Dialog killed several of my stories. Long stretches where one character had to communicate something complex to another character. Boring.

Equestria Daily wanted the dialog livened up with more description and more body language. This never helped. But I gradually realized a different way to deal with the problem after reading chapter 4 (“The Scene”) and chapters 7 & 8 ("Dialogue" and "Details") of Jack Bickham's Scene and Structure, from Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer, and from studying Augustus Burroughs’ thrilling prose about mundane things in Running With Scissors.

Every scene, Bickham says, must:

1. Have two characters who have opposing goals

2. Start by establishing the protagonist's goal in that scene and how it's important to the story goal

3. Have active conflict between the two characters

4. End in a setback for the protagonist.

Scene goals, Bickham says, must not be vague or philosophical, but specific and immediate, so that the reader can say at the end of the scene whether they were achieved.

Dialogue, Prose says, must always do several things at once. It conveys literal information between characters, but also their attitudes towards each other, towards life, dominance and submission, attention and inattention, and, to the reader, their true intentions. Above all, each character in the dialogue must have a goal, a reason to be talking or listening, to determine what they say and don't say.

Description, she says (and I'm paraphrasing heavily), is not like setting a stage or taking a photograph. She emphasizes the use of small details, but the lesson I take from her examples from famous stories, and from Burroughs' writing, is a different one: Don't describe things because they're in the room. Describe things that pop out to the viewpoint character because of what they're thinking.

This requires you to know what they’re thinking. And that requires them to be thinking.

Similarly, body language should not be used just to space out the dialog. Filling out bland dialogue with generic body language–"she bit her lip," "he stamped his hoof," "she blinked"–is not very helpful. They're not bad. I probably use at least one of these three expressions in every chapter of every story. But if all the character is experiencing is a generic emotion–anxiety, impatience, shock–then it suggests that what you have is not a character, but a plot device. A character has a goal in every scene, and this goal colors their perceptions, and that is what suggests what details the character notices and what they do with their body. Making every character have a goal or at least a train of thought, rather than just being a plot device, will give you the body language, descriptive details, and conflict to keep dialogue exciting.

Here’s a version (story draft 3, revision 3, if you’re curious) of one scene in a story that gave me a lot of trouble called "Moving On". Twilight has just fled the palace after failing to get in to see Luna.

She wasn't sure how much later it was when a bright light shone in her eyes, the door pulled away from her, and she fell inward and landed sprawled on the tile floor of the donut shop. She wiped her eyes and saw Pony Joe looking down at her.

"Well! If it isn't Twilight Sparkle!" he boomed. "Ponygirl, just knock if you want a donut that badly."

"Thank you," she said quietly, taking the hoof he held out to her and pulling herself to all four feet. "Sorry to bother you. I was just leaning, on the door, you know. Catching my breath."

"Yeah, sure," Joe said, shutting the door behind her. "Come on, catch your breath at this table here." He led her to the table she'd seen through the window, then disappeared behind the counter. All the shop's shelves were bare. She heard him pulling trays out of racks, then shoving them back in with a huff of irritation, before finally saying, "Hah! Gotcha!"

He trotted back out with a large paper bag in his mouth, which he dropped onto the table. "Just what you wanted! Day-old muffins!"

Twilight opened the bag, drew out a muffin, and stared at it wonderingly. "Cranberry," she said.

"Yeah, I save the left-over berry ones for Derpy. Otherwise she just digs through the trash for them." Joe shook another muffin out of the bag and took a bite out of it.

"Derpy's in Canterlot?" Twilight asked through a mouthful of crumbs.

"You didn't know? She was getting a little old to fly all over Ponyville. She's got a foot route now." Joe took another bite, grimaced, and swallowed. He grinned. "Hoo boy! These are terrible. I made 'em this morning."

Twilight laughed, spitting muffin across the table onto Pony Joe's white hat. "I wasn't going to say anything!"

Joe reclosed the bag. "Let's just save the rest for Derpy. She ain't very fussy, but that girl sure can eat." He leaned across to Twilight and touched her foreleg lightly. "Did I ever tell you about her 'banana split muffin'? One banana muffin, one cherry muffin, one chocolate-chip—all at the same time! Just stuffs them all in and starts chewing." Twilight giggled—it was all too easy to imagine exactly how Derpy would have grinned while eating it. "So just then this cello player from the orchestra comes in, mane all tidy, spotless grey coat. Derpy sees her and runs over to tell her how good it is! Only, her mouth's still full of muffin, see?"

