Dialogs; interesting, dynamic, but not staged. How?

Herb Minsky said:

That depends. What if she was a drunk and used to beat up her kids all day long? And when she was finished, it was her drunk loser-boyfriends turn to beat up the kids.

In that case the answer would be "and to top it off, mother is dead."

The observation of dialog based on intention is an interesting approach.
The mentioning of "illusions about themselves" is generalizing though. I'm sure it happens a lot , but that would be the trait of an individual character.

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All character have illusions about themselves. We all do. And, yes, it is general because the specifics of that illusion will be decided character by character by you. How it manifests itself is also up to you.

But what I'm telling you is good dialogue is held together by subtext. And this is how you build subtext.

The answer will never be "and to top it off, mother is dead." It's too cavaler. It holds no emotional response and believe me, if your mother was a drunk that beat you, your going to have a really deeply supressed emotional response and its going to be a very complicated response.

This is what defines dialogue that is too "on the nose".

The scene really isn't about the fact that "mother is dead". "Mother is dead" is a situation by which the character reveals themselves. And their choice of words reveal themselves.

"And to top it all of, mother is dead" is a dark comedy.

Herb Minsky said:

Hence Hugh Grant.

It's like music; the rule is, that there are no rules, there is an infinite amount of rules, or everything is allowed.
But just as well, there is an infinite amount of mines , and it would take a genius to avoid them, based on a pure natural talent.

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Dialogue by situation, of course, and underlying motivation and goal.
A way to avoid "question/answer, question/answer" dialogue?
Question/answer is legit, it's a part of every conversation.
At what point could it be a problem, if so?

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Dialogue (or lines) as a response to the present moment and it's events seems to have the potential to create an upbeat dynamic, since it is not 'just' caused by a conversation.
An approach to the medium of movies (specially in the action genre) as a way for the audience to experience the course of events together with the protagonist, rather than a recital.

True, or am I right?

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Dissecting and internalizing.

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I have to be honest, you have a very "jargony" way of expressing yourself that frankly makes you rather difficult to understand.

It feels a lot like "corporate-speak" and like "corporate-speak" it's seems high on syllables and low on content.

To respond to what I think you're saying.

Yes, there are rules. If you're working within narrative story-telling, that's a particular form and that form has certain requirements. There's no law that says you have to work within narrative story-telling, any more than there's a law that says that you have to paint in any particular form. But if you choose to paint in a particular established form, then you have to follow the basic rules of that form -- or else you're not painting in that form.

And the world is full of people who think that they can reinvent art, the same way that it's full of people who think that they can reinvent movies, but that's kind of hard unless you already have a really deep understanding of what's already been invented.

NMS

Herb Minsky said:

A way to avoid "question/answer, question/answer" dialogue?
Question/answer is legit, it's a part of every conversation.
At what point could it be a problem, if so?

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If I'm understanding your point correctly ...

Yes, Question & answer is a legit part of normal conversation.
It's also a boring part of normal conversation.

Look at procedural shows like L&O handle them. In real life when a cop visits you and asks questions about an event, it is pretty boring.
They ask simple questions (eg: 'How long has XXX been working here?
When did you notice she was missing?'). You answer. They write down the answers in a little book(*) and you sign it.

But that would be boring in a L&O episode. The scene has to communicate the same pieces of information "She was working here for 15 years, but then stopped turning up for work suddenly", but in an interesting way.

Just watch some episodes and look at how they avoid the boring 'Q&A' problem.

Good luck!

Mac
(PS: * One interesting thing I noticed - they ask the question, you answer it. They then reword your answer as a statement and say it back to you. You confirm it, and they write the statement down in the little book. So it would even be more boring than a normal Q/A sequence!)