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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30457
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30457
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

+1 Thomo. To expand, IRL two people do not stand still and stare at each other and spout dialog while only moving their mouths. Even if they are on the phone! They are **_doing_** something, thinking something, wondering, realizing, pausing for some good reason to collect their thoughts or feel some emotion or try to understand a puzzle. The have senses, they hear their environment, they sense temperature and breezes and sun revealed by clouds moving on. They sense incongruities. They are not ready with a memorized answer, after a question imparts new information or a surprise.

Such statements require thinking, thinking requires recall of similar situations, they are **reminded** of scenes and imagery that relate. That translates into what they say next.

Why the second line "Who are unwitting orphans"? Who was the speaker thinking of? How does he know? Why was he disgusted by the thought? Can you give us some imagery of what he was thinking before he answers so glibly?

In the spirit of help, I would tell a student that a dialogue like the OP offers should be at least three times longer. It is not yet fully imagined, or the author left out too much of what they did imagine. The result is timing that is too rapid, making it feel phony and rehearsed.

Consider a movie and the actors in it. They have memorized the script, they both could just exchange lines as quickly as possible and finish the scene in one minute instead of ten. But they take ten! This dialogue feels like they did the one minute version of a ten minute scene.

Original score: 2