Joe went on to describe the inevitable scene of muffin-induced shock and outrage. Twilight re-envisioned it in her mind. It was so easy to imagine Pinkie and Rarity doing the same thingas the players.

She realized that Joe had stopped talking and was just looking at her, and that she was crying again. "It's nothing," she said. "Just thinking about some old friends."

"Nothing wrong with that," Joe said. "I bet you got some stories too."

Twilight wiped her eyes, and started talking. She told Joe about how special a treat donuts were when she was a filly, and how grown-up she'd felt when she could finally afford to buy donuts herself. "Even now, knowing that I can just walk into a donut shop and buy a double-glazed if I want to makes me feel powerful."

Then she told him about the night of the Gala. "In the end," she concluded, "all the fancy food and music and dancing wasn't as sweet as sharing donuts with friends."

"Aw, I coulda told you that," Joe said.

Bleah. This is realistic, the boring way life is realistic. Joe is trying to be entertaining, but why? He’s chatting, projecting some personality; but without a purpose, it’s just aimless small talk. He’s flirting, but only in the automatic, disinterested way habitual to dominant males. Twilight passively listens to Joe ramble aimlessly. The scene does what my outline said it had to do (“cheer Twilight up enough for her to make another try”), but that structural task doesn’t engage the reader. Nopony has a goal.

So I decided on a “grass is greener” scenario: I’d already shown that Twilight feels her life is empty because she’s given up having a family for meaningless and abstract academics. So she envies Joe for being a physical creator, and sees his creation of food that sustains life as analogous to creating life as a mother, though she feels no romantic stirrings. Joe, meanwhile, had a thing for Twilight in the past, and is eager to impress her, but feels his humble profession must seem boring to an important pony like Twilight. I didn’t plan any of that when I first put Twilight in Pony Joe’s shop. The setting and characters suggested it.

Twilight’s goal at this point in the story is to figure out what she wants to do with her life. The question running through her mind in the scene is now, “How does what I’ve done with my life stack up against what Pony Joe has done with his?” Pony Joe’s goal is to impress Twilight, and he achieves it even while thinking he’s failed. These aren’t the kind of specific, yes/no goals Bickham wants, and the scene isn’t strictly protagonist/antagonist as Bickham wants, but I think that’s Bickham’s problem, not mine.

Here’s the final version of the scene. Joe doesn’t laugh at himself so easily, or maintain continual good cheer. His muffins embarrass and depress him. When Twilight compares making muffins to giving birth, meaning it as a great compliment, and when she brushes crumbs off him as if he were a colt, it just insults his bruised masculine ego more. The things described—Joe's gray hair and bright eyes, the bakery’s bare racks waiting eagerly to be filled, the helpless muffin, the crumb on Joe’s hat, his scent of yeast (a living thing)—are described because they’re relevant to these goals and to the trains of thoughts they create. It’s much longer and yet, I think, more interesting.

Notice I described things relevant to Joe’s thoughts even though we’re in Twilight’s point of view. That might be the wrong thing to do for some stories. But Twilight is oblivious in these scene, and yet I wanted the reader to catch on to what Joe was feeling.

She wasn't sure how much later it was when the door pulled away from her, a bright light shone in her eyes, and she fell inward and landed sprawled on the tile floor. She wiped her eyes and saw Pony Joe looking down and blinking at her. He had some gray in his mane as well, but his eyes soon lit up as brightly as ever.

"Well! I ain't going crazy in my old age! It is Twilight Sparkle!" he boomed. "Ponygirl, just knock if you want a donut that badly."

"Thank you," she said quietly, taking the big hoof he held out to her and pulling herself to all fours. "Sorry to bother you. I was just leaning, on the door, you know. Catching my breath."

"Yeah, sure," Joe said, shutting the door behind her. He ran one hoof over his cap, straightening it. "Come on, catch your breath at this table here." He led her to the table she'd seen through the window, then disappeared behind the counter.

The shop's shelves were bare. The counter, the drying racks, the narrow, downward-sloping wire trays on the back wall that were lined with paper and filled with donuts during the day, were spotlessly clean, waiting for the day, full of purpose.

"Joe? It's okay. I don't need anything. Really, I should be going."

"Just stay right there," he called. "Won't be a minute." She heard him pulling trays out of racks, then shoving them back in with a huff of irritation before finally saying, "Hah! Gotcha!"

He trotted back out with a large paper bag in his mouth, and dropped it onto the table. "Just what you wanted! Day-old muffins! On the house."

