Making room for dialogue

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Dear Storyboard community: 

I'll keep it brief today: For those of us living in the U.S., this week was Thanksgiving — a holiday that I hope was full of meaningful moments with friends and family.

I hope there was plenty of good food, too, and dinner table conversations that begin to build connection and understanding. (But if you needed to sneak out of the house with the cousins to get some space, that's reasonable.) 

This moment seems like the ideal time to look back through the Nieman Storyboard archive for lessons we've learned about dialogue. Dialogue holds so much in a story. Consider those moments when a character's ambitions are revealed in a few words, or when the plot hurtles forward after a cutting comment between two loved ones. 

Storyboard contributor Emilia Wisniewski takes us through five stories that use dialogue in brilliant ways, written by masters of the craft including Susan Orlean, Jeanne Marie Laskas, Luke Mogelson, and more.  

“It’s much better if characters talk with one another than if they talk to the journalist. Of course, that’s not always possible, and in this case, because we were alone, I had to nudge Doc to get him to articulate what he was feeling [about being thanked for his service in Ukraine]. So, yes, I said, ‘That must feel good.’ By not quoting myself, I hoped to emphasize Doc’s words rather than mine. For whatever reason, putting words in quotes makes the person who spoke them a more specific identity, and I don’t want to be that in the text — I want to be a cipher or a foil.” — Luke Mogelson, on reporting from the front lines 

[ Read the story ]

This is a friendly reminder that I want to hear about your favorite stories, books, podcasts, and documentaries of 2025. What will you remember this time next year? Submit up to two recommendations and tell me why you loved them or what you learned from them: 

[ Share your Best of 2025 picks ] 

Keep yourself open to dialogue, and keep sharing your stories,

Mark Armstrong
Editor
Nieman Storyboard
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