In the grand scheme of your book's plot, dialogue should be one way—out of many—to assist in guiding your readers through the book's sequence of events. Rather than focusing on the character-to-character and other micro-level interactions that Gremlin covered before this part, this article will teach you how to employ dialogue skills to aid in the delivery of your overarching plot and subplot lines. Rather than zeroing in on how to construct organic, grammar-error-free, and personalized dialogue, this article centralizes around its narrative impact on a plot-crafting level or macro level. Four plot-orientated dialogue areas this part will cover are expository or explanatory dialogue, battle scene dialogue, revelatory dialogue, and antagonistic dialogue.

Expository dialogue is typically utilized during the early stages of your book and prior to the discovery of its central conflict. This tool is used to expand on our characters' stories and background or the location's situation in order to provide some degree of context prior to a conflict. Explanatory dialogue is very similar in nature as it also has an educational quality to it. The ultimate goal of these two scenes or moments is to educate readers and/or the recipient(s) of the dialogue.

In the book Pokérus by PKMNmianna, Professor Rose explains a theory for a sudden virus striking the region:

"And maybe that's the reason." She looked at me as realization came upon her face. "It might have mutated within a Pokémon, and that parent passed it down to its child, where it mutated again. So now we have a strange virus that affects Pokémon negatively, making them deadly, and apparently..." She glanced at the Shinx sadly.

"It can kill them as well," I finished for her.

This exchange is present in the opening scene of the book. Notice how this exchange has essentially one main purpose: to explain or make sense of the phenomenon that is occurring with Pokérus in the context of the region. This excerpt understands its situation. Professor Rose does not outwardly make an accurate or concrete explanation for the phenomenon or use scientific terminology to explain, inferring that this event has never been witnessed before by the region itself. The virus is deadly, but the characters do not know how or why yet. And when they figure out how or why it is occurring, that will be the central conflict of the book.

Like I pointed out above, expository dialogue can also include character backstories. In The Power He Bore by PumpknHead, the author introduces a glimpse of Gold's backstory to display a passage of time.

"You know," Professor Oak began. "I first met Gold when Mr. Pokémon gave him an egg to deliver to Professor Elm. I knew immediately that he was something special. Sure enough, Professor Elm saw that potential, too, and let him keep the egg. The egg hatched into a Togepi, who evolved into the Togekiss you see him using against Lance's Aerodactyl."

The book begins precisely at the moment Gold defeated Lance. These bits of dialogue presented following his victory give us pieces of Gold's relatively cookie-cutter journey without accounting it in its entirety. This information is important because it tells us Gold's knowledge is only of battling and Pokémon, which prepares the readers for an ironic moment for Gold when he realizes the title of Champion also carries governmental responsibilities that he did not expect.

It is important to pace this influx of expository or explanatory information when introducing it to readers. Massive "info dumps" are a result of authors trying to outright say information readers need for the sake of conveniency and efficiency. These lengthy paragraphs can be incorporated through small chunks that are not only more digestible but more integrated into the narrative itself.

The information should also be organic, not forced. In the instance above, Professor Oak was feeling nostalgic after Gold's victory, which prompted him to recall a memory. It is important to also note how expansive the knowledge of the recipient is. A biology professor is not going to teach another professor in the same department how cells divide just for the sake of revealing that explanation to the reader. For each piece of expository or explanatory dialogue, you have to ask yourself, "Is the information this character is sharing useful for the character who's receiving it?" If it is not useful, either you should not reveal it entirely or the narrator should reveal it to just the readers or choose a character who does not possess that knowledge to receive it.

Now that we have basics for the more lengthy bits of dialogue down, it is important to address one of the most critical scenes in the Pokémon community: battle scenes. While I may not have the most experience in battle scene writing, I do have some tips to give as someone who's read several scenes from PWA entries or books I reviewed in the past.

Dialogue is an important vehicle to break up monotony. Structural variety and flow is important in just about every scene, and battle scenes are not an exception to this—if anything, it's even more important. When you're writing battle scenes, you're much more prone to writing blocks of descriptions when detailing a battle. Sometimes, to have variety, you may want to employ dialogue to shift the focus from actions and strength to emotions and motivation.

In an excerpt from Astral Genealogy by SGMijumaru, the author shifts from a lengthy description of a battle to a more raw, emotional piece of dialogue.

The piece of dialogue from Rune gives another dimension to the battle that is not related just to an exchange of power and actions. This excerpt exemplifies the idea that dialogue can be used to evolve a rather one-dimensional barrage of actions into something more meaningful to your story. Battle scenes can be a great way to add to your overall plot, but having layers of information, motives, and emotions is what makes them great.

In the same chapter, the author employs a different use for dialogue within a battle scene:

In this excerpt, the author transitions from a rather lengthy, descriptive style to a short, more straight forward conversation. When the narrator describes actions at length, dialogue can be used to bring about structural variety. Sentences that were long, compounded, or complex shifted into a more shorter, briefer style to improve textual flow and interest.

All in all, dialogue is a tool that not only affects the delivery of a given character or relationship, but a tool that can deliver an overall plot line or sequence more effectively or smoothly. In the following chapters, Gremlin and I will be discussing two particular dialogue scenarios: arguments and humor/comedy.