Twilight opened the bag and drew out a muffin. She hefted it, felt its weight. This was a real thing, that real ponies wanted, and Joe had made it, here in his workshop of wheat and hay. "Cranberry," she whispered.

"Yeah, I save the left-over berry ones for Derpy. If I try throwing 'em out, I have to bag 'em real tight or she'll like as not smell them and dig them right out." Joe shook another muffin out of the bag and took a bite out of it.

Twilight's muffin crumbled too easily, disintegrating into a dry, tasteless powder that stuck behind her gums. "Derpy's in Canterlot?" she asked through a mouthful of crumbs.

"You didn't know? She was getting a little old to fly all over Ponyville. She's got a foot route now. Still wings it sometimes. Don't have to, though."

"I don't know how she does it," Twilight said. "Trace over the same route, day after day."

Joe stopped chewing and swallowed. "Guess that seems pretty dull to somepony like yourself, Miss Sparkle." He checked his cap again, then glanced around the shop with the air of a pony who unexpectedly found himself entertaining Canterlot nobility in his home and hadn't even had time to clean up. Which, Twilight realized with a start, was technically the case here.

"I musta baked about a million muffins here," he said. "And three million donuts." His foreleg fell to the table, hoof up. The remaining half of his muffin rolled out, flopped over, and lay upside down like a helpless turtle.

Twilight reached over and laid her hoof on his. "Joe." He looked up. "Your muffins are amazing."

"Yeah?" Joe took another bite and grimaced, as if noticing its dryness for the first time. "Hoo boy. You're being nice, Miss Sparkle. These are terrible."

Twilight laughed, spitting muffin fragments. A large brown crumb landed in the center of Pony Joe's white baker's cap and stuck there. "I wasn't going to say anything!"

"I made 'em this morning. You shoulda been here then." Joe shook the muffins to the bottom of the bag. The crumb on his cap rocked back and forth as he folded it closed again. "Let's save the rest for Derpy. She'd eat a muffin-shaped rock and like it." He noticed Twilight's eyes on his cap, and felt around until he found the crumb and flicked it off. "Sorry I tried to give you these lousy muffins, Miss Sparkle. But I haven't got anything else."

"Joe. I don't mean these particular muffins are amazing. I mean, you take bags of flour, sugar, all those things, and you mix and knead and roll and bake. And then...." Twilight remembered once watching Joe take muffins out of the oven. She remembered feeling the warm air wash over her, and that powerful odor, the kind only things that are or have been alive ever have. The rows of muffins swiftly but carefully extracted onto a drying rack, small round tops perfect as foals' hooves, all the same yet all different. "It's like giving birth."

Joe scratched the back of his head. "Uh, thanks." He bit down on the bag of old muffins, yanked it off the table, and scuttled back into the kitchen.

"I mean, in a masculine way!" Twilight called out over the abrupt scraping and banging of metal shelves. "It's, uh, Joe? I mean, it matters. Baking food, feeding ponies—it gives you a purpose."

Joe shuffled back over to the table with a brush, held in his mouth as if he were an earth pony, and began whisking the crumbs off the table carelessly, getting several on Twilight and on himself. He finished and spit out the brush. "My purpose is to make you donuts?"

"Oh, Joe, I didn't mean it like that." She took a step toward him and brushed off the crumbs still clinging to his apron, ignoring those on herself. "I mean, look at me. I manage the library budget, hire and train and sometimes fire, write flattering letters to donors. But my purpose, my reason for being, is to help ponies check out books. If I ... vanished, all that would happen is that a few ponies would wonder how they were going to get their next bad romance novel."

Joe stared at her. "I don't get it," he finally said.

"You don't?"

"Making donuts is just what I do. You're a smart pony. You should know that." He moved on to the other tables and brushed them each off in turn, bending down low to inspect each tabletop from a low angle.

"Huh," Twilight said. "I'm not sure I understand."

"Ask Derpy. She knows," Joe answered without pausing in his work.

Twilight walked across the room to look over Joe's shoulder. "Joe? Are you mad at me?"

Joe sighed and set down his brush. "No, Twilight, I ain't mad. Just tired."

"Sorry." She headed for the door.

"Wait."

She froze where she was.

Joe walked up from behind and stood next to her in front of the door, breathing heavily. The entranceway was a little small for two ponies. He smelled like yeast and flour. "I ain't that tired. Can we start again?"

Twilight turned her muzzle towards his. "Do I have to fall down on the floor again?"

"You don't have to," Joe said. "But it was kinda cute."