Cause and Effect in Dialogue

Much of fiction, and much of the action within scenes, takes the form of dialoguedialogue. Characters do things to each other with words. In this chapter, I explore causationcausation within dialogue, the ways in which what characters say is caused by their charactercharacter, their circumstances, and the words of other characters, and the ways in which their words produce effects in others and in the world around them. I explore this in connection with long scenes from two works of fiction.