meet, or come to learn about craft and have fun with like-minded new friends. Register here: Writing Engaging Dialogue.
