Knowing how to write great dialogue comes from listening. I learned this during my theatre days as an actor and playwright. Whether you're writing a novel, screenplay, memoir or play, your dialogue should naturally pop off the page. Take your characters to a whole new level by giving them more conversational lines. That's why I love great movie scenes. They inspire me to dig deeper. Here's an amazing scene with Anne Bancroft and Bill Pullman from the 1993 movie Malice (also starring Nicole Kidman and Alec Baldwin.)