I've been blogging about how to make your writing more literary. By literary, I mean full of meaning, often beneath the surface. One way to do that is to build more than one level of meaning into a scene. Most scenes you see in television or read in a book has one level of meaning. Two characters greet each other then talk about the weather, bad news, sports, or events of the story past, present, or future. A truly skilled writer can make dialogue about two things at once.
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Watch for text and subtext dialogue. You'll find it everywhere. If you can spell out two topics on which characters are speaking at once, you're watching or reading a scene rich in text and subtext. In Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the two romantic leads speak of friendship when they really want to speak of love. That's a common one. Let's say you're using dramatic irony. One of your characters knows the world is about to end. The other character is blissfully ignorant. An example of this is in a recent Netflix series, "Umbrella Academy." One character asks his beloved what she would do if they only had one left to live. She thinks of this question as romantic because she supposes they have all the time in the world to spend together, and he's only asking because he wants to get to know her better. What does she prioritize? For a less skilled writer, that's exactly what the intent of the line of questioning would be. However, both viewer and the male character understand the world will end in one day, and the main characters are trying to stop this apocalypse. He really is asking her how she wants to spend her last day alive and, thereby, asking the viewer the same question. How would you spend your last day alive? Because the world could end at any time.
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There are several scenes in books and movies with two levels of dialogue. There may be characters keeping it polite by discussing the weather when it's clear they are fighting over custody of the kids who are sitting around the dinner table with them. Two characters may be speaking in code--understood by the reader--while the third is trying to figure out what the other two are talking about. A pair dripping with sexual tension may be arguing about a sports team when what they want to do is kiss, but they don't want to want that for whatever reason. You can use symbolism, metaphor, or simply weighted words, words that say two things at once. Truly good dialogue will often say two things at once.
Now, look through your dialogue. Are there places where the readers are speaking of just one thing, but you can make that scene mean more by having them speak of two? Are there places you can add humor, intrigue, or tension by adding another layer of dialogue? If so, then carefully weigh each word. What line of benign questioning or explanation can cover a deeper, more intense meaning? Go to it.
