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“On the nose dialogue,” dialogue without subtext and deeper meaning, kills a script deader than an illegal arms trader hit with a Varon-T disruptor.

It’s one of the most common things I flag when editing newer writers… and you hear me say it over and over throughout my articles;

Never put your dialogue on the nose!

Ok, so when you decide to ignore me, here’s when and how you might want to do it:

Comfy Campy Feeling of a Bygone Era

A lot of Golden Age (1938-1950) fiction was simpler, exposition heavy, plot focused material.

The Lone Ranger
I remember an ambush.

Tonto
That right. Me find you in canyon, carry you here.

Or,

Robin
Where’d you get a live fish, Batman?

Batman
A true crimefighter always carries everything he needs in his utility belt, Robin.

Strictly speaking, if you want to capture the style and feel of this era, writing on the nose may actually help define the style, mood, and tone you’re looking for.

Just be warned, that in 2025 and beyond, this definitely comes across as Campy. It’s thick, pungent flavor in the sauce. Readers will likely either love it or hate it…

Exposition Dumps

As I just noted, the golden era stuff often relied on exposition and narration–in comics, this is why there was a much denser use of captions back then.

In any case, while exposition dumps can certainly be supported with style, tone, mood, and written off the nose for greater impact, at the end of the day an information dump is by its nature, exactly that…

a dump of information.

In this case, writing on the nose, is often the quickest way to convey a lot of information at one time.

And any time you’re just dumping info on the readers, quicker is always better.

Actually removing subtext from an exposition dump, helps clarify and put emphasis on the information itself. Something that may be particularly useful if the readers actually need to remember what you’re dumping on them.

Plot Pushes

This is more or less a sub category of exposition dumps, but instead of trying to relay any real volume of info, you focus in on a single key bit (or a limited number).

The most common use here, is to push the plot forward to new locations, or introduce new characters.

Take this example, from Inside Man (I’m gonna just use an excerpt because the other bits of dialogue are not on the nose and I don’t want to confuse the example);

Miller
(on the phone with a cop’s wife)

I understand that you speak Albanian… Listen, do you think it would be possible for me to send a squad car to bring you here?

No subtext, or deeper meaning in sight…

Instead this dialogue focuses on getting right to the point that the cop’s wife ‘speaks Albanian’ and ‘they’re sending a car to get her.’ This on the nose dialogue explains away why this lady shows up in the upcoming scene and how/why she’s able to translate the Albanian broadcast from the crooks.

Plot pushing can be quite effective when injected with potent Narrative Drive.

// We’re only 25% through writing on the nose effectively. And I ain’t even started yabbin’ about the invisible stuff! If you tend to write on the nose, you don’t want to miss this! Sign up to get the rest of the article. //