Name two characters, then say what the conversation is about and what each of them wants from it. Add where they are, and a length and tone if you like. Hemmingway writes the conversation as prose dialogue: short lines, few tags, and two people who do not sound alike.
The characters, their wants and the place stay as you gave them. The lines are invented, since that is the job.
What makes dialogue sound like talk
- Give them wants that clash. Two people who agree are having a chat. Two people who each need something the other will not give are in a scene.
- Let them not say it. People ask about the car when they mean the money. Tell the tool what is going unsaid and it keeps it under the surface.
- Give their hands something to do. Scraping a windscreen, peeling an orange, packing a bag. It breaks up the lines and shows mood without naming it.
- Come in late. Skip the hellos and the weather. Start on the first line that matters and stop before anyone sums up.
An example
Asked for a tense, slightly funny conversation between Ines, a night-shift nurse, and her brother Daniel, who has turned up after two years wanting to borrow money while she wants an apology first, in a hospital car park at 6am as she scrapes ice off her windscreen, an opening along these lines is what to expect:
"You've still got the same car," Daniel said.
"You've still got the same coat." Ines did not look up from the windscreen.
"I was going to ring."
"For two years?"
He put his hands in his pockets. "It's cold."
"It's six in the morning in a car park. Yes."
Nobody has mentioned money or said sorry yet, and both are in every line. If you want one of them angrier, or the whole thing half as long, tell the chat.
Prose or script
By default you get dialogue as it appears in a story, with "said" and a few actions. Ask for script format in the last field and the names go above the lines instead. For a whole scene with a heading and action lines, use the script generator. For the full story around the conversation, use the story generator.
Common questions
Is the dialogue generator free?
Yes. Hemmingway has a free trial with no card needed, and this tool opens it with your answers filled in. You sign up once, and the dialogue is written in the chat.
Can it write a conversation between more than two characters?
Yes. Name them all in the first field and say how each one talks, since three or four voices are harder to keep apart than two.
How do I make two characters sound different?
Decide one habit for each before you start: one gives short answers, the other never finishes a sentence. Write the habits next to the names. A character backstory helps if you do not know them well yet.
Will it sound like AI?
It is built not to. Hemmingway-1, the model behind it, came first on sounding like a person in our own blind test, Human-Likeness. It still helps to read it aloud and change any word you would not use.