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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45784
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

 **Augment your dialog with narrative and action.**

What is the most extreme thing he can do and/or say to communicate his dislike of her? Would he hurt her? Verbally abuse her? Why or why not? Write such a scene.

What is the most extreme thing she can do? Go ahead and write that scene too.

Or turn it on its head, too. Don't make his feeling simple dislike--give it a layer or two of complexity. Maybe... He doesn't want to be around her for a **reason**. Ideally, it'd be something specific the reader can grab onto, not a vague generality ("lone wolf") but something specific. She smells like a decomposing corpse. She's better educated than him. Anything specific makes it more vibrant.

> "You know Bob?" I say in disbelief.
> 
> "That's one way of putting it," she answers with a laugh.
> 
> "From Kilkenny."
> 
> "That's right. He even proposed to me once, you know. But he's not really a family man, not like you. I said no."
> 
> If that don't beat all. The dame knows Kilkenny Bob--the man who cheated me out of my fortune in a fixed poker game. And she says they were a thing, her and Bob, an _item_, for over a _year_, if you can believe it! So now I'm s'posed to be _thankful_ to her for her 'gentle ministrations?' Sheesh. Not likely.
> 
> I pick up her suitcase and hurl it, hard, across the car, and it hits with a satisfying crack, and her jaw about falls to the floor. Now I'm the one laughing. She hurries over to grab it, and I think, not for the first time, the dame has gams that could rival Paltrow. I give 'em a hard look as she bends over the seat.
> 
> _Take that, Bob._
> 
> Might not be my finest moment, but screw it. He's the reason I'm in this mess to begin with.

Original score: 1